A crisis of (dark) faith!

I'm still very new to the ranks of the Dark Eldar and while i have been a long time fan i've only just gotten around to assembling the Battalion box and undercoating it black.

Now, a good friend of mine has offered me to swap it for some Tau and I'm sorely tempted and this is why!

Can Dark Eldar compete in games over 2000 points?

Everything i read seems to favour us in tiny games and while i do enjoy smaller games, i don't want to be forever stuck in less than 2k games with a force that get progressively worse as you add more men to the mix.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not bothered about Dark Eldar being tricky to play. I have played long enough and rate myself good enough to use an army that doesn't have the ruggedness of a Space Marine.

I dont even need to know that they will rock on Apoc games, just larger regular games.

Kind Regards

I routinely play larger games, and believe me Dark Eldar CAN match up quite easily.

Sometimes it requires a slight adjustment of tactics as you're obviously playing a more stock opponent, but larger points games just give you the opportunity to take more of the interesting toys we have to play with.

More points gives you more freedom I would say. THe key to using Dark Eldar is tactics. They're a challenge to play because of their weaknesses, so you need to think of deployment, and manuevers, etc. More points allows maybe for a second flanking move, or a surprise reserve force, or a number of other interesting ways to confuse, trap or befuddle your enemy.

Couldn't agree more with Squidmaster on the tactics front. I definitely use units differently as the size of the game changes. You can get far more redundancy as you go into bigger lists, and now having multiple detachments available, playing with more of your favourite models has become easier.

I say, stick around

That's reassuring to hear - my biggest worry is to have a lovingly crafted 2k list and find that i cant do anything extra with it!

I play both Dark Eldar, and Tau Empire. I still have more fun with my Dark Eldar. It is more of a mindset difference in the play style requirements for the armies, than one being better than the other. I can do well with both, but the Tau do better for me at larger game sizes, but I can pull more tricks/surprises with the Dark Eldar. I lose slightly more frequently with my Dark Eldar than my Tau, and that is more to the fact that I don't get as much game time anymore than the armies effectiveness.

I think you'll just have less fun. I hear every victory with Tau is a guilty one.

That's it - i dont worry about Dark Eldar not being the most competitive list in existence. If i wanted that i would buy Necrons and spam a million flyers that could overwhelm an entire Hydra regiment!

I want an army that i enjoy and i like the fact that the Dark Eldar boast some of the best situational troops out there: a bunch of Incubi are awesome melee troops while a Ravager boasts some truly awesome anti-anti capabilities. I have no issues with using specialist troops for specific jobs, rather than taking very good all round troops and winging it against everyone.

My biggest fear is to be in a position that i found myself in years ago (which i will admit is near on a decade ago) where my Dark Angels had been doing very well until the games got big enough to see that they were severely hampered by the fact those extra points allowed my opponents to field those key pieces which i struggled to combat. There are other considerations to take into account from those days, lack of terrain and very simple missions didn't help, but ultimately i got to a point where i just couldn't escalate to the type of war that was being waged!

Kind Regards

Wolf

As one of the ones who probably helped start the commentary about the 'better at lower point games' I will say we are still that way - however, the whole change in how Force Org works has drastically dismantled our weakness in larger games. When you were obligated to build from one force org, we would become progressively weaker - now that you can ignore Force Org or just bring a second one our inherent fragility doesn't affect us any more when building for larger games as long as you have the models to maintain the spread.

I also think that Dark Eldar have one big bonus at higher points levels that helps us stay competitive: Haywire, Lance and Poison.

We have lots of ways to deal damage that don't care what your Toughness or Armour Values are. Which when the enemy fields bigger beasties and bigger tanks is awesome.

MyNameDidntFit wrote:

I also think that Dark Eldar have one big bonus at higher points levels that helps us stay competitive: Haywire, Lance and Poison.

That's three big bonuses

@ Thor

How does the force org work now? I have the new rule book but so far i have just been focusing on the actual rule bits to make sure i understand how everything works.

I remember force org coming in and i think it works well when things are multiple choice per slot (like imperial guard!) but it gets a bit busy in certain slots and i find that a little bit crippling!

I would check but away from house at thr moment and have a toddler running rings around me!

Cheers

Count Adhemar wrote:

That's three big bonuses

Touché That may be so, but I consider them all under the one umbrella of things that wound on a value.