Another question from the newbie

I've begun earlier than foreseen with the assembly of my Dark Eldar. A project i was going to work on throughout the next year.

I am basically fielding 3 Ravagers for the Dark Lances and Raiders with Dark Lances as my main anti-tank force. The bulk of my force would be Kabalite Warriors. I am going to field at larger point scales at least 1 Archon with Incubi (Vect greatcoat style) because... i like them. :p

However... those Splinter Racks seem appealing. I only have experience with the MEQ armies so I'm not that sure how to best use DE.
But would it be a good idea to place 10 man DE with a Splinter Cannon in their raider and use these as mobile gun platforms? The raiders are cardboard boxes but that reroll seems nasty!

Also here and there I encountered people advocating the 20 man Warrior squadron.
Being a huge fan of footsloggers visually and the fact most of my fellows will be mounted in Raiders... would it be good to field 20 Warriors with Splinter Cannon and perhaps dump a Haemonculus in there for the free pain token?
It seems an awesome unit to place centrally.

I'm also going to kitbash some Wraithguard into Grotesques. (the idea being they sealed people in the constructs) How do you advise them to be best used?

Addendum:

Someone offered to sell me some old Haemonculi and Sybarites.
Is there a use for having more than 1 in the army? Or is the event i need to field more than one in a 3000pt Kaballite Warrior army almost non existant?

Darthvegeta800 wrote:

However... those Splinter Racks seem appealing. I only have experience with the MEQ armies so I'm not that sure how to best use DE.
But would it be a good idea to place 10 man DE with a Splinter Cannon in their raider and use these as mobile gun platforms? The raiders are cardboard boxes but that reroll seems nasty!

I use splinter racks in almost all of my lists. I like them and they work wonders for me in my current meta.
Overall there's two major tactics. Either you stay in the raider/death trap, in this case splinter racks might be a good investment. On the other hand there's times when you can't disembark soon enough, in this case I wouldn't bother with racks.
Which tactic to use depends on what you are facing and volume of LOSblocking terrain on the board I guess =)

Darthvegeta800 wrote:

Also here and there I encountered people advocating the 20 man Warrior squadron.
Being a huge fan of footsloggers visually and the fact most of my fellows will be mounted in Raiders... would it be good to field 20 Warriors with Splinter Cannon and perhaps dump a Haemonculus in there for the free pain token?
It seems an awesome unit to place centrally.

I don't think I can you a objective response to this. Blobs just don't work for me and have never done. Way to much barrage weaponry out there if you ask me. But I guess a 20 man strong unit hugging an objective in some kind of area terrain would take some of your enemy attention from your other units
FnP is always a good thing ^^

Darthvegeta800 wrote:

I'm also going to kitbash some Wraithguard into Grotesques. (the idea being they sealed people in the constructs) How do you advise them to be best used?

Stuff 4 of em into a raider along with a CC HQ and dash over the table = win?=)
I would upgrade one of them to an Acothyst, toss him  a venom blade and have him take the challenges you don't want your CC HQ to take =)
Once again: This tactic depends on the board and what you are facing =)

That's my point of view, others milage may vary =)

Splinter Racks on Raiders are great at short range, that's for certain. The list you described is Old School (Raider lance spam) which has some advantages over the modern Venom Spam--lots of long range AT at the cost of long range AI.

Honestly, I prefer giving Warriors in Raiders with Splinter Racks Blasters over Splinter Cannons because a Blaster adds diversity to the unit.

Some people have been advocating a foot day approach but I remain unconvinced. Most Dark Eldar shooting potential comes from our vehicles and the best way we can protect ourselves in battle is through speed and strength in numbers. We're flying around in paper planes but if you bring enough planes, disabling all of them is a much tougher proposition.

Grotesques have been discussed at length elsewhere. For me, they seem to be effective at three things. First, they are amazing against vehicles, especially if they have Furious Charge. Second, they are an excellent character delivery system because a unit of four bumps a Archon's or Succubus's toughness up to 5 and they each have 3 T5 FNP wounds. To illustrate, it takes 90 Pulse Rifle shots to kill 4 Grotesques and a Succubus out of cover and without Marker Light support. Put them in cover, and that goes to 135. Finally, they are a pretty solid tarpit against things that aren't assault terminators. It's not exactly easy for things like Striking Scorpions or Assault Marines to kill them. If you end up fighting something like an Imperial Guard blob, it's even funnier because the blob basically can't hurt them in close combat.

