Beginner's 750 List

Quick info dump:

Next month my FLGS is hosting an escalation tournament where you build an army to 2250.  The first round is 750 points with no allies, no supplements and limited to one choice per slot (exception Troops).  Competition ranges from tournament regulars to people trying 40k for the first time.

While I am willing to spend money on models, I prefer to base the first round off of the starter army box.  Also as a Guard player I am very shy on close combat at low points.  That being said, I've come up with the following.  Any and all critique is invaluable.

HQ

Haemunculus- 60
*Liquifier gun

Elites

3 Trueborn- 86
*2 Darklance

Troops

9 Kabalites- 90

5 Wyches- 60
*HWG

Fast Attack

4 Reavers- 123
*Caltrops, Blaster

Heavy Support

Ravager- 115
*Nightshields

Dedicated Transports

Venom- 75
*Nightshields, Disintegrator

Raider- 80
*Splinter rack, nightshields

Raider- 70
*Nightshields


*edit*
Haemunculus goes with Kabalites in the first Raider, Wyches in second Raider, and Trueborn in Venom.

Hello and welcome to the Dark City,

first off I think your list looks solid given the proposition to use the DE army box as a basis. You could absolutely play and paint it like that. I think though, that you are too light on troops given our fragility. For 750p you have a lot of lances on the table, which is good. However, I think you could ditch the dark lance trueborn and invest in another unit of wyches and a tenth kabalite warrior with a splinter cannon. The haemonculus would then start with the wych squad in the raider (possibly go for more than 5 if you have the models, or a hekatrix with venomblade for that squad, ALWAYS buy HWG for wyches).

My reasoning is this:
This gives your kabalite squad a valuable splinter cannon for long range shooting.
This gives your haemonculus an anctual chance of using is liquifier gun, because with the kabalites he's rarely going to need it.
This gives you another troop choice to claim a potential 3 objectives in basic missions.
This gives you another (more durable) assault option that is also great at popping tanks with Haywire grenades.

And all of that at the cost of 2 Dark Lances. Also no need to buy additional models.

Cheers.

Freebirth Scum wrote:

*edit*
Haemunculus goes with Kabalites in the first Raider, Wyches in second Raider, and Trueborn in Venom.

I will just point this out as a personal pet peeve. Why list the items seperately? A Dedicated Transport is an *upgrade* not a separate unit choice - it should always be listed with the purchasing unit, both for my OCD needs and also simply for ease of legibility in a list writeup.



Grumbly rant aside, here are some quick thoughts;

Freebirth Scum wrote:

Haemunculus- 60
*Liquifier gun

A solid basic HQ.

Freebirth Scum wrote:

3 Trueborn- 86
*2 Darklance
Venom (see how magical that is?)

Why lances and not blasters? Yeah, you get a range advantage, but are then hurt on movement. Now, you can deploy the two units separately and run the Trueborn as snipers and then just have a Venom running around, which is fine, but there is a reason blasters work so well.

Also, you list your Venom with a Dissie - just make sure you're aware it's an extra S.Cannon, not a Dissie.
The Night Shields are probably wasted points at this point level in my mind.

Freebirth Scum wrote:

9 Kabalites- 90
Raider (in one glance I know what they're in... )

I am not a particular fan of this build. It's not bad as just a way to have some base models and all, but it's not really built to handle much of anything either. I would advocate dropping a Warrior and adding a Blaster to the unit if nothing else, that will make the unit better versus pretty much anything infantry it wants to shoot even with s.racks taken into account and will also give them the option of hurting mech as well.

Also, even if you want to be doing what it appears you are doing, the s.cannon is really worth getting because it helps you have more enemy models in range and allows you to *just* get the s.rifles in range while still being allowed to kill a large number of enemy models without worry of the kill zones.

Again, I do sort of feel like you're taking too many upgrades on your vehicle. Also, just to note, ask yourself what range this boat will be operating in, and how the night shields will help them. There is a limited number of things it will benefit you against.

Freebirth Scum wrote:

5 Wyches- 60
*HWG
Raider

To be honest, the Haem will probably serve you better here than with the Warriors.

I like the build okay, I'd note that a sarge and a venom blade are very affordable and give the unit more options for such a low point game.

Freebirth Scum wrote:

4 Reavers- 123
*Caltrops, Blaster

I think you're putting way too many points into this unit for the point total, and it's hurting your ability to field Troops. Even just at a glance, you can only ever use Caltrops *or* the lance, so every turn you're wasting the points you paid for one.

I'd drop the Caltrops, your regular bladevanes are perfectly capable of hurting infantry without an expensive upgrade.

Freebirth Scum wrote:

Ravager- 115
*Nightshields

Fine.

I like some of Dogmar's suggestions and agree with a lot of them.
I think your biggest flaw is only having two Troop slots - DE Troops are good, and at 750 points our Troops are quite capable of killing the hell out of a lot of stuff. I'd say it would be quite functional to drop the Trueborn or the bikes to field more troops, and you'd be better off strategically. Also, you may wish to trim back some upgrades in order to work in more units as well, DE are very fragile, so 2 'okay' units is a lot better for us than 1 'good' unit because 1 good unit can be killed just as easily as an okay one.

