750pt Dark Eldar list - possibly for doubles tourney with Eldar.

[Stewie Griffin]

Hi all,

as title really - there's apparently a doubles tourney coming up and me and a friend are thinking of entering, we're thinking of doing either Eldar-Eldar, Eldar-Dark Eldar, or Eldar-tau. With me being either Eldar, Dark Eldar or Tau.

As you might expect I've been making a bunch of lists from those armies to see which would be best to run at the tourney, and here's what I've come up with for DE - tell me what you think

HQ

Archon - Agoniser & Clone Field - 100

Troops

10 Warriors - Splinter Cannon - 100

10 Warriors - Splinter Cannon - 100

2 Raiders - Splinter Racks and Night Shields, Disintegrator Cannons - 160

4 Incubi - Klaivex and Onslaught - 118

Venom - Night Shield & Splinter Cannon - 75

Ravager - Night Shields & Dark Lances - 115

Total = 768

Thoughts? Obviously we're a bit over, and what I'm thinking is that to get the points down I should either drop the Klaivex, or drop the incubi altogether and get a different squad to accompany the Archon.

The basic idea for each unit is as follows:-

Warriors in Raider - mobile fire-base, always moving, always shooting, weakening units so that the Archon and Incubi can take them on and destroy them for a quick and easy pain token - always hugging cover behind buildings, trees, etc. I got Disintegrator cannons in place of Dark Lances on the Raiders because I wanted to maximise shooting, but with the ravager as my only other source of lances, I might well swap that back to lances on the raiders too so that I've got a good amount of anti-tank power.

Incubi, Archon and Venom - Close Combat troops - these guys will shoot with the raiders untill a unit is weak enough to assault from the Venom, (I'm talking 5-7 troops so that I can kill 'em off in maximum 2 turns), then when they're dead, will get back in their venom and resume shooting/hugging cover.

Ravager - my anti-tank - pretty simple really, I might hold this thing further back behind cover, using it's greater range and night shields to simply pop out from behind cover, destroy a tank, and then hide again, other than that that's about it for this unit - after the tanks are dead, they'll start concentrating on heavy infantry and monsters, we're talking termies, Carnifexes and so on which the other squads might find difficult to get rid of, even if it is a splinter weapon spam.

So yeah thoughts? Suggestions etc? This is my first DE list I'll be honest, so I'm not expecting much, but I'm hoping I done good for a first attempt - just so you know also, this tourney we're doing is 1 HQ and 1 Troop choice for each player, rather than the minimum of 1 hq 2 troops for normal games, however I've gone for 2 because I think its better and also wanted a legal list for regular gaming anyway.

Thanks

[Rarity Declis]

First thoughts:

I can say nearly nothing with certainty until I see your friend's list. Otherwise, it's all guesses.

At a lower points level, it's better to go with efficient anti-infantry and anti-tank. As such, drop the Raiders and units of 10 Warriors. My advice would be 3 units of Warriors with Blasters, in a Venom each with an Extra Splinter Cannon. You go from 24 splinter shots and 6 Disintergrator Shots to 24 splinter shots from the Venoms, 24 splinter shots from Warriors and 3 Blaster shots, and you have 3 objective taking Troops choices. You can still give them all Night Shields, and not spend many more points than your current choice.

Regarding the Archon, an Agoniser is a good choice, a Clone Field is a bit too situation to be useful, and I'd advise a Shadow Field. I'd also heavily advise a Huskblade and Combat Drugs. Heavily advise. But it's all basically "what do you like?". The Huskblade really helps dealing with enemy HQ's, and multi-wound models, and when combined with the high I, can drop HQ's very quickly.

Regarding Elites, I am a big fan of Incubi, and they make good anti-armoured infantry units. However, a Klaivex is a lot of points, and you will need them, so drop him for now. An Archon with decent upgrades and 4 Incubi will either mince a unit completely, or you picked a stupid fight. A Venom is always good.

Regarding the Ravager, cheap and cheerful.

[Stewie Griffin]

Thank you for your input

1) Lemme just work through the shots with the warriors and venoms just so I'm clear

Warriors in Raiders: - 2 groups of 10 warriors all with splinter rifles and 1 splinter cannon each will throw out...26 shots a turn yes? 2 bits of 9 for the rifles + 2 bits of 4 from the cannons? Add in the raiders' D cannons and we're looking at another 6, so thats 32 shots a turn yes

Warriors in Venoms with Blasters: 3 groups of 5 warriors with Splinter Rifles will throw out 12 rifle shots a turn (due to the 5th guy in each squad being equipped with a blaster), plus the heavy 6 from the undermounted Splinter Cannon on the Venom, plus another 6 from the upgraded splinter cannon equals... 36 splinter shots from the vehicles - so thats... 48 shots a turn from the venoms!

