Dark Eldar 6th Ed. Brainstorming

[BigToof]

Hi All,
Wanted to start a list, as there's too many "inferior" species topics that are saying how great they are, but not one yet to postulate about how to make the best of the Dark Eldar (at least not recently )!

The DE Codex took some hard hits in 6th:
1.  WWP Portal assault is DEAD
With the loss of assault from reserves and having to deploy half of your army, this build is dead.
2.  FNP changed to 5+
Major ouch for Wyches and Wracks and other units that really needed help vs. small arms (S4/S3) weapons.
3.  Cover changed to 5+
Again, a big hit to all of our vehicles and infantry, as we are already fragile to begin with.
4.  Overwatch
Oh, wait, so the Mon'Keigh get to shoot us before we charge in?  How sporting of them!  And there's nothing we can do to stop it?
5.  AP3 Weapons
So all Agonizers, Huskblades, Djinn Blades and all now cannot do ANYTHING against Terminators?  Yeah... that's fair.
6.  Open Topped Transports make S4 wounds
Yes, ouch to Wyches.

So it sounds dismal for DE...

But there are some bright points:
1. WWP Assault may be dead, but WWP Shooting is alive and well
I've been experimenting with this, and now that it is SO important to get your shooting into the flanks of your enemy, throwing a portal out to one side to give your shooty mates a new avenue of fire is amazing and makes sniping special weapons that much easier.
2.  FNP changed to 5+, but is now OK versus Power Weapons
My Grotesques love this.  And also it can help Wyches versus Grey Knights!  Plasma and other things that double up toughness still kills us though, so not much help there...
3.  Cover changed to 5+
Yes, we're more vulnerable, but guess what? SO IS EVERYONE ELSE.  I'm not sure if anyone else noticed this, but alpha-striking is now SO much more rewarding.  Blowing away 2-3 Tanks a turn is now commonplace with me, where I was before throwing out Dark (G)lances and praying for a Khaine-damned miracle.
4.  Overwatch
Overwatch cuts both ways.  You want to charge my Grotesque squad with Haemonculi?  Ok, try 3d3 hits that can potentially evaporate your ENTIRE squad.
5.  AP3 weapons
You know what else about AP3 weapons?  It's not just the power weapons that make AP3 such a big number, it's also the vehicle damage table.  AP3 makes the table SO much more happy, as it's much harder to shatter our boats than previous.
6.  Vehicle Explosions
Now that we get +1 to the damage table for our AP2 shots, vehicle explosions are now commonplace on my table where before they were just bad luck on my opponent's part.  Burrowing through parking lots has never been so much fun!

Now to Specific Tricks/Treats
1.  Eldar Allies
Now, since we are the few that can get Eldar as Battle Brothers, we are in a great position to make very interesting/entertaining builds.  My favorite is the Harlie-Star.  This puts Harliquins (that get Shrouding and Stealth thanks to the Shadowseer) and a Farseer together and now you have a 2+ re-rollable cover save in any area terrain.  Yeah, that's... pretty good.  Useful as a Farseer bunker, and also as an Archon delivery system, it's a lot of fun.  Just... be careful of flamers.  Doom also gets a special mention, as dooming any sad little squad (Terminators) significantly boosts your damage output.
2.  Jink Saves
As skimmers we now get a 5+ cover save if we move, 4+ if we flat out, and 3+ if you flat out and have skilled rider.  This makes our Reavers very durable, especially as they have a 48" move.
3.  Reavers are great
I can't say enough about Reavers.  They used to be meh in 5th, but now since you go flat out in the shooting phase, you can snipe out specials and really put the hurt on enemies, as it's hard for them to angle themselves so that you don't take out scads of them.  Great distraction unit and can easily wipe out small squads.
4.  Night Fight
WE LOVE NIGHT FIGHT.  Being able to ignore night-fight penalties while wallowing in the darkness like a pig in slop is an amazing thing.  As you can play with Night Shields too, there's all kinds of Turn One shenanigans that can make it a lot of fun.
5.  Haywire Grenades
Haywire is now awesome.  Wyches devour vehicles.  I now take small squads just to hunt anything that is crazy enough to be unescorted.  They are also amazing anti-Walkers.  Granted, they will probably die thereafter, but if they can take out a Land Raider and strand Draigo/Lysander/Loganwing, then I consider it a win/win scenario.

There's more I'm sure, this is just off the top of my head.

Add more as you find it, Archons/Archites/Succubi/Coven Lords!

