New to Dark Eldar

[shifty60]

Hello all,

I picked up a Dark Eldar codex, and I think I’m in love after playing IG.

Just after researching for a weekend I think I have an idea how I would like to play my future DE.
I would go for a transport heavy, highly mobile force. Tell my if this could work? I have never played with/against them before so this is all new to me.

Archon-Melee upgrades with a Venom
2-3 Squads of warriors with Raiders
1-2 Squads for Wytches with Raiders
1 Squad of Incubi with Venom
1 Squad of hellions
1 Squadron of Reavers
1 Squad of Mandrakes
Possibly a Jetfighter or bomber (Implosion missiles look amazing!)

Is this viable? This would be a nice change from my gunline, shoot, slow Guard Army.

[ElegaicRequiem]

What do you expect to get out of the mandrakes? They seem like the awkward addition in this list.

[Julian Sharps]

Personally, I would be interested to see how you expect to fit all that in even a 2000-point list.

As for my advice, drop the Hellions, drop the Mandrakes, and get more darklights. Assuming that you could even fit all that in 2,000 points (which I find doubtful), you only have 7 dark lances in the entire list. If you want a Razorwing, that's fine, but you need Ravagers, and you can't exactly go wrong with Blasterborn, either.

Of course, all this is highly dependent on what you tend to play against...

[Voidlight]

Sometimes, with the Dark Eldar, you will fare better on the battlefield (and cheaper in points) if you sub out some big warrior/raider squads for some five man Trueborn squads in Dakka Venoms (a Dakka Venom is a Venom with the extra splinter canon upgrade). They are über fast, can mow down infantry as well as pop tanks, and a Venom is harder to kill (flickerfields, and it is smaller than a raider and can thus take more advantage of cover). When you play Dark Eldar, EVERY UNIT must take advantage of cover! Have fun playing as the apex predators of the galaxy!!! ;D

[Deathkorpsman]

Jun 15, 2012 11:54:30 GMT -5 Julian Sharps said:

Personally, I would be interested to see how you expect to fit all that in even a 2000-point list.

As for my advice, drop the Hellions, drop the Mandrakes, and get more darklights. Assuming that you could even fit all that in 2,000 points (which I find doubtful), you only have 7 dark lances in the entire list. If you want a Razorwing, that's fine, but you need Ravagers, and you can't exactly go wrong with Blasterborn, either.

Of course, all this is highly dependent on what you tend to play against...

I second this. Maximize the number of Dark Lances in your army where at all possible. Going full melee with DE sounds fun, but a mostly shooty with melee support army does much better. All DE transports are quite good, so take advantage of those. Dakka (probably poisoned) on all the vehicles and AT/CC weapons on the infantry.

Mandrakes and Hellions are pretty much just flavor units in the current metagame. You are better off without them, but taking on unit without spending a bunch of points on it isn't going to hurt you and it makes your army more interesting than warrior spam.

Voidraven bombers seem like they will be very strong in this edition. They are very good at taking out vehicles of any type and the missile selection is a neat feature. I just wouldn't go crazy buying missiles. Keep the bombers as cheap as possible because they are pretty flimsy.

[shifty60]

Hey All,

I haven’t visited this thread in a while. After playing a few smaller games in 5th and getting a feel for them I’m starting to understand their strengths and weaknesses (granted I’ll need to do it over again in 6th)

I currently have 6 Raver bikes, 20 warriors, 20 wyches, 2 raiders, an Archon and a Taylos.

I feel loading up wyches with haywires in the raiders and having them charge and tie up vehicles and lighter infantry would be effective. My Archon is attatched to one of these squads most of the time with a shadow field and an agonizer.

Lately I have been giving the bikes cluster caltrops with great results from turbo boosted flyovers.

Trueborn/darklight spam, I see why it’s effective.

The taylos, Ive only used him in one game and he was a damage sponge more than anything. I can’t wait to see in in melee and the TL haywire blaster with the new glancing rules.

I’m thinking my next purchase will be another raider and some scourge to give a trueborn squad a ride and some mobile anti-tank fire. Even shard, carbines followed by the new jumppack charge would be worth a try.