Dark Eldar Allies Guide

Inspired by Plastikente's excellent Units guide, I've decided to taking a stab at doing a guide to all our Allies.

Disclaimers:

A lot of this is Theoryhammer. I have a lot of armies, but not enough to have played all of these, and certainly not all of them with Dark Eldar. These are all drafts intended to start a discussion, which will then provide a stronger overall article. So please give as much feedback as possible.

These are not complete guides to the Codices. If you want to read about other armies, I suggest you look up their tacticas. This is about what other armies can offer us, their rightful Masters. If I don't think a unit has a great amount to offer, I will skip over it quite quickly in favour of talking about things that can benefit us.

This guide giveth not one hoot about the background. I know its important a great many of us, and often features in why people don't take allies, but if you want to talk background there's a background forum. The aim of this guide is give you an idea of what they do on the battlefield, and let you people decide for yourself whether the background fits - although remember, there's nothing that can't be explained away as a Haemonculi experiment!

Notes

We have 11 possible allies out of the main books - Black Templars, Chaos Daemons, Chaos Marines, Eldar, Grey Knights, Imperial Guard, Orks, Sisters of Battle, Space Marines, Space Wolves and Tau. Out of these, Eldar are Battle Brothers, and everyone else is Desperate Allies. There's even more choices if you incorporate Forgeworld but for the purpose of these articles I will ignore Forgeworld except for Eldar Units and the Corsair Eldar, as these are Battle Brothers. This is because I have some remaining sanity and wish to finish this before our next codex. Eldar will probably be the last edition, as I wish to wait for their new codex.

To refresh memories, Battle Brothers means they count as members of your own army in every way except for sharing some codex-specific rules (no Webways for you Goody McTwoshoes) and transports.

Desperate Allies means they count as enemies you can't target, who can't take objectives and who have a 1 in 6 chance of paralysing your units if within 6". That's a fairly hefty list of penalties, but it doesn't mean they're useless. What it does mean however, is that I've assumed the best use of Desperate Allies, by and large, is as threatening looking bullet magnets. After all, you don't care if they die, and they're almost definitely more resilient than your own troops. Units with lots of firepower, lots of speed, lots of close combat power, or much of the above are good. Being able to soak bullets is good. Tarpits for sticking on your opponent's best troops are good. Let the inferior ones take the risks, leaving you to take the victory. What isn't good, by and large, are units made for taking objectives, or slow units who won't scare the enemy and won't get out of the way to prevent One Eye Open.

Right, and with that, I now present the first part of the guide...

Chaos Space Marines

Strengths: The Heldrake. Cheap power armoured units. Very cheap token troop units. Several very elite units. The ability to take lots of S7 firepower. The ability to deny overwatch. The Heldrake. Get lots of anti-Marine bonuses and toys. The Heldrake.

Weaknesses: Cheap units tend to have indifferent morale; elite units can be made Fearless if they aren’t already, but the points cost is high. The auto-challenge rule can detract from the effectiveness of your units at the worst times. Unfathomably uncouth.

The Necessaries

Troops:
Options: Chaos Cultists, Chaos Space Marines

If you want a completely token troop choice to access the Heldrake various non-troop choices, the cultists weigh in incredibly cheaply. Since they make Imperial Guard look elite though, you probably won’t get much utility out of them in just a ten man squad. Cultists can be taken in giant blob squads with flamers and heavy stubbers, which can be entertaining if nothing else, but is probably too slow for our purposes. A big blob with flamers and the HQ is probably the most threatening option, but isn’t especially threatening as horde style units go.

Chaos Space Marines are incredibly flexible. They can be taken as a five man special weapon platform, they can be taken as a cheap and cheerful ten MEQ squad to pile into people with their Rhino, or as a twenty man phalanx marching down the battlefield on their way to the enemy deployment zone. They can have boltgun, pistol and ccw, or both. They can also go from cheap and cheerful (for Marines) to really expensive if you pile on the upgrades, although it can be worth it. The Icon of Vengeance or Veterans of the Long War can help with leadership issues (and killing Space Marines for the latter), although so too would an attached HQ. Beware – he will prevent a ten man squad and the second special weapon. If you want your Chaos lackeys to hang around causing a problem, the Mark of Nurgle or the Mark of Slaanesh along with the Icon of Excess are the best choices for adding to their survivability with +1 toughness or feel no pain. If you just want them to kill, then unsurprisingly Khorne is your man, offering Counter-Charge and Rage for the Mark, and Furious Charge for the Icon. Think hard about this though, you want them to attract fire, they do need to do it economically.

