Are Allies Really Necessary for Dark Eldar to be truly competitive in today's environment?

Heya all,

It's been a few weeks since the new Eldar codices are out (with the new Iyanden book coming out just a week ago) and this have given Dark Eldar an unique opportunity to have options beyond our wildest dreams.

However this leads to one of my current conundrums; are Allies necessary for a competitive Dark Eldar list?

The reason for this train of though is that due to the way in which 6th edition is designed, our book is slowly feeling its age to a certain degree. I would admit that we rarely get to the top of any tournament due to our inconsistencies. There is also the fact that codex creep is also felt when a Dark Eldar army faces off against a new army that negates quite a number of our strengths from the get go, and sometimes the game is more akin to who actually rolls the dice to go first.

The Eldar codex helps in mitigating these weaknesses, but at the same time I wonder if we should ever rely on such a crutch for games.

At 1500pts I have yet to feel the need to field allies. I haven't found anything in the Eldar codex that I would want to take over any of the current Dark Eldar units in my list.

Our codex got some nice boosts in 6th, so I'm not sure what you mean about "feeling its age". Personally I think the inconsistency a lot of DE players experience is down to building alpha strike lists that depend on going first.

Mushkilla wrote:

At 1500pts I have yet to feel the need to field allies. I haven't found anything in the Eldar codex that I would want to take over any of the current Dark Eldar units in my list.

Based upon my experiences, my Dark Eldar tends to be better off being pure at 1500 pts and below. However, once we go beyond that number, the attractiveness of allies becomes more enticing due to its subtle boosts for the entire army.

Quote :

Our codex got some nice boosts in 6th, so I'm not sure what you mean about "feeling its age". Personally I think the inconsistency a lot of DE players experience is down to building alpha strike lists that depend on going first.

Yes, I admit that we do get some boost, which I have said in the first post, but when I am saying it is feeling its age, I mean that most of the list is slowly becoming a little one dimensional to be competitive. In addition the codex creep also means that with every passing codex, the book slowly loses its relevance. Do not get me wrong, Dark Eldar is strong but it has its faults that prevented it from being a top-tier army. But this is build into our army as well, due to our fragility.

1) If we want to be great Beta-strikers, we would need to have a way in which we could get a somewhat solid defense that allows us to take some hits before we counterattacked. We are not really good as a Beta-striker, but we are significantly better as an Alpha-striker. Relying upon night fight is never the most reliable of things when it comes to defenses, but this is mitigated in the Warlord traits that we could take. Nonetheless this also means that more of our successes are more randomized than before, which would have an effect upon consistency. If our opponent gets a good Warlord trait while we rolled uponn a warlord trait that is utterly useless in the list, we are already at a great disadvantag. Of course other armies also feel that weakness, but for the Dark Eldar they feel it more than others.

2) We also do not have a truly effective form of anti-air unless we decided to use one or even more slots for flyers that can be gunned down by other nonsense. Yes, maneuvering is key, but the issue still stands that rolling 6s to hit or blocking paths are only effective to a certain extent and it is honestly better to destroy rather than to stall in the long run.

3) We are also amazing at taking objectives, not holding them. However, the fact still remains that most people generally have a solid base that would not be whittled down in one turn of shooting and would have enough of their solid base that will be able to retaliate against Dark Eldar units. So far, we do not have a lot of weapons that ignore cover saves, which will help with the more static elements of a list.

4) Dark Eldar also face the issue of being a gimmicky army if we are not careful enough. The Alpha strike lists are indeed gimmicky at time, for it relies on a lot of 'voodoo' to make it work. Venomspam is guilty of this approach, where we can potentially give infantry armies some pain, but utterly useless against a mech list or a Cron-Air list.

The thing is that Eldar codex as a whole is a more consistent codex as compared to Dark Eldar, and elements such as Farseers with Guide and Prescience would actually help in increasing some consistencies within the army, especially Ravagers. In addition, they also offer many options that could be used against mutiple targets such as war walkers and night spinners against both infantry and also vehicles when needed while not being overly specialized.