Interesting. I got some old Dark Lance and Blaster DE models. So I can always swap them in to replace the Splinter Cannons if need be.

I assumed blasters would not be a priority because raw AI output in this sort of list seemed to come from the SC and the normal splinter rifles.
And all AT from the raiders and ravagers.

Most people seem to field their Trueborn in teams of 5. Is there a valid way of fielding 10 of them?

The thing is that Splinter Racks do not actually give Splinter Cannons re-rolls. The Blaster has the added bonus of increasing your "kill radius" with Rapid Fire weapons (which the Splinter Cannon also does). To me, having the option to Blast some vehicle away is always a plus since you'll not always have infantry available to shoot at. Having the ability to ID multiwound toughness 4 things (Space Marine Captains, Tyranid Warriors) and crack terminator armor is also good. Also, a rule of thumb someone once told me was to have 1 darklight weapon per 100 points minimum.

I also want to clarify if you mean Kabalite Trueborn or Kabalite Warriors. Most people keep the number of Trueborn in a squad between 3 or 4 unless they're doing something really specific. Warriors are often taken at the minimum size of 5 to work the MSU build or up to 10 for a Raider gunboat. Anything larger than that and you're in Aegis Defense Line territory.

I've actually been running splinter racks, blasters, and splinter cannons in my 10 man boat squads to some success. Splinter cannons are generally going to out wound splinter rifles even if they're twin linked. And while I used to disagree with putting a blaster in the boat, because if you shoot at a vehicle all the poison shots are wasted, I've come to discover with such a saturation of poison shots in almost all my units, sometimes, one blaster shot is better than 22 poison shots. And one S8 AP2 shot going into infantry is just as nasty as the poison.

Or in other words:

24 poison shots have a 0% chance of taking out a landspeeder. And will do on average 3.31 wounds to a unit of marines.

22 poison shots and one blaster shot has a 45% chance of  penetrating a landspeeder. And will on averge do 3.57 wounds to a unit of marines. Worth the 15 points IMO. The blaster increases your killiness, and allows you to threaten tanks.

Aah I assumed Trueborns were always the entire squad. 5 men usually per venom with special loadouts. (the Elite unit) I'll look it up in the codex.

The blaster thing i'll definitely take into account as i got the expression blaster and dl use in squads was overall seen as a 'no no'. I guess i was wrong

I think you were just mistaking people saying not to bring Dark lances specifically which is sometimes just called DL (or darklight weaponry). Technically Blasters and Lances are both darklight, but what you may have been reading was the common consensus not to put a lance in a regular squad in a raider, because it would have to snap-fire if it moved at all thus immobilizing a unit that just can't afford to be immobile. Hope that clears up the negative feelings you may have been getting towards darklight in kab squads.

Thanks for the info!
I got 4 metal blaster guys and 4 old Dark Lance guys. I guess the 4 blaster guys will find a use for sure As for the Dark Lances... who knows in a few years we may have a new codex where i'll be able to put them to use.

I was thinking... i'm getting some Dire Avengers to kitbash with the new Dark Eldar kit.
I already got one box. kitbash them together and make 2 squads of trueborn.
2x 4 with blasters.
And then convert some extra up to be regular trueborn or a Sybarite. For the unlikely case i'll want to field them with an extra body or so.
And then stick each in a Venom.

Making the list i'm going for roughly:

Archon + Incubi -> either 1 + 4 in venom or 1 + 9 in Raider (if high point list)
2x Venom + Trueborn with heavy weapons
6x Raider + full squad with blaster and/or Splinter Cannon
3 Ravagers.
2x a large squad of Reavers

Addition -> converting some Eldar Constructs into Grotesques to field with an Haemonculus.

And this be the basis of my army. It should leave me with a lot of extra stuff like a Vect, some leftover reavers, some Wyches and haemonculi to do with as need be.