It's a brave new world out there!

Best,
-BT

[Scout Sergeant Mkoll]

Sod Haywire Grenades. Take Haywire Blasters. 30" effective range is awesome. Scourges have some of the best armour available to us too, so they're now well worth the ~300pts it costs for a 10 man unit with 4 Haywire Blasters.

Flickerfields are still very well worth the points. Cover is easier to get, but drop pods can still negate that very easily, and combat is far more dangerous for our skimmers now. Night Shields are priceless too. I started taking them simply because I had the points, but they really do make a huge difference.

[BigToof]

Sod Haywire Grenades. Take Haywire Blasters. 30" effective range is awesome. Scourges have some of the best armour available to us too, so they're now well worth the ~300pts it costs for a 10 man unit with 4 Haywire Blasters.

Flickerfields are still very well worth the points. Cover is easier to get, but drop pods can still negate that very easily, and combat is far more dangerous for our skimmers now. Night Shields are priceless too. I started taking them simply because I had the points, but they really do make a huge difference.

FOUR Haywire Blasters?!
.
..
...

Do you hear that sound?  That's the sound of a Land Raider crying itself to sleep.

I haven't tried mass Scourges yet, but that sounds delectable.

I didn't use to put any fields on my boats in 5th, as I played mostly WWP and the boats were mostly just mobile crater delivery systems.  But now, Night Shields are massive.  Especially first turn as it makes you totally unable to be hurt by plasma guns or anything 24" while you put down the hurt.  It can even make Heavy Bolters take pause.

Also, dead on that assault is very bad for the boats.  Very, very bad.  But we can overwatch at least, so umm... it's a little bit of help?

One thing I just remembered is the whole flyer situation, as we have two flyers (at least) that while pricey, they offer solid shooting that can double as anti-flyer in a pinch.

Best Anti-flyer available to us is I think still Guided War-Walkers with Scatter Lasers.

Best,
-BT

[crisis_vyper]

4.  Overwatch
Oh, wait, so the Mon'Keigh get to shoot us before we charge in?  How sporting of them!  And there's nothing we can do to stop it?

If you want a fun and evilly beardy trick, use a cheap Wrack squad in conjunction with any other assault-oriented squad to charge into the target that you want. Let the cheap wrack squad to charge in first followed by the true assaulters.

The thing is this; Overwatch can only be declared once by the assaulted unit, and if they do not declare it they will get stuck in CC anyway if the wrack managed to roll that 2d6 required to charge it. The cheap 30 pts wrack unit will suffer all the overwatch results if they choose to do so, and even then their FNP and toughness could take it all. So even if they do not reach their target in assault, they have triggered the overwatch for your true assaulters. Once that overwatch is done, you can just throw them in the 'calvary' and slaughter them all. It s quite fluffy to be honest as well.

Of course it would be preferable if the unit that is used to trigger the overwatch is close enough that it will make the assault thus forcing them to trigger the overwatch.

The other extreme of this particular 'involuntary Overwatch' involves assaulters + tough sons-of-bitches unit charging. Let the tough unit come in and take the bullets for the team and then once they slam in, the assaulters will come in and charge the same unit. There will be much cheese-crying about this.

Some of the units that fit the bill of tough assault units;

Grotesque: They are tough, and if you take Urien, they will be able to beat the shit out of everything. 3 wounds each , FNP and  T5 is not to be underestimated.

Beastmaster pack: . The beastmaster pack can take a lot of punishment (5 wounds on the Razorwing flock, 4+ invulnerable on the Khymeara, and the wound-loving brute the Clawed Fiend), and the will still hit like a ton of bricks and in combination with other assault units, it will make that squad feel the pain.

I personally like Hellions + Beastmasters with baron, but it will also be hilarious to see a Grotesque Unit with Urien + Beastmasters/Hellions with Barion slamming into the unit.
It depends entirely on your budget of course, with the wrack sacrificial unit being the cheapest.

[Scout Sergeant Mkoll]

Sod Haywire Grenades. Take Haywire Blasters. 30" effective range is awesome. Scourges have some of the best armour available to us too, so they're now well worth the ~300pts it costs for a 10 man unit with 4 Haywire Blasters.

Flickerfields are still very well worth the points. Cover is easier to get, but drop pods can still negate that very easily, and combat is far more dangerous for our skimmers now. Night Shields are priceless too. I started taking them simply because I had the points, but they really do make a huge difference.

