Dark Eldar Killteams

Hey guys/Dread Archons,

I was looking at having a couple of killteam games with my mates but i'm having a hard time seeing the viability of our Dark Kin in this format. We just don't seem to have the staying power and we lose a lot of the advantage of speed at this points level.

The list I was examining was a couple of trueborn with splinter cannons one of them with specialist: haywire, the others having plasma and haywire grenades for good measure. The other half of the list was reaver jetbikes, with the arena champion for my Squad leader and the blaster bike with specialist: shrouded for added security. I figured this would give me the right mix of anti-infantry (massed splinter weapons and bladevanes), anti-high toughness biker types (splinter weapons) and anti-vehicle (blaster, heavy 6 haywire doom gun and a few haywire grenade units). I even have some decent mobility with the jetbikes, but they really are not that resilient without targets to soak up fire for them.

So I figure whilst our army can dish out the firepower, most of our long range guns our vehicle mounted and by that same token most of our vaunted mobility comes from those as well. After tinkering with lists I'm left feeling that whilst packing lots of firepower our killteams lack the range and mobility to survive their innate fragility.

Can you guys give me a couple of tips for building a DE killteam and any personal advice from your own mini-raids gone awry/well?

EDITED for Attrocious Grammar.

I have played a couple of kill team matches and found that Reavers work well. they move fast, and can use their assault move to keep out of the way.

Another team I had fun with was just 20 warriors with 2 splinter cannons. When we played we didn't allow vehicles though so that would really change things. Its meaner than it sounds.

I've won 2 KT tournaments with this list:

5 Wychs with Haywires (Hekatrix w Venom Blade)
- Dedicated Transport: Venom 2x Splinter Cannons, Night Shields

4x Reavers w Heat Lance

Comes to 250 Pts exactly.

The 5 Haywire Wychs (Hekatrix w Venom Blade) in a Dual Splinter Cannon Nightshielded Venom are Godly... and only cost 150 Pts

The Wychs with Haywires can literally handle anything you will go up against. The fact that they are each independent means that each can toss a Haywire grenade during shooting. Any vehicle or walker you will run up against will get demolished with 5+ Haywires thrown per round.

The fact that the Reavers also get to function Independently is an added bonus. Keep the 3 Vanilla's Blade Vaning each round And send the Heat Lancer after any vehicles the Wychs are out of range for.

If you go first take out their vehicles with the Wychs and Blade Vane with the Reavers.

If you go second, set everything out of range of the enemy. You Have a pretty good range on everything in the list so you will be able to hit them 90% of the time.

Termies are the only thing the list has some difficulty with. Usually massed Splinter shots, Heat Lance and blade vanes can put put 2+ down per round.

Have fun...

Only problem is that Kill Team is now 200pts, leaving me with little in the way of resilient units...

I'm currently trying 5 Scourges (2 w/ heat lances) and a 3-man Incubi unit - the hope is that this should be a good, all-around mix of poison, vehicle killing, and assault ownage.

I'll let you know how it fares.

How about:

Kabalite Trueborn
5 Kabalite Trueborn, Plasma Grenades, Haywire Grenades
1 Splinter Cannon, Haywire
1 Splinter Cannon, Fleshbane
2 Shardcarbines
Dracon, Power Weapon, Shred
Raider, Disintegrators, Nightshields, Flickerfield

200 points, on the nose. A Haywire Splinter Cannon should make a mess of any vehicle on the table. The Dracon is a decent combat character at this sort of point level and the rest of the squad add some pretty decent firepower with the Raider to provide mobility and some AP2 firepower.

EDIT - Just noticed this is pretty similar to the team in the original post. D'oh!!

That's actually a pretty cool list, I think I might try that out. Thanks!