I have been seeing more and more competitive Dark Eldar lists having more elements of both Eldar elements rather than a purist Dark Eldar list. I am speaking mostly from a competitive side of view Mushkilla, as every competitive army inn the circuit so far has both firepower, durability and maneuverability to stay through the entire game. The problem with a Dark Eldar army is that our dudes are fragile, to the point that a game of attrition is not to our best interest.

This is a very wide question, to many factors tbh.

But I play both Eldar and Dark Eldar. But in turnements I still play pure Dark Eldar, and will continue to do so.

I dont think we are any less competitive than we where when the codex was released, we still have the same weaknesses and we have the same strenght. No codex released after that have really changed that much. We still have bad matchups against GK, IG and Tau. But a skilled Dark Eldar player can play and win against all those 3, maby not IG if you go second on poor tarrain table, but I belive even on poor tables and going second you can win if you are good enough.

Competitive? Well not as good as lets say IG, GK, Necrons, CSM or Deamons. But we still have a solid codex that can win turnements if played correctly. But everything comes down to both skill and meta.

We arent bad, we just arent simple.

We can take fliers and H/W Scourges if we want anti flier and A/T
Its not the best, but neither is a blood angel taking three ravens and 9 land speeders.

I dont mind playing guard, tau or greyknights,
I out range them and have a brutal amount of poisioned shooting. I will down a big suit a turn without a sweat.
Mech Guard is a pain, so I've taken more wyches. T2 I have 6, 5 man, wych squads minus losses assaulting their tanks and and an assaulted tank is a dead tank.

DominicJ wrote:

We arent bad, we just arent simple.

Actually we are really simple imo. Its simple to be good with DE, thats just about knowing the other armys and their weaknesses, point and shoot. (or roll for that mather)

Its just that we get punished hard for our misstakes, that dont make us hard tho, an average player will do better with DE than most races. But I think its hard to actually perform top level. It might not be a good army for new players either, but thats because they dont know target priority yet.

But to be competitive means you need a strong static list not a tailored one and the author, Crysis_Viper, is trying to address that.

Yes.

to be competitive, you need Eldar allies. Or, to be more truthful, to be competitive and Dark Eldar, you need Eldar allies. Or, in fact, just one model.

The Farseer

With the addition of this one model (and the jetbike troops you need to purchase as well) he addresses some very serious flaws in the Dark Eldar army.

Flaw #1. Anti psychic.
We have none. With a farseer escorting your valuable units, you in most instances have a 4+ or even a 2+ (with the proper runes) deny the witch. This is invaluable against psychic abilities that weaken, hurt or simply wipe out entire units at a time.

Flaw # 2. Anti air.
We have none. With a farseer who has both guide and prescience, this is addressed. FMC's dont stand a chance against a prescienced venom, and a triple dissie ravager with guide isnt too bad either! For hellturkeys, you have 2 triple dark lance ravagers that have potentialy 12 shots to take em down a turn.

Flaw #3. Viability.
I am running an ATC list that has the baron, 4 masters and 20 dogs. I throw the farseer on a jetbike in this unit with the shard, and WHAM... Fearless! This unit is FAST, deadly and fearless, and can catapault itself across the board with no fear of losing combat to a soulgrinder and being run down. Also, with the +2 to a deny the witch rune, I can pretty much be easy in knowing they are protected from nasty psychic powers.


If I did not have allies, I would need to purchase an aegis w/ quad or iccarus, have NO psychic defense, offence or be fearless in my primary unit.
Yeah, i think allied Eldar are needed to be competitive.

Mushkilla wrote:

At 1500pts I have yet to feel the need to field allies. I haven't found anything in the Eldar codex that I would want to take over any of the current Dark Eldar units in my list

Troops on bikes...?

Thor665 wrote:

Mushkilla wrote:

At 1500pts I have yet to feel the need to field allies. I haven't found anything in the Eldar codex that I would want to take over any of the current Dark Eldar units in my list

Troops on bikes...?

The windrider jetbikes are amazing, but I already have two large units of bikes, and although they are not scoring they are still great denial units. I find my troops are already survivable enough to stick around to the end of the game (large squad size, staying out of their transports and going to ground in area terrain). So I haven't really found the need to include windrider jetbikes.