FOUR Haywire Blasters?!
.
..
...

Do you hear that sound?  That's the sound of a Land Raider crying itself to sleep.

I haven't tried mass Scourges yet, but that sounds delectable.

I didn't use to put any fields on my boats in 5th, as I played mostly WWP and the boats were mostly just mobile crater delivery systems.  But now, Night Shields are massive.  Especially first turn as it makes you totally unable to be hurt by plasma guns or anything 24" while you put down the hurt.  It can even make Heavy Bolters take pause.

Yeah, I ran the unit in 5th and they were pricey but useful. Now they're outright godlike. ~300pts, but they will rip down a Dread/most other vehicles in 1 round just going on the averages. >

I used to run Webway myself, with the Baron and 4 Hellion units. It was quite a fun list. Now I use Beastmasters with Razorwings to draw fire from my main units because that many Rending units scares the hell out of most things so the rest of my army takes less of a beating, especially the vehicles as S6+ is the main worry of the Beasts.

I never used to run the Baron with Beastmasters as the Beasts got the 12" in the assault phase so they just slowed each other down. Now however it may be worthwhile, especially as it's the only way to get the unit assault grenades without slowing them down. I may have to consider trying this.

[crisis_vyper]

I used to run Webway myself, with the Baron and 4 Hellion units. It was quite a fun list. Now I use Beastmasters with Razorwings to draw fire from my main units because that many Rending units scares the hell out of most things so the rest of my army takes less of a beating, especially the vehicles as S6+ is the main worry of the Beasts.

I never used to run the Baron with Beastmasters as the Beasts got the 12" in the assault phase so they just slowed each other down. Now however it may be worthwhile, especially as it's the only way to get the unit assault grenades without slowing them down. I may have to consider trying this.

I always wanted a beast unit, but the thing is that a beast unit is so expensive to build to begin with. At the same time, I am not sure how on earth will I find the replacement unit for Razorwings as the GW ones are not as 'flocky' as I wanted it to be. They are interestingly the main viable unit for replacing one of my Wych squads......

P.S: In the rate that I am going, I think I will be using an alternate model for my Razorwing flock.

[BigToof]

I'm really liking the ideas that are coming out of this thread.
Oh, and here's one that just came to me: Jetbike Farseer leading a group of Harlies.

Why?

Jetbike Farseer gets jink, so is 5+ cover save at base.  With Shadowseer, that goes to 2+.  Re-rollable with fortune.  Now you don't need to worry about that pesky cover thing if you're facing a mostly static foe!

Best,
-BT

[crisis_vyper]

I'm really liking the ideas that are coming out of this thread.
Oh, and here's one that just came to me: Jetbike Farseer leading a group of Harlies.

Why?

Jetbike Farseer gets jink, so is 5+ cover save at base.  With Shadowseer, that goes to 2+.  Re-rollable with fortune.  Now you don't need to worry about that pesky cover thing if you're facing a mostly static foe!

Best,
-BT

Yeah, but the Dark Eldar Archon has a 2+ invul save which is much more sweeter. The cover saves can be negated with a nicely placed flamer template. But definitely an option with the normal Eldar guys.

And do remember that with proper positioning and other conditions, you can have a 2+ cover save on our skimmers. Due to the way vehicles now can take saves from ruins and stuff, a well-positioned angle is +1 to your cover save, but only under certain conditions (pg.75, picture 3). So with that I will just show you what Hero did with a cheatsheet for cover saves for our Dark Eldar units (includes nightfighting bonuses for some cases).

Most terrain + Stealth = 4+ cover save.
Most terrain + Shrouded = 3+ cover save.
Most terrain + Stealth + Shrouded = 2+ cover save.
Ruins + Stealth = 3+ cover save.
Ruins + Shrouded = 2+ cover save.
Most terrain + well-positioned angle + Stealth = 3+ cover save.
Most terrain + well-positioned angle + Shrouded = 2+ cover save.
Jink + Stealth = 4+ cover save.
Jink + Stealth + well-positioned angle = 3+ cover save.
Jink + Shroud = 3+ cover save.
Jink + Stealth + Shrouded = 2+ cover save.
Flat out + Stealth = 3+ cover save.
Flat out + Shrouded = 2+ cover save.
Flat out + Stealth + well-positioned angle = 2+ cover save.