It should be noted at this point that a measly 5 points, the Rhino you were probably going to take anyway for this troop choice can prevent enemies within 6” from using overwatch. Yes, Rhinos die easily and yes, you’ll possibly spark One Eye Open, but given how much of our army hates overwatch, it might be worth a go. If you like to use Wyches, it’s almost certainly worth a go, and is possibly of more value to your army than the contents of the transport.

HQs:
Options: Chaos Lord, Sorcerer, Daemon Prince, Warpsmith, Dark Apostle, various Special Characters

The Chaos Lord works out pretty cheap butt naked, although the Sorcerer is five points cheaper if you just want a token HQ to access the Heldrake units in the Codex. The list of choices here is pretty staggering, most of which only affect him, so I shan’t go into detail. A Mark of Nurgle Lord on a Bike is interesting, in that its effectively a rather mobile monsterous creature, which should attract plenty of attention – although this is true of all Chaos HQs. Bear in mind that only a Tzeentchian character can get a 3+ invulnerable, there’s no 2+ save and he can’t get Eternal Warrior – all downsides on a guy who has to issue a challenge. Do not take the Dimension Key, as it will affect you. Do consider the Burning Brand, as AP3 flamers will never stop being funny, and killing Marines quickly isn’t always our strong point. And think hard about the Murder Sword. Yes, insta-gibbing hard as nails characters in challenges is not something we need help with. But that usually involves risking our precious Warlord, and the Huskblade often needs a bit of time to warm up to reach the Murder Sword’s potential. If nothing else, it will encourage that character to keep their distance, nicely directing your enemy’s movements.

Sorcerers roll on Biomancy, Pyromancy and Telepathy, but must also make a roll on their patron’s table if they bear a mark. Nurgle’s discipline probably offers the best use to the Dark Eldar, as it’s full of maledictions (and poison). In particular, the ability to grant Get Hot to a heavy weapons unit with the high RoF, high strength weapons that so plague (geddit) our Raiders is really useful. The Sorcerer does not particularly protect us from psychic powers, but he does have a force weapon, giving him a reasonable chance of ganking HQs (or big multi-wound units), and can throw down a few debuffs and blasts. If you’re planning on taking a big Chaos contingent then he can do nice things for them, but that’s a subject on which you’re best off consulting a real Chaos tactica.

The Daemon Prince is a big bad monsterous creature with the option for sorcery or for flight – nothing particularly of note to us beyond the fact he will absolutely certainly attract fire, which is useful, and murder what he touches, which is also useful. Plan around the probability of spending the first turn of any combat killing the Sergeant. The Warpsmith can curse enemy vehicles with Gets Hot, which is fantastic if you’re facing Baal Predators or Leman Russ Exterminators and pointless if you’re facing Whirlwinds or anything with exclusively twin-linked weapons, and he can downgrade a single piece of cover, which is better than nothing. He’s also the only character with a 2+ armour save and comes automatically with a Power Axe, so he does ok in the challenges . The Dark Apostle costs a lot of points for benefits to Chaos Marines.

The special characters are mainly giant expensive beatsticks of varying quality but a couple have special rules which can be of interest. Typhus can be used to turn Cultists into a Plague Zombies. Plague Zombies are tough, but even slower and have no guns. There may be uses to this, but the main one I can see is comedy. Fabius Bile however gives one unit of Chaos Space Marines Fearless and +1 Strength for free which is pretty useful, albeit maybe not useful enough to counter balance Bile’s high points cost. The option does however give you the single hardest unit available out of the Chaos Space Marines troop section, should you wish to use it.

The rest:

Fast Attack
Options: Chaos Bikers, Chaos Spawn, Raptors, Warp Talons, Heldrake

Lets start with the obvious one. The Heldrake is one of the most wantonly powerful units in the game for reasons that I am sure everyone is aware of and if you take Chaos allies, it can be yours! Its possibly the single biggest reason to take Chaos allies. There is relatively little reason to take it apart from points cost, and perhaps personal morality.

There are other goodies in the Fast Attack section if you decide against it. Chaos Bikers and Raptors are both initially cheap and cheerful assault units with innate mobility that will do well as Shock Troops; the only issue is they probably won’t do much different to what your compulsory troop choice is doing. Chaos Spawn don’t offer much that Beasts don’t except for Fearless, which offers the tarpit option. Warp Talons are like Incubi with jump packs (including the hate of grenades) but unable to hurt 2+ saves and a fair amount more expensive. Our codex is strong enough at kill MEQ in combat as it is.
Heavy Support
Options: Havocs, Obliterators, Forgefiends, Maulerfiends, Chaos Land Raider, Chaos Vindicator, Chaos Predator,

In the Heavy Support section Havocs offer 4 heavy or special weapons at a ridiculously low price. Four autocannons for 115 points can fill a gap in light vehicle hunting nicely or 4 flamers for 95 points if hordes worry you. They can take a Rhino – even if you’re going to have them static, as a mobile bollard/overwatch denier it’s pretty keenly priced. Obliterators are a great deal more expensive, but their flexibility is useful in an army with a small choice of heavy weapons.