The other problem with including more jetbikes in the form of allies is that it would force me to drop raiders/ravagers, reducing my vehicle count. My list is already a hybrid list so it can't really afford to lose any more armour saturation.

I can see how a more conventional Dark Eldar list would benefit from the inclusion of windrider jetbikes, just not mine.

Honestly im not really seeing the need. Most of my opponents have enough problems with DE without even trying to go WAAC. Note that I dont play at the highest level of competition but even if I choose to im not sure how much benefit there is to be had.

Sure eldar have some nice and appealing options but once you add in the cost of a 2nd HQ the choices look over costed. Ive built plenty of lists just to see if I would want some eldar allies but I cant say the power level looked any different, at least on paper.

No, we dont.

1) A correct terrain layout means there are several LoS blocking buildings for you to hide behind. Make use of them and your be fine. Stop playing on planet bowling ball...

2) Our in book AA is fine. The problem is people dont know where to look for AT outside of ravagers and trueborn. If you are playing with flyers and must drop a ravager for a void raven, then just drop a few venoms and replace them with raiders. Switch your blasterborn to lanceborn and get some FA AT slots (reavers, scourges) and your fine.

3: Again this comes from preconcieved notions. We have great objective campers. They are called warrior squads. 10 man sitting in cover can go to ground for a 2+~3+ save and do wonderful things when snapfiring due to the splinter cannon shooting 6 shots. Change them to wracks if you really want to be greedy and get FNP for free. And about these Ignore Cover weapons, if its that late that they can kill your objective campers in the last few turns, you have done your job wrong in prioritizing...

Also dont camp. DE cant objective camp. You worry about objective T4~T5, thats about when you should really be positioning people to take objectives.

4) We arent gimmicky. You just dont like that we are fragile. Then use the units that arent fragile. Reavers give you pseudo marines. Add in things like grots that caddy your archon to where he must be, and your be surprised about how much abuse DE can take.

Fragility also goes away with smart deployment. If you deploy right, you should not have anything to be shot at turn 1. Then you can move out and "Beta Strike" as you put it and still hold the keys to the game. If you have to let something get shot, make sure its something that isnt important to your plan. That way you can still come out on top.

Yes, Eldar Allies bring alot to the table. A farseer guiding/presciencing our ravagers, the crimson hunter, and scoring jetbikes are good and all. But you dont need them to suceed with dark eldar.

He is not talking about tailoring your list to your opponents for fliers only or no fliers. The terrain is already setup at these events so you don't have the time to move terrain. So DE positioning especially in round one can really screw the player over by making you put more units in reserve and the probability of not making reserve rolls.

These kids are bringing hydra batteries to games for gods sake!!!!! :-)

please forgive my ignorance but I would think that DE and eldar allies are needed for a all comers list.

shadowseercB wrote:

He is not talking about tailoring your list to your opponents for fliers only or no fliers.

Nobody in this discussion other than you has mentioned tailoring lists. Where are you getting that impression from?

This discussion is about balanced list design for competitive play and whether Eldar allies are needed to achieve said balance.

shadowseercB wrote:

The terrain is already setup at these events so you don't have the time to move terrain.

You don't need to move the terrain. A reasonable table should have a few line of sight blocking pieces in either half.

Mushkilla wrote:

Nobody in this discussion other than you has mentioned tailoring lists. Where are you getting that impression from.

From this

Shadows Revenge wrote:

If you are playing with flyers and must drop a ravager for a void raven, then just drop a few venoms and replace them with raiders.

Maybe I'm not following along so I'll shut up now (not being sarcastic).

I just got it. Gawd I'm a idiot. Sorry.

I play competitive, I have yet not to win a turnement I've attended in 6th and yes I have played against alot of flyers etc. But I have always played pure Dark Eldar in those and I have not had much problems as of yet.

We do fine, its easy to handle flyer lists. Also I havnt used Razorwing or Voidbomber in turnements yet because they are crap. What I have lost for so far in turnements are 2 armys; Chaos Deamons with that broken WD release and against Tyranids (go figure, imbarassing I know).