I'll be honest and say I hadn't realised that, and I get a bunch of 18' Lance shots going as well. Unsure of Blasters though if I'm honest... do you think it'd be safe, even with night shields, to get that close to an enemy? I mean, if I got 18' away even with night shields, and they had a 24' gun, they can immediately fire at me with small arms, and in the case of a tactical squad (which I generally take to be the squad I'm most likely to meet with the popularity of marines) that could mean that the venom could be brought down very easily...

The other question is whether or not I drop the more iconic raider , although I'm happy to test the multiple venom one - and it might even prove better, as they enemy would have multiple things to shoot at.

2) Thank you also for your comments regarding the Archon - when I was building him I decided I wanted to offset his crappy S 3 with something decent like a poison/power weapon, and the agoniser fit the bill nicely. The Shadow field I'll be honest and say I'm unsure on... as this guy is a close combat unit first and foremost, the only time I can see the shadow field becoming effective is if I'm fighting something which has a power weapon of some kind, say a captain, officer, or sergeant - while that may come up more often than I think, I think I prefer the security against multiple attacks (regardless of whether they go through my armour or not) so on that one I think I'll stick with my clone field - it's also 10pts cheaper . The Huskblade is certainly...an interesting idea - I suppose it boils down to the balance of wounding on a certain amount (e.g. a 2+ or a 4+) or taking the risk of wounding on a 5+ (again going off MEQs) and killing outright... what's the sort of "limit" as it were, that str 3 can feasibly take on with the Archon's number of attacks? Are we talking simply things like Captains? Or do we get into the realm of stuff like Carnifexes and the like? Combat Drugs I assume, just gives him access to the roll before the battle to see the effects of drugs yes?

3) Thanks for your comments regarding the Klaivex

I'll make some changes and re-post the list.

[Vyper]

Clone fields are very hit and miss and while they can potentially cancel out 3 attacks, there's only a 1 in 3 chance of that happening a turn.
Night shields on the Venoms will make quite a difference, they are far better than they may appear, especially if your opponent is not up to scratch on dark eldar wargear. 

As for the Archon's weapon, it really depends on what you want him to do. Agonisers are great against any toughness, low wound models, such as MEQs, but it will start to suffer should you run into multi wound creatures, such as Ogryns and Tyranid Warriors, as statistically speaking an agoniser will most likely cause 2 wounds and wow-betide you if you run into anything with an invulnerable save.

Lets say you attack a space marine captain with your Archon, with an agoniser you will statistically do 1 wound a turn and the captain will hit you back about the same (Excluding clone field), while if you attack him with a huskblade you will have a 0.67% chance to instant death him before he even hits you, higher if you take the drugs (which for such a low cost are well worth taking). With the Archon you want to kill stuff before it can fight back and bear in mind that as an independent character he can be picked out in combat.

Weapon choice is still really just up to you though, but regardless of what you choose, look out for units like genestealers. Without a shadowfield, anything that is fast, has a good Ws and a high number of attacks will tear you to pieces. For the price of your Archon + incubi, a squad of 13 genestealers can be taken, all with rending claws (!) and I can assure you if you meet them head on in combat, that will not end well for you.

Just a few tips there, hope it helps.

[Stewie Griffin]

Cheers

My only concern with the Huskblade is that it is fairly expensive... but then again, there is the chance to insta-kill pretty much anything...

Thank you also for the heads-up against Genestealers (and their equivalents) - suffice to say I had absoloutely no plans to charge 'em, unless I was feeling lucky and or ballsy, and they had been weakened...and I thought the Dice Gods were looking down upon me and smiling...and I'd sacrificed a chicken to them that morning, and I had a lucky rabbit's foot with me... then I might consider charging Genestealers.

I'll make those changes now then.

EDIT: Oh, as a matter of interest, in place of the incubi what do you make of Kabalite Trueborn instead? Sure they dont have power weapons but they've got the same number of attacks and can get an ungodly amount of fire-power for their unit size -  what I was thinking was as follows:-

4 Trueborn - 2 with Shardcarbines, 2 with Splinter Cannons - 78, Mounted in a Venom with Nightshields and an extra Splinter Cannon - 75

That Squad can not only assault after it's unloaded all it's shooting (24 shots in total I believe, 25 if we count the Archon's splinter pistol), but also has the same number of attacks as Incubi, is cheaper, and can actually shoot.

