How to beat... Dark Eldar

So, we have this wonderful forum dedicated to methods of making other players unhappy and miserable. There are a plethora of tacticas dedicated to systematically and surgically removing other armies from the board. But, why is there not a tactica for use against our own? Perhaps the day will come when you face another Dark Eldar army? Or perhaps you may not play Dark Eldar and have stumbled upon this website in a vain attempt to find out more about those evil space pixies?
So with that in mind, what are the best ways to beat a Dark Elder army? Perhaps this is a bit different than normal but here place your blunders, fails and times when you have been outplayed!
Much Love

Most likely because this forum consistently discussus Dark Eldar strengths and weaknesses, which applies to Dark Eldar, be they yours or your opponents. If you know how to play Dark Eldar well, and you know what you don't want to happen to your army, then you know how to beat enemy Dark Eldar.

There's no reason to discuss how to beat ourselves, because it's assumed that if you can adequately play your army, you know it's strengths/weaknesses.

Listing our mistakes or times we got outplayed would just be general stuff that you could find elsewhere on these forums, or turn into general advice.

For starters you can hope that I or Jack Frost are your Dark Eldar opponents. We seem to lose a lot lately.

In general and assuming you are facing a mech list with a good dose of RJB. Shoot the transports out from under the cc units first. Don't give the RJB an isolated unit to bladevane. Be ready to pounce on them with cover ignoring weapons once they do turboboost across one of your units or into your deployment zone.

@ Paradoliak: You are missing the point.
A) Compiling reasons why people lose is a great way for people who are struggling to get a foothold
B) It's not discussing how to beat ourselves, its rather why we get beaten. Looking at the most common reasons for losses gives great insight in how to adjust play styles in-game and as any player will tell you, having a terrible game and just blaming it on the dice is not going to help. Looking at mistakes or enemy play styles however will.

@Average Joe: Wouldn't be so hard on yourselves, DE are one of the harder armies out there.

From my experience template weapons are the bane of Dark Eldar as are medium strength weapons like heavy bolters. A small devastator squad with 4 heavy bolters will tear up a mech DE list. Equally a disintergrator cannon list will do serious damage against DE vehicles and sufficient splinterfire will always beat us. However, normal shooting attacks will do a much better job!

Mech lists are also a great way to beat dark eldar. Haywire grenades and the occasional dark glance are unable to cope with lots of vehicles that shoot back. Keeping troops in transports to prevent splinter fire from causing harm to them also is a sure fire way to beat DE, as long as your vehicles have enough fire power...

Small tables and/or terrain-sparse tables are one. The former basically eliminates the ability to maneuver whereas the second can limit the utility of being able to maneuver.

Medium strength guns are more problematic than things like meltas or Lascannons because they usually have longer range (than meltas) and are relatively portable (unlike lascannons).

Highly mechanized armies are difficult, particularly the traditional IG parking lot behind an ADL. Wave Serpent spam could end up being even more obnoxious though.

Weak but well armored troopers, i.e., Sisters of Battle and Tau Fire Warriors, are difficult because Splitner weapons basically become fancy looking lasguns.

Flying Monstrous Creatures are a pain because of Vector Strike. They also usually have "magic powers".

Massed flyers *can* be problematic but a canny Archon could out maneuver them. Does not apply to the much reviled Heldrake.

Barrage Weapons, particularly if Dark Eldar are relying on Night Fight 1st turn.

Guns that ignore cover.

Things that allow for massed unit redeployment or unconventional deployment (scout, Huron Blackheart, Eldrad, and etc).

Dark_Kindred wrote:

Barrage Weapons, particularly if Dark Eldar are relying on Night Fight 1st turn.

Barrage weapons don't ignore cover (only cover granted from intervening terrain) and they don't ignore night fight (as night fight rules are based on the range from the firing unit to the target), so their range will still be capped at 36".

Mushkilla wrote:

Dark_Kindred wrote:

Barrage Weapons, particularly if Dark Eldar are relying on Night Fight 1st turn.

Barrage weapons don't ignore cover (only cover granted from intervening terrain) and they don't ignore night fight (as night fight rules are based on the range from the firing unit to the target), so their range will still be capped at 36".

If I'm reading this correctly, you just put a whole bunch of words in my mouth. How aren't Barrage Weapons good, particularly when Night Fight is going on? For the purposes of targeting, all an opponent needs to do is move a Chimera or another vehicle with Search Lights forward, illuminate a vehicle, and then blow it to smithereens. It'll probably hit something else in the process and, because of how the cover saves are determined against barrage weapons, the unit in question would likely have a worse cover save than normal. Naturally, this is a bigger problem if your opponent is going 1st otherwise you have your buffed-up Jink save.