More cover shenanigans here

http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2012/07/de-getting-best-out-of-cover.html#more

[BigToof]

Great find Crisis!
I really do like his drawings, they're a big help with the whole +1 due to "good positioning" sort of deal.  I just wish I could that well
As for the template evaporating the Eldar, I have to admit that is the big, big achilles heel of the Harlie-Star.  Which is why I try not to put too many points into it.  I like it for the Archon and the Farseer, and if I get the Farseer a Jetbike it gives him to option to "get out of Dodge" really fast and hook up with something that isn't being hit my template love.
Agree also about letting the Archon tank hits, but I always get itchy if I rely on the Shadow Field TOO much...
Best,
-BT

[crisis_vyper]

Great find Crisis!
I really do like his drawings, they're a big help with the whole +1 due to "good positioning" sort of deal.  I just wish I could that well
As for the template evaporating the Eldar, I have to admit that is the big, big achilles heel of the Harlie-Star.  Which is why I try not to put too many points into it.  I like it for the Archon and the Farseer, and if I get the Farseer a Jetbike it gives him to option to "get out of Dodge" really fast and hook up with something that isn't being hit my template love.
Agree also about letting the Archon tank hits, but I always get itchy if I rely on the Shadow Field TOO much...
Best,
-BT

I am never good with Vassal programs, but I do use some of his ideas and so far, my record in 6th for the survival of my vehicles is just god-like thanks to his advice. For my games so far, I only lose like 1-3 vehicles per game, which is some god-like survival odds than those of my 5th edition days.

Even people in my LGS are impressed with the ways I get my vehicles to have cover saves with vehicles. This is what I call Eldar shenanigans.....

Edit: Well, use some powder on your body and it would not itch any more.

[BigToof]

One to three ships...  PER GAME??
.
..
...
Consider my mind broken.

You have to do a write-up or at least a detailed explanation.  Is it a matter of board setup, very understanding/overconfident opponents, trickery at its finest, or a combination?

Inquiring Archons want to know!

Best,
-BT

[crisis_vyper]

One to three ships...  PER GAME??
.
..
...
Consider my mind broken.

You have to do a write-up or at least a detailed explanation.  Is it a matter of board setup, very understanding/overconfident opponents, trickery at its finest, or a combination?

Inquiring Archons want to know!

Best,
-BT

All of the above.

I guess it is better if I showed you guys the pictures, or at least one of the pictures of my match.



In this instance, there are several things going on;

Board Setup: In our LGS we tend to roll the D3 for every 2" x2" or 2"x 3". So with the average being 3-4 on the dice roll, we are able to litter the board with a lot of terrain, from the little ones to the large ones.

Hug the shades:  Thanks to several buildings at the center, I am able to shield a majority of my forces and covering them up with at least 25% terrain. The Ravager at the center also benefits from the cover that the Venoms provide. In addition, thanks to a well-positioned angle, the Venom at the bottom left benefits from cover thanks to the Ravager.

Eldar Trickery:  At the bottom center, I am able to use the Nightshields for the Venoms to cut their rapid fire of the bikers by over half, and forced them to fire only one twin-linked shots each.

Overconfident/understanding player:  Upon the initial glanc,e you noticed that he is just foolishly entering into my territory to be shot to pieces by my forces (which is not far from the truth). However upon closer inspection, you will notice that quite a nmber of his forces are moving a lot more than expected as he decided (of was forced) to take advantage of the 4+ save that is conferred by the Jink save to save himself and allow himself. However this in turn made him sacrifice his shooting for getting into range with his forces and also protecting his forces. This in turn saved quite a number of his guys from being obliteratedf every turn but at the same time saved a number of my own guys.

Such is the situation I put him into.....

Rulebook trickery:As you can see in the pics initially, he though that he could just march into Mordor, but my firepower killed off all the meltas and multimelta platforms thanks to them being the closest things to my forces when he turboboosted. Due to the way wounds are allocated these days, I am able to snipe the meltas off one by one.  At the same time, he also understands that if he does not put pressure like that onto me, I will instead march into his Mordor and wreak havoc on all his scouts as we are playing WYSIWYG. If I get behind that upper center terrain, those scouts will suffer the wrath of my venoms/wyches.

In addition, whenever possible I would Focus Fire upon his forces and snipe the foolish ones that are not truly protected by their turboboosting or are out in the open. This is how I killed off the Land Speeder and also a number of the meltagunners and Multimeltagunners on the first two turns. Although this picture is during one of the eariler turns, later in the game I also managed to find a gap in between the upper central terrains and kill off a number of bikers using my Razorwing's elevated position and a big gap upon the upper levels.