Thoughts? I'm just making the changes now

EDIT:

Right

HQ

Archon - Husk Blade & Clone Field - 115

Troops

Kabalite Trueborn (4) - 2 Shard-carbines, 2 Splinter Cannons - 78

Kabalite Warriors (5) - Blaster - 60

Kabalite Warriors (5) - Blaster - 60

Venom (3) - Night Shields & Splinter Cannon - 225

Reaver jetbikes (3) - Blaster - 81

Ravager - Night Shields & Flicker-Field - 125

Total = 744

Thoughts? I've sacrificed some significant CC potential in the form of the Incubi for (what I feel to be) a massive increase in shooting at the expense of str 4 power weapons - and this is 10pts cheaper, I've got 6 Darklight Lance weapons in there, all of which are able to zip around the battlefield, and I've even managed to buff the ravager's survivability (since i had just under 20pts left to spend so I bought that).

Oh, can I ask, how do invul saves work on vehicles? When do you take them? What sort of damage can they avoid?

Thanks

[Infinity_Drive]

Have you considered a court of the Archon for your HQ? I don't have the 'dex handy so i can't tell you what you'd get for the same price as the Incubi, but giving the Archon a retinue means that he no longer counts as an Independent Character in CC, so the enemy has to get through the whole unit before it can attack him. If you can afford it, i'd take 2 Sslyth and 2 Medusae, as this gives you a balance of relatively tough troops (the Sslyth) and modest short range shooting capability (the Medusae).



I_D

[Vyper]

Have you considered a court of the Archon for your HQ? I don't have the 'dex handy so i can't tell you what you'd get for the same price as the Incubi, but giving the Archon a retinue means that he no longer counts as an Independent Character in CC, so the enemy has to get through the whole unit before it can attack him. If you can afford it, i'd take 2 Sslyth and 2 Medusae, as this gives you a balance of relatively tough troops (the Sslyth) and modest short range shooting capability (the Medusae).



I_D

2 Sslyth and 2 Medusae is an illegal choice.
Everyone forgets (I did on two consecuative lists ) that all 4 retinue members have to be taken atleast once and both the ur-ghul and Lhameans are worthless.
I'd stick with the trueborn.

[Stewie Griffin]

Hm, so I'm assuming that in this list you think Trueborn would be better than Incubi - since you said stick with them?

And thanks for the suggestion of the court - honestly though I'm not keen on the idea, granted they probably are decent, but I dont like the models or fluff I'm afraid, basically it's just one of those units that I just dont want to touch - but thank you for the suggestion anyway!

[Infinity_Drive]

Have you considered a court of the Archon for your HQ? I don't have the 'dex handy so i can't tell you what you'd get for the same price as the Incubi, but giving the Archon a retinue means that he no longer counts as an Independent Character in CC, so the enemy has to get through the whole unit before it can attack him. If you can afford it, i'd take 2 Sslyth and 2 Medusae, as this gives you a balance of relatively tough troops (the Sslyth) and modest short range shooting capability (the Medusae).



I_D

Where is that mentioned in the codex? It's not that i don't believe you, but that seems very stupid. Would have been cool, but yeah, stick to the Trueborn Stewie

2 Sslyth and 2 Medusae is an illegal choice.
Everyone forgets (I did on two consecuative lists ) that all 4 retinue members have to be taken atleast once and both the ur-ghul and Lhameans are worthless.
I'd stick with the trueborn.

[Vyper]

Have you considered a court of the Archon for your HQ? I don't have the 'dex handy so i can't tell you what you'd get for the same price as the Incubi, but giving the Archon a retinue means that he no longer counts as an Independent Character in CC, so the enemy has to get through the whole unit before it can attack him. If you can afford it, i'd take 2 Sslyth and 2 Medusae, as this gives you a balance of relatively tough troops (the Sslyth) and modest short range shooting capability (the Medusae).



I_D

Where is that mentioned in the codex? It's not that i don't believe you, but that seems very stupid. Would have been cool, but yeah, stick to the Trueborn Stewie

2 Sslyth and 2 Medusae is an illegal choice.
Everyone forgets (I did on two consecuative lists ) that all 4 retinue members have to be taken atleast once and both the ur-ghul and Lhameans are worthless.
I'd stick with the trueborn.

You have failed at quoting ID.

All 4 members of the court are listed as '1 - the maximum number', (1 - 3 for the Sslyth for example). It makes the court pointless as Lhamaens only effect the Archon's splinter pistol and ur-ghuls are just worthless. If the Lhamaen affected the sslyth's weapons, it wouldn't be too bad, but they don't, they only affect the Archon...

[Stewie Griffin]

Yeah that doesn't really make sense to me... you'd imagine that even if they all hated each other they'd still be working together to keep the Archon alive wouldn't you...