More generally, the ability to circumvent different kinds of cover is pretty good, especially when shots can be fired indirectly. Sure, it's a mechanic driven entirely by chance but that doesn't mean it should be discounted out of hand.

The key in DE vs DE is that almost every DE list is mechanised and very few DE lists do well against mechanised armies on account of poisoned weapons. When you're looking at your opponent's list, immediately figure out where their non-splinter weapons are and focus your lances on them first. If they have a blasterborn squad for example, then focus your Ravagers or Reavers or whatever on the Venom so your Venoms can clean up the trueborn. It's going to be a race to see who loses their vehicles more slowly so bear that in mind all game.

Continuing with the same logic, if you tend to play certain units on foot such as Warriors with a Splinter Cannon with a Raider, then you should just keep that unit in the Raider because the unit's already dead once its boots touch the ground on account of the splinters not having anything else to shoot at. If you have units like Hellions, Reavers or Beastmasters then they won't last very long unless you have a lot on foot so consider them dead on turn one and try to get some damage done.

If you haven't ensured Mutually Assured Destruction by the end of the game, then whoever has transports left will be at a huge advantage in swiping objectives. You can try something unusual like sticking transports directly in area terrain and not moving them because DE can't ignore cover saves very well. Another matchup combination of Eldar and DE is usually a nightmarish couple rounds of vehicles jumping over cover and shooting at rear armour, so you can't expect to position the same way as you do against other races. Remember that area terrain needs 25% coverage from every direction, most woods will do the job.

Edit: aha oops, I read this as being DE vs DE and I was wondering how people got off topic so early talking about barrage weapons and whatnot. I'll meditate on this and come back later.

Dark_Kindred wrote:

If I'm reading this correctly, you just put a whole bunch of words in my mouth.

I apologies my bad.

You would be surprised how many times it crops up on this forum that players think barrage weapons ignore cover, ignore night fight, and or don't let you get your night fight bonus to your cover saves. All of which are incorrect. A lot of Dark Eldar seem hell bent on making IG an even harder match up than it is.

Well, we actualy do not get bonus cover save from NF vs barrage :(The +1 from stealth would be when the unit is over 12" away from centre of barrage template, and large blast is 5" so :/ It is caped at 36" for initial shooting luckily, but IG are douches, with chimeras, who can 12" move and snapshot just to get that Searchlight off ... Hugging ruins/impasses is still my fav way to get some protection from barrages

EDIT: Just to back up my reasoning: P.34 barrage rules say. "always assume the shot is coming from the center or the blast marker, instead of the firing model..." As much as I want it to sound differently, I think there is no hope for bonus cover against barrage via nightfighting:<

ravenizer wrote:

Well, we actualy do not get bonus cover save from NF vs barrage :(The +1 from stealth would be when the unit is over 12" away from centre of barrage template, and large blast is 5" so :/ It is caped at 36" for initial shooting luckily, but IG are douches, with chimeras, who can 12" move and snapshot just to get that Searchlight off ... Hugging ruins/impasses is still my fav way to get some protection from barrages

This is incorrect.

The rules for barrage say:

Quote :

To determine whether a unit wounded by a Barrage weapon is allowed a cover save, and when determining wound allocation, always assume the shot is coming from the centre of the blast marker, instead of the firing model. -BRB page 34

The rules for night fight say:

Quote :

The shooting unit cannot pick a target more than 36" away...Units between 24" and 36" inches away are treated as having the stealth rule. Units between 12" and up to 24" away are instead treated as having the stealth special rule. -BRB page 124

The rules for barrage don't say you use the centre of the blast marker to determine night fight. You still measure from the shooting unit to determine how night fight affects a unit and whether or whether not it gets the associated benefits. The same way you still measure from the shooting unit to determine whether the weapon is in range of it's target  (and not from the centre of the blast).

Example: The distance from the shooting unit (the manticore) to it's target the ravager is 30", the ravager is therefore granted shrouded from the night fight rule. Combining with it's jink save for a 3+ cover save (assuming the ravager moved in it's movement phase).

Hope that helps.

ravenizer wrote:

EDIT: Just to back up my reasoning: P.34 barrage rules say. "always assume the shot is coming from the center or the blast marker, instead of the firing model..." As much as I want it to sound differently, I think there is no hope for bonus cover against barrage via nightfighting:<

Yes, but your missing out the most important part of the rule! That it only applies specifically to resolving cover and wound allocation. Not to resolving the night fight special rule, or resolving whether a target is in weapon range.

If it applied to anything other than cover and wound allocation you would be able to argue the following:

The shot always counts as coming from the blast and therefore all barrage weapons have unlimited range as the centre of the blast can never be more than 12" away from it's target (maximum scatter is 12").