Regards,
Thor.

Can't say much more than Thor already pointed out. As always he pays good attention to details. I totally missed the number of upgrades in my first assessment about the list. With Thors advice applied you free up quite a lot of points by dropping upgrades (keep the additional Splinter Cannon at all costs) and the trueborn for more troop boats. The list will certainly be more effective than. This would be optimal.

However with your mentioned model constraints, feel free to just apply my advice from earlier, maybe you can play around with single upgrades there to put the maximum number of models that you have to use.

Dark Eldar are a lot about redundance, so the more you get in there, the better.

Thanks for the advice.  I thought on it over the weekend and revised the list, mainly by swapping the Trueborn for Wyches.


HQ

Haemonculus- 60 points
*Liquifier Gun

Troops

10 Kabalites- 170
*Splinter cannon, Raider, splinter racks

5 Wyches- 125
*HWG, Venom, Splinter Cannon

6 Wyches- 157
*HWG, hydra gauntlet, Hekatrix, venom blade, Raider

Fast Attack

6 Reavers- 132

Heavy Support

Ravager- 105

Total: 749


I kept the Kabalites with only splinter weapons because the only other dedicated anti-infantry shooting is the Venom and the Reavers, and I do have three sources of anti-armor, not counting the haywire grenades.

I gave a Wych squad a Hekatrix with venom blade to take challenges for the Haemonculus that will be attached to said unit.  I'd rather have a 30 point model die than give away a Slay the Warlord point.

I have a feeling that two extra Reavers might be expensive at 750, but I love the idea of a zooming unit attacking with blades with a 3+ cover saves.

Thoughts/critiques?

Where are you getting 3+ cover from?  Jink is a 5+, 4+ during turbo.

I'd drop the unit of 6 wyches to 5.  One doesn't do a whole lot.   Also, a venom only holds 5 guys.  So 6 + a haemi is 2 too many.  All you have to do is swap the venom for the raider in the other wyche group to fix though.

I'm going to disagree with Thor665 on one thing though (note that it's one of the very very few things I would disagree with him on): caltrops.  D6, S6 attacks is worth far more than an additional bike or even 2 warriors in my opinion.  

Look at it this way, a standard bladevane does D3 S4.  That's an average of .75 wound on a marine.  Caltrops does an average of 2.9 wounds.  Which means the upgrade nets you about 2.1 extra wounds. Even if you roll a 1 for number of hits, you are likely ahead of the game; whereas a full 6 S6 is all bonus.

A warrior, otoh, in rapid fire range does .67 wounds.  From that math, Caltrops is worth about 3 warriors... for the cost of about two.  To me, that's a no brainer when building a low point list where every little thing has to count.  I'd drop the hydra gauntlet and a wyche to make that happen.


Also, about wyches: absolutely awesome with haywire grenades to kill vehicles... and you never need more than 5 to do that.  Meanwhile, because of the low strength, they don't really do much in CC against anything you're likely to meet; and certainly 5 (or 6) wyches aren't enough to hit a standard 5 man marine unit and win.  However, Kroots/FireWarriors/IG are much easier kills.

The haemi is awesome due to the initial pain token.  Be flexible with where you want it though.  When bladvaning, it's pretty common to end the move close to the enemy.  4+ jink is good; but 4+ jink with FNP is better.  I tend to start my haemi next to the jetbikes, then move him away to go hide T1 allowing them to take the token with them.  Leaving him in a fragile transport that explodes when looked at wrong is just begging for a VP to be given up way too easily.

clively wrote:

Where are you getting 3+ cover from?  Jink is a 5+, 4+ during turbo.

Reaver jetbikes have skilled rider (BRB. 41) which mean they automatically pass dangerous terrain tests and receive a +1 to its jink cover save so it is 3+ when you turbo

clively wrote:

I'd drop the unit of 6 wyches to 5.  One doesn't do a whole lot.   Also, a venom only holds 5 guys.  So 6 + a haemi is 2 too many.  All you have to do is swap the venom for the raider in the other wyche group to fix though.

Whoops. Meant to say that, but I've yet to learn not to type when sleepy.

I follow on the Wyches struggling in combat against marines or better. The reason I took the extra was not necessarily to wipe the floor in CC (though I wouldn't complain if it did happen) but mainly to tie up elites units for a few turns. I've read around how they're good at bogging them down and I like the idea of keeping something nasty occupied while I destroyed the rest of the army.

I would like to include the caltrops, since I plan on mostly having them boosting through infantry. I could drop the Wych and gauntlets as you mention or drop a reaver, however I included them for unit durability. I know that Dark Eldar can't take punishment and, apart from the suicide venom squad, I feel more comfortable with an extra body or two so the unit lasts longer. Unless an extra body really doesn't make that much a difference, in which case I have no other objections to dropping the extra wych/reaver.