In Turn 5 of the game, I managed to get Night Fighting activated, which further protected my forces via Stealth, Shrouding, and jinking.

Miscellaneous: I also made a lot of saves like a bloody bandit.  8)



Essentially Bigtoof, what I did is just take advantage of every single advantage I can get (even the supernatural ones).

[BigToof]

One to three ships...  PER GAME??
.
..
...
Consider my mind broken.

You have to do a write-up or at least a detailed explanation.  Is it a matter of board setup, very understanding/overconfident opponents, trickery at its finest, or a combination?

Inquiring Archons want to know!

Best,
-BT

All of the above.

I guess it is better if I showed you guys the pictures, or at least one of the pictures of my match.



In this instance, there are several things going on;

Board Setup: In our LGS we tend to roll the D3 for every 2" x2" or 2"x 3". So with the average being 3-4 on the dice roll, we are able to litter the board with a lot of terrain, from the little ones to the large ones.

Hug the shades:  Thanks to several buildings at the center, I am able to shield a majority of my forces and covering them up with at least 25% terrain. The Ravager at the center also benefits from the cover that the Venoms provide. In addition, thanks to a well-positioned angle, the Venom at the bottom left benefits from cover thanks to the Ravager.

Eldar Trickery:  At the bottom center, I am able to use the Nightshields for the Venoms to cut their rapid fire of the bikers by over half, and forced them to fire only one twin-linked shots each.

Overconfident/understanding player:  Upon the initial glanc,e you noticed that he is just foolishly entering into my territory to be shot to pieces by my forces (which is not far from the truth). However upon closer inspection, you will notice that quite a nmber of his forces are moving a lot more than expected as he decided (of was forced) to take advantage of the 4+ save that is conferred by the Jink save to save himself and allow himself. However this in turn made him sacrifice his shooting for getting into range with his forces and also protecting his forces. This in turn saved quite a number of his guys from being obliteratedf every turn but at the same time saved a number of my own guys.

Such is the situation I put him into.....

Rulebook trickery:As you can see in the pics initially, he though that he could just march into Mordor, but my firepower killed off all the meltas and multimelta platforms thanks to them being the closest things to my forces when he turboboosted. Due to the way wounds are allocated these days, I am able to snipe the meltas off one by one.  At the same time, he also understands that if he does not put pressure like that onto me, I will instead march into his Mordor and wreak havoc on all his scouts as we are playing WYSIWYG. If I get behind that upper center terrain, those scouts will suffer the wrath of my venoms/wyches.

In addition, whenever possible I would Focus Fire upon his forces and snipe the foolish ones that are not truly protected by their turboboosting or are out in the open. This is how I killed off the Land Speeder and also a number of the meltagunners and Multimeltagunners on the first two turns. Although this picture is during one of the eariler turns, later in the game I also managed to find a gap in between the upper central terrains and kill off a number of bikers using my Razorwing's elevated position and a big gap upon the upper levels.

In Turn 5 of the game, I managed to get Night Fighting activated, which further protected my forces via Stealth, Shrouding, and jinking.

Miscellaneous: I also made a lot of saves like a bloody bandit.  8)



Essentially Bigtoof, what I did is just take advantage of every single advantage I can get (even the supernatural ones).

I consider this an awesome reply, consider yourself karma'd

Best,
-BT

[Chicop76]

4.  Overwatch
Oh, wait, so the Mon'Keigh get to shoot us before we charge in?  How sporting of them!  And there's nothing we can do to stop it?

If you want a fun and evilly beardy trick, use a cheap Wrack squad in conjunction with any other assault-oriented squad to charge into the target that you want. Let the cheap wrack squad to charge in first followed by the true assaulters.

The thing is this; Overwatch can only be declared once by the assaulted unit, and if they do not declare it they will get stuck in CC anyway if the wrack managed to roll that 2d6 required to charge it. The cheap 30 pts wrack unit will suffer all the overwatch results if they choose to do so, and even then their FNP and toughness could take it all. So even if they do not reach their target in assault, they have triggered the overwatch for your true assaulters. Once that overwatch is done, you can just throw them in the 'calvary' and slaughter them all. It s quite fluffy to be honest as well.

Of course it would be preferable if the unit that is used to trigger the overwatch is close enough that it will make the assault thus forcing them to trigger the overwatch.

The other extreme of this particular 'involuntary Overwatch' involves assaulters + tough sons-of-bitches unit charging. Let the tough unit come in and take the bullets for the team and then once they slam in, the assaulters will come in and charge the same unit. There will be much cheese-crying about this.