Vehicle wise, the Predator is a reasonable gun platform. The Land Raider is horrendously expensive and not that flexible, although it attracts attention with a big cargo. Vindicators are reasonably priced and attract tons of attention due to the Demolisher Cannon, which can earn its points back with one ok shot. The Maulerfiend is a close combat walker, something I see no point for in a Dark Eldar army. The Forgefiend is interesting in that it can either deal out a big amount of S8 AP4 firepower, or drop S8 AP2 templates; the latter in particular our codex is missing.


Elites
Options: Chosen, Possessed, Chaos Terminators, Helbrute, Mutilators, Khorne Berserkers, Thousand Sons, Plague Marines, Noise Marines

Hugely expensive units ahoy.

The Chosen function like a Trueborn analogue, except their extra attack may be useful once in a while, given you can actually take close combat weapons. Use like Chaos Space Marines, except with more toys, and more expense. Terminators and Mutilators both either need transport, which is costs the Sun and the Moon combined, or they need to deep strike. Both will cause consternation when they do, but as that won’t be until turn 2 or 3, your precious scoring units will be the main available target of fire. The Terminators do offer an Alpha Strike on the turn they appear if you took combi-weapons. The Helbrute is probably too slow to really influence people with its close combat power, and is an inferior gun platform to other options, both in this codex and in our own. Possessed are just a straight up close combat unit with variable bonuses and a big fat points cost. And no frag grenades or second close combat weapon. Its difficult to see what they offer that can’t be gained from our close combat units.

Khorne Berserkers can be imitated very successfully for less points by Chaos Space Marines, unless you have a desire for AP4 in close combat. Plague Marines are tough as anything, with T5, FNP and Fearless, but it costs. Their poisoned knives are cool, but offer us nothing new. Deprived of their ability to take objectives and be incredibly difficult to shift off, they look something of a luxury.

Thousand Sons are very expensive, but do offer something different – namely AP3 bolters. They also come with a 4+ invulnerable and a Sorcerer. They are a dedicated anti-MEQ shooting unit, something we don’t really have outside all Disintegrator Ravagers. The Sorcerer is unlikely to get a power that really aids this cause, as he must use the Tzeentchian chart and can’t get anything that a) Specially targets Marines b) Helps the Dark Eldar. The 4+ invulnerable smells double-edged to me. It’s fantastic if your opponent starts flinging a lot of high AP fire at that unit and you roll well, but it could also encourage him to start targeting plasma guns at your Raiders instead.

Noise Marines offer excellent flexibility, useful in close combat, a high rate of firepower and an utter disregard for cover saves which is largely absent from our codex. This makes them ideal for winkling out well entrenched enemies, particularly as many of our close combat elites don’t have grenades. They don’t even cost that much – at least for a Chaos elite.

Wow. Very thorough and well thought out review. Thanks for doing this! I look forward to reading more.

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Beware – he will prevent a ten man squad and the second special weapon.

Prevent them from what? I think the word Rhino is missing somewhere.

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It should be noted at this point that a measly 5 points, the Rhino you were probably going to take anyway for this troop choice can prevent enemies within 6” from using overwatch.

You test for one eye open at the start of the movement phase making this quite avoidable, and it doesn't stop you fighting in assault once you are in assault.

As long as you start your movement phase with the rhino more that 6" away everything fine, then you can move the rhino and the assaulting unit into position (which may be within 6" of each other), and assault. It doesn't matter if next turn the rhino is within 6" of your unit fighting in assault as it doesn't stop them from fighting only (moving, shooting, and assaulting).

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And think hard about the Murder Sword

Personally I think the murder sword is a trap, as you are paying through the nose for something that might never come into play. No mention of the axe of blind fury (aka the one man pain train)?

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The Daemon Prince

A daemon prince build worth mentioning and really the only we should consider is: Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Black Mace (optional). Shrouded combined with dive/evasive manoeuvre gives the daemon prince a nice 3+ cover save. Making him a great bullet magnet.

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Bikes & Raptors

Sadly the bikes are so well priced raptors are almost not worth considering. The nice thing with bikes is they can keep up with the Dark Eldar Army.

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Chaos Spawn

T5 makes them a lot tougher than beasts, well priced too, and the option for T6 with MoN. Like the bikes they are fast making it easy for them to tie stuff up for us. As mentioned before one eye open is checked at the start of the movement phase, so nothing stops you charging in and supporting those beasts in combat.