Mush; unfortunalty many turnements have only one block line of sight tarrain. This is usualy on newly started turnements because they dont have enough tarrain or some idiots that play armys that dont want much tarrain.

shadowseercB wrote:

But to be competitive means you need a strong static list not a tailored one and the author, Crysis_Viper, is trying to address that.

Actually, I did not say that there is a need for a truly static list. I was saying that there is always a good anchor for the army to fall back to that can wither the firepower of an entire army. It may be in the form of an infantry blob behind the Aegis, or it could be a whole body of Ravenwing bikers. But of course, if we have some ignore cover weaponry, it can mitigate the more static part of the list (Infantry blobs).

Shadows Revenge wrote:

1) A correct terrain layout means there are several LoS blocking buildings for you to hide behind. Make use of them and your be fine. Stop playing on planet bowling ball...

Tournament terrain depends on table by table. But nonetheless sometimes we will not get ruins to save our little sadistic asses, and will have to do with worse terrain. In addition, in a tournament setting, you will have to have the best roll to take the best terrain that suits your need.

It is not that we can have a true choice at times, especially when your opponent opted to choose to deploy first.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

2) Our in book AA is fine. The problem is people dont know where to look for AT outside of ravagers and trueborn. If you are playing with flyers and must drop a ravager for a void raven, then just drop a few venoms and replace them with raiders. Switch your blasterborn to lanceborn and get some FA AT slots (reavers, scourges) and your fine.

One shot lances are not amazing, even when you spam enough of them. But you are right that  you need to do a balancing act. Also, not all list would take raiders due to their unique circumstances so that is not a good generalization to have.

I did not say that our AA is bad, just that it is not efficient. It does not have a true focus, and they are designed to kill infantry with two supplementary lances.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

3: Again this comes from preconcieved notions. We have great objective campers. They are called warrior squads. 10 man sitting in cover can go to ground for a 2+~3+ save and do wonderful things when snapfiring due to the splinter cannon shooting 6 shots. Change them to wracks if you really want to be greedy and get FNP for free. And about these Ignore Cover weapons, if its that late that they can kill your objective campers in the last few turns, you have done your job wrong in prioritizing...

I do not think you even get what I am saying here. Sure we have Warriors, but I rather have a more efficient way of using my blob if I ever use them. IG can put heavy weaponry in theirs, Necrons are unnaturally resilient, Cultists are bloody cheap, etc. They are efficient for their purpose, but ours are not truly efficient, especially when all you have are 6 shots to pressure the opponent from afar and that we are T3. For 9 points, we are not efficient when it comes to objective sitting. Sure you can spend around 180~ points on them, but they will not be able to put pressure on your opponent.

As for Ignore Cover weapons, it is there to give us greater options. I am not trying to dissuade you from your beliefs, but nothing every goes according to plan. Especially when that blob is the one gunning down your things in a shooting contest that they are winning.

I find it entirely foolish to not bother a firebase that can and will destroy a vehicle or more reliably every turn.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Also dont camp. DE cant objective camp. You worry about objective T4~T5, thats about when you should really be positioning people to take objectives.

This is at odds with your Kabalite warrior blob idea. But I digress for now as I would like to hear more explanation about this.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

4) We arent gimmicky. You just dont like that we are fragile. Then use the units that arent fragile. Reavers give you pseudo marines. Add in things like grots that caddy your archon to where he must be, and your be surprised about how much abuse DE can take.

Fragility also goes away with smart deployment. If you deploy right, you should not have anything to be shot at turn 1. Then you can move out and "Beta Strike" as you put it and still hold the keys to the game. If you have to let something get shot, make sure its something that isnt important to your plan. That way you can still come out on top.

If a majority of our units are designed for a decisive killer blow tactic and rely on it too much as a crutch, then it is a gimmick. Reavers are amazing, but as stated before not every build can just haphazardly put them into the list without a sacrifice that is not apparent to the eyes at first. Grotesque are alright, but there are more efficient units such as beastmasters that can indeed take even more punishment and also hit harder (Not to mention that they are faster).