Some of the units that fit the bill of tough assault units;

Grotesque: They are tough, and if you take Urien, they will be able to beat the shtlk out of everything. 3 wounds each , FNP and  T5 is not to be underestimated.

Beastmaster pack: . The beastmaster pack can take a lot of punishment (5 wounds on the Razorwing flock, 4+ invulnerable on the Khymeara, and the wound-loving brute the Clawed Fiend), and the will still hit like a ton of bricks and in combination with other assault units, it will make that squad feel the pain.

I personally like Hellions + Beastmasters with baron, but it will also be hilarious to see a Grotesque Unit with Urien + Beastmasters/Hellions with Barion slamming into the unit.
It depends entirely on your budget of course, with the wrack sacrificial unit being the cheapest.

The problem with that tactic is that you do not have to over watch, so you can choose not to shoot at the first unit and than use over watch for the second. I have to read more due to 5th asaults happen all at one time, while I am still reading multi combat and how the assault phase is resolved. Although the wracks coming into contact with the squad would negate the oppurtunity to shot at the other squad which I have to read more to be sure. Another problem is you have to send two units to get rid of one.  If the wracks are 12" out they can not even cause said situation above. Not saying it's not a bad tactic, just saying it is not that beardy.

Although it brings to mind tactics like asaulting with the Avatat first and than with another fragile squad afterwards.

[crisis_vyper]

I consider this an awesome reply, consider yourself karma'd

Thanks Bigtoof!



And now Chicop76, the reason why the approach is quite beardy.

The problem with that tactic is that you do not have to over watch, so you can choose not to shoot at the first unit and than use over watch for the second. I have to read more due to 5th asaults happen all at one time, while I am still reading multi combat and how the assault phase is resolved. Although the wracks coming into contact with the squad would negate the oppurtunity to shot at the other squad which I have to read more to be sure.

It is true that you can opt for either unit to become the target of the overwatch if you declare them at the same time such as "I charge unit X and unit Y at Unit Z". But given the general tendencies of people to overwatch the closest units first, it could be quite effective when you declare them one by one. This is because of this particular section of the rulebook;

Declare Next Charge
Once all the models in a charging unit have moved, the player can choose another unit and declare another charge if he wishes - page 22

This means that you can declare one charge at a time now, and this warrants a lot of micromanagement on the part of the attacker as each unit is activated individually. So I can declare first, and see what the opponent do. If they do not declare overwatch, the wracks will get stuck in and the unit will not be able to overwatch as they are now stuck in CC and I get even more bodies to smash stuff with the second wave. If they do, not bad for me as well as I have negated the overwatch with a sacrificial unit and still get the main bulk of the unit that will dish out the paint to enter into the fray.

And BS1 is quite horrible to be honest and based upon the experiences of both overwatching my units and also facing or seeing others overwatching their units, most assaulters will not take too much damage to even bother with the overwatch to begin with unless they are pulling anything beyond the range of 6-7 inches.

So yeah, it is quite a beardy rule.

Another problem is you have to send two units to get rid of one.  If the wracks are 12" out they can not even cause said situation above.

Any self-respecting Dark Eldar player will never send a single unit against a single unit unless that unit is severely weakened or the unit that is assaulting it is tough as nails.

And I did say this earlier;

Of course it would be preferable if the unit that is used to trigger the overwatch is close enough that it will make the assault thus forcing them to trigger the overwatch.

Never ever charge when the unit is 12" inches away with a Wrack as they do not have fleet. Only charge that 12" if you have an unit with fleet.The best distance for non-feet units is actually 6-7 inches, as that is the average of 2d6s. But of course, the closer the better.

And I did say this later;

I personally like Hellions + Beastmasters with baron, but it will also be hilarious to see a Grotesque Unit with Urien + Beastmasters/Hellions with Barion slamming into the unit.
It depends entirely on your budget of course, with the wrack sacrificial unit being the cheapest.

Even I know the mechanic enough to want to make a bigger "Damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. And I suggested the Wrack idea as a more mild version of the idea as some people do not have the point cost to put in a baiting unit that can take the heat like Talos, Bastmasters, and Grotesque. And not to mention that it is quite economical to do so.

Although it brings to mind tactics like asaulting with the Avatat first and than with another fragile squad afterwards.

Already covered in my earlier post when I say tough unit to take the heat first.