Monday, November 8, 2010

Thoughts on some Dark Eldar list

I have been going through the codex working on some list that I would like to play at the 1850 point level. When I am building some of these list my first thoughts; are it needs to deal with Guard and Space wolves in a tournament setting everything else from there will be covered naturally by the codex. That being said here are some list.

1850 Webway Portal


Duke
Harlequinns x6 with Kiss and shadowseer
Haemonculus with webway
Haemonculus with webway
10 wyches with two shard neds and hetrix with agnoizer
10 wyches with two shard neds and hetrix with agnoizer
20 warriors with two splinter cannons
Talos with haywire blaster
Talos with Haywire blaster
Talos With Haywire blaster or just a parasite with spirit vortex

6 reavers with two heat lances
6 reavers with two heat lances

Beast Master unit with
5 Khaymere
1 clawed fiend
6 Razorflocks

I might have to do a little bit of math to drop 9 points but I can drop a Wyche or something to make the point levels.

Idea of the list though would be to deploy first or second it doesn't matter. Hold everything in reserve expect for Harelquinns with Two Haemonculus. First turn they move 6 inches and drop two webway portals in the middle of the table. They should be protected with the Shadowseer Veil of Tears ability. once from there Talos just come out and lock done certain threats from either IG or Space wolves and get into combat as fast as they can. 20 man warriors squad coming out with the Duke should wreck shop and kill a whole tactical squad if it can catch them out in the open. The Reavers should be able to go after certain units that need to die with precision coming out of the webway. Beast Master unit will be the HTH counter unit which should get rid of most things. I like this list because it doesn't mater if I go first or second and hedges out some of the risk that I need to worry about going against IG. The one thing I don't like about it though is I am unsure how well it will play against Guard and coming in piece meal. Talos can be strong but they can also be slow so its kind of a toss up.

Second list

Taking the leafblower concept to the Dark Eldar

This is list is more of a practice of list building and thought around the army.

1850 list
Ancient Haemonculus
huskblade, soul trap, Shattershard

Trueborn x4 with 4 blasters
Venom with Splinter cannon

Trueborn x4 with 4 blasters
Venom with Splinter cannon

Trueborn x4 with 4 blasters
Venom with Splinter cannon

Wracks x10 with two Liquifer gun
raider
Wracks x10 with two Liquifer gun
raider
Wracks x10 with two Liquifer gun
raider
Wracks x9 with Liquifer gun
Raider

Ravger
Ravger
Ravger

Optional:
6 reavers with two heat lances
or
take off soul trap and go with
5 Incubi in Venom.

The list is going back to point and click and putting as many weapons in the list as possible:

Count is
12 Blasters
13 dark Lances
36 or 48 Poison shots

80 Wracks HTH attacks with FNP

The list will give you some options but will be very fragile to Guard players. Depending on Deployment and how things go you could loose a majority of your units in the first turn but there are a lot of variabiles that come into that when playing Guard. Against other list such as Tyranids, Tau, Necrons, Daemons, Marines, Wolves , Blood angels they will have a tough time breaking down this list. Though, I can see Mech Spam Eldar giving this army a problem also.



Just to throw some quick concepts up and what I have noticed is that in an 1850 point level or smaller the Hellions are almost too expensive. If you take the Baron and 15 Hellions your spending 360 points on that unit. Now that unit is great don't get me wrong but you could spend those points more wisely in a Beast Master unit or in other areas where you might get a better bonus or another unit can serve a better function in your army. If you are going to do the Hellions your not taking much else so you need to either commit to that unit or go with something else. If you want to serve as a troop killer or MC killer your better spending those points on 20 warriors with two splinter cannons. You would get 30 shots at 24 Inches and if something came in range to rapid fire you would get 48 poison shots which is better then what the Hellions can do but Hellions bring that cross function in melee with the Hellglavies. If you want to take a unit instead of Hellions that can purely do Melee the Beast Master unit sitting at 250 points is a cheaper option that is more effective. It would still have 10 poison shots but the 5 khaymera , 6 razorflocks and one clawed fiend can put a lot of damage out and still take a beating.

These are just some thoughts and sorry if it seems like a ramble.

6 comments:

  1. I assume you meant to put some Haemonculi in the second list, to make the Wracks count as troops. Anyways, interesting lists, but I'm a bit too tired to think about it now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Opps good catch was supposed to be Ancient haemonculus instead of Archon

    ReplyDelete
  3. The first list looks good.

    But i don't think the second list will work due to the complete lack of staying power of the shooty units.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I really can't see any way of getting any decent staying power into the Dark Eldar, but I think I am going for a balanced hybrid of aerial assault shooting and webways for the beasts and reavers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I'm going to stay with some friends for most of saturday and will be doing DE playtesting all day.I'll kick both lists to 2K (why doesn't anyone want to play less then 2K anymore?) and let you know how it goes.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think 2k is popular now because the 5ed codices has seen a rise in points for most units. If you play 1850 or less your armies are quite a bit smaller than what you used to see. Orks & IG still have lots of cheap units so they can still field large armies. Even Tyranids most units cost a lot more now.

    Good thought process on your lists Nick. WWP will certainly be a fun army, not sure yet how strong it will be versus well played top tier lists (IG, SW & BA).

    Second list I am seeing lots of these spammed lists for de, nothing much new here and to be honest my gut feeling is it wont be able to go toe to toe versus strong list. Lances are just not that strong versus armor - they can shake & stun well, but penetrating not so good...

    67% to hit
    33% to penetrate
    33% to wreck or destroy

    That's 7% when you take everything into consideration to wreck or destroy and that's cut in half if your target has a cover save - 3.5% - terrible! This is why I think you'll need Wyches running across the table or spilling out of raiders to finish off with their haywire grenades. It's going to be tough versus heavy mech lists so no EZ button as yet.

    G

    ReplyDelete