And once again, with deployment, I agree but sometimes you are not given a choice to deploy the way that you want. I am not speaking as a new player to the game, but I am speaking as a veteran player who is seeing how we could keep up with the times. If we stick with our ways without adapting then we are doomed to fail.

It is not as easy as suggesting units to replace other units and let it go. There is also the philosophy of tactics and strategy that needs to be considered in order to take a list that can be strong enough to adapt to today's evolving game.

I am not saying that I hate their fragility, but I will say that with the developing meta it is something that should be considered in making Dark Eldar relevant for the foreseeable future.We are already seeing more MechDar players with Serpents that make a mockery of our cover saves, and Battle Focus as a much more annoying tool for us to deal with. Then there is the Tau missilespam, which can catch a person offguard if they are not careful. Heldrake Spam is a threat that can be a pain for us to deal with, as out anti-air is not as effective to take down those guys. And who knows what the new codices will bring that would cause our effectiveness to go down significantly little by little in more ways.

Fragility aside, if the options were taken away from us while we find much difficulty to take away theirs how would we be able to make things relevant without making haphazard modification that would reduce the reliabilty of our list? This is the main core of why I said that some Dark Eldar players are slowly resorting to gimmicks, and how we could prevent such a thing.

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Yes, Eldar Allies bring alot to the table. A farseer guiding/presciencing our ravagers, the crimson hunter, and scoring jetbikes are good and all. But you dont need them to suceed with dark eldar.

True for normal games, but in a competitive condition every little bit counts.

Darklight wrote:

Mush; unfortunalty many turnements have only one block line of sight tarrain. This is usualy on newly started turnements because they dont have enough tarrain or some idiots that play armys that dont want much tarrain.

Sounds like my gaming club.

Still I have found I can get by with DE as long as there is some area terrain and forest/ruins that are high enough to at least grant a cover save to a few raiders.  Combined with deploying after seeing your opponents deployment and you can really reduce their first turn damage output.

In the US the NOVA format is quite popular so they are spoilt for terrain!

Crisis_Vyper wrote:

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Also dont camp. DE cant objective camp. You worry about objective T4~T5, thats about when you should really be positioning people to take objectives.

This is at odds with your Kabalite warrior blob idea. But I digress for now as I would like to hear more explanation about this.

I would hardly call 10 warriors with a raider a blob!

Though they sit in area terrain they are still mobile as their raider will always be lurking within embarking distance. Empty raider are really low on the enemies target priority list so they tend to still be around T4-T5 to allow your warriors to redeploy to secure objectives. 10 warriors in area terrain can redeploy to an objective that is between 49-59" away (T4: 2d6 pick the highest + 2" embark range + 12" raider move + 18" flat out + T5: 6" raider move + 6" disembark + 1d6 re-rollable fleet run + 3" objective capture range). Perfect for capturing objectives in the late game.

Hope that helps.

Mushkilla wrote:

Crisis_Vyper wrote:

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Also dont camp. DE cant objective camp. You worry about objective T4~T5, thats about when you should really be positioning people to take objectives.

This is at odds with your Kabalite warrior blob idea. But I digress for now as I would like to hear more explanation about this.

I would hardly call 10 warriors with a raider a blob!

Though they sit in area terrain they are still mobile as their raider will always be lurking within embarking distance. Empty raider are really low on the enemies target priority list so they tend to still be around T4-T5 to allow your warriors to redeploy to secure objectives. 10 warriors in area terrain can redeploy to an objective that is between 49-59" away (T4: 2d6 pick the highest + 2" embark range + 12" raider move + 18" flat out + T5: 6" raider move + 6" disembark + 1d6 re-rollable fleet run + 3" objective capture range). Perfect for capturing objectives in the late game.

Hope that helps.

Oh......I thought he said a 20-man blob. Then forget my question entirely. A 10-man squad is kinda okay then but entirely dependent on list to let it be effective.

10 men squad is decent enough, provided that you do not spend so much on them and their transport.

My 2 cents: No, they are not necessary to be truly competitive, but they go a long way towards being reliably competitive. A 40k master will be able to rule most scenes with a pure DE list, but the allies make it easier for those of us who are merely above average players to perform to a higher standard.

