Wracks and Coven - Are they good?

Hey all! I have never used coven before, but I kind of love the models! Are they good? I never have used them before (except haemi/w my trueborn) and have been using blaster-born instead with venoms and a few warrior raiders. Can we get some discussions and tactics going with the coven? Im debating to pick up a few coven packs if they are good.

Wracks, Grotesques and Talos are all great units. Grotesques in particular make a great bodyguard for your archon/succubus/haemi and can draw a lot of fire away from the rest of your army.

Might be worth checking out this guide to Dark Eldar (if you haven't already):

Plastikente's Dark Eldar Unit Guide

Here are some battle reports with coven units:

BR24: The Black Buzzards VS GK Mech - 1000pts
BR16: The Black Buzzards VS SoB Mech - 1500pts

Hope that helps.

Hey thanks! Ill look into it! I have always wanted to try a coven list.

I think I have totally settled on a kabal/coven lists. Coven draws fire, while the rest shoots them to pieces. It's really a great combo

I'm currently attempting to build a hybrid coven list with wyches and warriors as troops. I'm looking to use a unit of Grots in a boat and two talos pain engines...its not alot of coven, but I'm looking to use them as distractions and if they make it then they will be the hammers I use to blow stuff up!

From what I've seen people use of grots they look fantastic at being big jerks. Mushkilla is good for inspiration...he's my inspiration.

A pure coven list is quite a difficult thing to make competitive, because Wracks are so inflexible. They're good at what they do, but if they are the only troops you are going to allow yourself that leaves a big hole in your capability (ie. ranged anti-infantry, ranged anti-tank). Although your transports can plug this gap a bit.

Personally, I'm a fan of hybrid lists. If you want your fluff to be an "all-coven" army, any Warriors you take could always be hopefuls - so insignificant they haven't even been made into Wracks yet but they hang around at the edge of the coven and try to win favour by bringing back slaves. It's more difficult in my mind to justify wyches though.

I think at least some coven units are a requirement in any list. I always use wracks as my go to troop choice. They're good at camping rear objectives. They bring access to pain tokens (which can be shuttled to other units), and wracks are the only troop that can survive a vehicle explosion reasonably intact (due to T4&FNP). I also think that the hex rifle might become more prevalent. Being able to snipe out those pesky ethereals will be useful. I am about to start running 4 wrack squads in venoms with a hex rifle each.

I love my talos. If I bring them, I will usually bring two or three. I bring them out of a gate so they can get up in someone's grill. I set them up with chain flails. They create such a forward threat that people are forced to change their plans~ which is great for DE. The down side is that for every talos you bring, that means one less Ravager.

Haemonculi are a must have in any DE army. They give out pain token candy to any squad that needs it (incubi/reavers/hellions). They bring nice tools that can help where needed. I usually just bring a liquifier gun and a venom blade, but I have used a dark gate in the past for popping vehicles or a shatter shard in lieu of a liquifiergun. I could also see a hex rifle coming in useful in the the new meta.

The drawback of a pure coven list is that it has no long range tank popping ability and isn't very fast. I guess you could argue that the scourges are part of the covens... From a fluff point of view it doesn't make much sense for the covens to go it alone. They're pretty cowardly and my my mind are only interested in the spoils of war, rather than war itself.

Rancid blade wrote:

I also think that the hex rifle might become more prevalent.  Being able to snipe out those pesky ethereals will be useful.  I am about to start running 4 wrack squads in venoms with a hex rifle each.

The chance of successfully killing and ethereal with a single hex rifle shot once you take into account needing a 6 to allocated the wound with precision shot, the to wound roll, and for the ethereal to fail his 2+ LoS and his wound test is 0.69% (about 1 in 145). Not exactly reliable.

So you admit there's a chance my diabolical plan will work... I'll cling to that.

Rancid blade wrote:

So you admit there's a chance my diabolical plan will work...  I'll cling to that.  

You're a gambling man I take it.

He's talking about using Hexrifles.
By definition he is a gambler.
And one that doesn't care about odds

Go to realspace raids and check out my post: Hexrifles for the win!

So after reading plastikente's and Mushkilla's topics/walkthroughs I'm under the impression that a Coven setup is meant for a melee list. Get in the raiders and venoms and flatout in the enemies face. And since the Talos is so slow It would be in the best interests to have a webway portal.

Unfortunately it leaves the Pain Engines standing still in Turn 2 and have to wait till turn 3 for the charge and they will most likely be taken out by then. Is all of this correct? Is it better also to just have them foot slog in turn 1 to atleast get the shooting aspect out?