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The Maulerfiend is a close combat walker

I think your dismissing this one to quickly here. A cheap armour 12 combat walker, with a 5+ invulnerable save, it will not die, suppression immunity on a 2+, that can move 12", ignores terrain, and has fleet (giving it an average threat range of around 19"). This thing is seriously fast, and is almost guaranteed a turn two charge. If you want something to reliably draw fire away from your transports the mauler fiend is your daemonengine.

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Looks good, glad to see some one carry on where Plastikente left off. It Could do with some clearer formatting, but it's only a draft.

If you make a new thread with a blank post for each of the sections 12-13 (this includes a few extra to be safe). Then I can sticky it in this sub forum when it's finished.

I know only Blood Angels well, sadly, they cant be allies...

Mushkilla wrote:

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Personally I think the murder sword is a trap, as you are paying through the nose for something that might never come into play. No mention of the axe of blind fury (aka the one man pain train)?

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A daemon prince build worth mentioning and really the only we should consider is: Daemon Prince, Mark of Nurgle, Wings, Black Mace (optional). Shrouded combined with dive/evasive manoeuvre gives the daemon prince a nice 3+ cover save. Making him a great bullet magnet.

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Bikes & Raptors

Sadly the bikes are so well priced raptors are almost not worth considering. The nice thing with bikes is they can keep up with the Dark Eldar Army.

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Chaos Spawn

T5 makes them a lot tougher than beasts, well priced too, and the option for T6 with MoN. Like the bikes they are fast making it easy for them to tie stuff up for us. As mentioned before one eye open is checked at the start of the movement phase, so nothing stops you charging in and supporting those beasts in combat.

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The Maulerfiend is a close combat walker

I think your dismissing this one to quickly here. A cheap armour 12 combat walker, with a 5+ invulnerable save, it will not die, suppression immunity on a 2+, that can move 12", ignores terrain, and has fleet (giving it an average threat range of around 19"). This thing is seriously fast, and is almost guaranteed a turn two charge. If you want something to reliably draw fire away from your transports the mauler fiend is your daemonengine.

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Looks good, glad to see some one carry on where Plastikente left off. It Could do with some clearer formatting, but it's only a draft.

If you make a new thread with a blank post for each of the sections 12-13 (this includes a few extra to be safe). Then I can sticky it in this sub forum when it's finished.

Yes, A section on what One Eye Open actually does should really go into the introductory post, and should be something I educate myself on...

The Murder Sword is something of a trap, and at 35 points is pricy, but if the guy using it never comes into contact its probably because the enemy general poured a ton of fire onto them - mission accomplished - or is running away from it, which means you're getting to dictate their movement. Which I like. I will go into more detail on the downsides though. The Axe of Blind Fury I initially skipped, yes its good but I didn't want to go over every option, and it just dials up the Lord's combat power to 11, nothing unusual... still worth a mention though, you're right.

Shall mention that build, shall mention the disparity between Raptors and Bikes... Raptors are still keenly priced for what they do mind, just Chaos bikes look faaaar too cheap its true. I should probably talk more about bikes...

Spawn aren't tougher than Khymera, who get an extra wound on them, but they do cost 10 points less before Beastmaster tax, and yeah, the Mark of Nurgle is always your friend. Shall expand on this section.

Aaaand if I'd realised that Maulerfiends could make 12", then yes, yes I would be nicer about them, how did I miss that... why can't our Taloi move 12"?! Although, that said, I still don't care much for close combat walkers - most elite units will just blow them up with their grenades, most horde units will simply go "We can't hurt it and fall back" so you're not tarpitting them, you won't kill enough of either, and you live your life in meltagun range... but hey, that's my beef with them, as Close Combat Walkers go, well that 12" charge range should draw fire!

Thanks for the feedback - I will open up the formal thread for this when I'm happy with the first part.

I think you really overlook obliterators. They are in my opinion the second best unit (besides heldrake) in the book, maybe behind plauge marines/noise marines. With the MoN they are super tough, and throw out more firepower than almost anything else. And yes, chaos worth allying with almost for the heldrake by itself. Spawn and a MoN/MoK w/ axe o' angry and a bike creates a very tough unit that hits hard. And is pretty fast.

Will add more about Obliterators when redrafting this, and mention that Spawn/Lord unit too - have to admit, I was put off by the Obliterators' price, taking Desperate Allies and having enough objective holders is a difficult balance. But you're right, they're good, shall talk about them more.

Hm... I've had similiar idea with Lord+Khorne Juggernaut with Spawns. Shooty DE and tough CSM unit that can be nasty. But I've not touched that list for awhile since I'm lazy... So I can't really contribute to this guide but just remember that stuff have to have the same mark for it to work, as I tried pairing the khorne lord with nurgle spawns which turned out to not be legal.