Plus, options. Options are fun. And the combination lists are harder for people to be prepared for. Someone who's been playing against our book since 2010 and is well familiar with our tricks and tactics will have a much harder time countering us with our CWE slaves...er...allies.

Tony Spectacular wrote:

Plus, options. Options are fun. And the combination lists are harder for people to be prepared for. Someone who's been playing against our book since 2010 and is well familiar with our tricks and tactics will have a much harder time countering us with our CWE slaves...er...allies.

And this is the reason I have started with CWE, OPTIONS OPTIONS OPTIONS.
I often play very strange lists these days. Well not in turnements, but when I play with friends I try out alot of fancy crap tbh.

The main things I can see eldar bringing to a competitive dark eldar list is weapons with a strength value and high RoF for multi purpose AT/AI/AA, and more resilient troops. While these are valid reasons for allying eldar, in a vacuum its hard to analyze the trade off.

For example at 1850-2k I could see something like this as an allied detachment:

solitaire -or- bike seer (say if joining spiders)
DAVU serpents -and/or- windriders
crimson hunter -or- spiders
war walkers

These choices IMO best represent the elements a dark eldar list could benefit from. Meanwhile combat and anti infantry is best handled by dark eldar and I doubt most would disagree.
Maybe its just my nature but taking a single wave serpent doesnt appeal to me so it would probably be 2 or none but for this exercise lets do 1.
I would also take the bike seer + spiders over solitaire and hunter since duke + beasts does solitaire better and the spiders + divination seer look to me to do what the hunter does nearly as well but can also multi task. Arguements could be made for other HS than war walkers but from a competitive standpoint I think the WWs stand out.

So this detachment would look something like:

jb seer- 120
DAVU serpent- 210
7 spiders, exarch spinneret/fs- 168
3 war walkers- 210

total- 708

Such a contingent brings a respectable amount of AA/light-med AT as well as anti infantry and cover ignoring shots (serpent + 1/2 chance of perfect timing on spiders fwiw). However what can 708 pts buy from our own toolbox?
Many would probably start the dark eldar section off with something like:

duke + beasts- 309+
4-5 venom troops- 500-625
2-3 ravagers possibly a flyer instead- 315- 355
Total- 1124- 1299

This then would be right at 2k pts.  

So does this [very] general breakdown look any stronger than what a pure DE army could produce? IDK and I suppose it depends largely on the amount of aircraft you expect to face more than anything.

Crisis Vyper- is this in the ballpark of what you were thinking? If not id be interested to see your take on it just for friendly discussion.

What is DAVU? I am not familiar with that shorthand.

But yes, I am looking at it in that manner. Now that you talked about points composition, I am actually also curious about the blurring of the lines between an Eldar list and also a Dark Eldar list especially when the cost of the allies could actually be almost equivalent to the parent list. That is another conundrum that I also face; would it be prudent to make Dark Eldar a secondary choice instead?

I think that the limitations are key in making that decision. I, personally, almost always run multiple Reaver squads, making a DE allies list impossible.

I think that CWE adds to a DE list more than DE adds to a CWE list, but that may be my personal bias. But, empirically, twin linking two Ravagers turn one has proved extremely lethal for me. It goes a long way towards returning our Alpha strike power.

My favorite allied units so far are the Mantle Jetser for the buffs, and the Outflanking War Walkers. Laser lock + BLs is phenomenal AA, and if AA isn't needed then they are still brutal AT or even AI units, pretty much guaranteed to hit on rear armor or dropping lots of nasty S6 and S8 and splitting the focus between fore and rear field.

Jetseer, Windrider squad, and Warwalker squad is all I've been taking thus far. I have high hopes for the Eldar flyers, but have yet to get the models. This fits fine into the allied slot, and still leaves room for a pared down DE list.

The only thing that makes me interested in running CWE as my primary detachment is using a Spiritseer alongside my Jerseer and opening Wraithguard as troops. Putting an Archon into a scoring group of Wraithguard is a delicious idea, and one that I may have to try out.