40K: The Dark Eldar Verdict

1. Kabal heavy, large squads, no Haemonculi
2. Haemonculi w/ Wracks, min squads, more Trueborn

Here’s what I’ve tried so far:

• Asdrubael Vect – Worth the points imo.  You’re really paying for the 4+ to seize and the better Agonizer over the standard Archon combo.  His blast weapon definitely rocks if you can hit a chunk of units with it.  The best thing about Vect is that just by having him in your list, your opponent will deploy defensively even if he gets the first turn.  The 4+ to seize adds a lot of mind games and expands your opening strategies quite a bit.  It also means you can be aggressive with your army’s deployment if you don’t get first turn.

• Archon w/ the Huskblade, Soul Trap combo – I personally think this is a very hit or miss option.  In one of my games, my opponent basically fed me a Master of the Forge and I was able to go through 2 HQs in quick succession.  If your opponent is fielding Rune Priests or Sanguinary Priests, these are key targets to go after and feed the thirst of your blade.  The only thing about this is that you will sometimes face matchups that doesn’t offer any good options to ID; such as a 3++ Wolf Lord or praying for 6s on a T6 MC when you don’t have the right drug.

• Archon w/ SF, Agonizer – Great use of points right here.  Cheap, effective, does good damage and has excellent survivability.

• Succubus w/ Agonizer – Basically the same thing as the Archon, but cheaper points wise.  You basically take her if you can’t afford the Archon listed above.

• 10x Warriors w/ Blaster and Splinter Cannon in a Raider – Great unit, a lot of anti-infantry shots and the Blaster shot from 18″ makes it the DE’s version of the Grey Hunter squad.  You can use this squad to drive by units and do a lot of poisoned damage, use the Splinter Cannon and Dark Lance to snipe from far away, or get up closer and use the Blaster and Dark Lance to threaten vehicles.  The only downside is the lack of FNP and if the transport goes down in flames, your Ld.8 dudes are in trouble.

• 10x Wyches w/ Agonizer and Blast Pistol in a Raider – Great unit so far.  With the right combat drugs, you can tear a lot of things apart, even MEQ.  Vs. GEQ, you will tear them apart without an issue.  The same problem with transports arise here as well.  Without the FNP, you will seriously sweat every time a transport blows up.

• Wyches with Haywire Grenades – Not sure if they’re worth the points yet because I plan on using Wyches for CC specialists and keeping things in combat.  Haywire Grenades is points invested in the wrong direction but it does increase their versatility.

• 4x Trueborn in a Raider – Great!  They’re really useful because you can’t ignore these guys if you’re running mech.  I would definitely take them in a Venom if there was a f’n model for these.

• Ravagers – Absolutely worth it with Night Shields and Flicker Fields.  Adds a lot of firepower to your army and has the same slim profile as the Raider.  Great for working around LoS, gaining cover and opening optimal fire lanes.

Here’s what my friend has tried:

• Haemonculi with Wyches in a Raider – Great unit.  Even with the explosions that threaten Wyches, the FNP greatly decreases the number that can die.  The Liquidfier or extra Agonizer on the charge also does wonders for combat results.

• 20x Warriors w/ 2x Splinter Cannons in cover with FNP – Pretty ridiculous unit right here.  It gets set up and acts as a back-field point capper or mid-field support platform.  The amount of poisoned shooting this thing puts out is just wrong!  Haven’t tried the WWP with this yet, but performance/cost/durability of the unit is there.  No one is going to invest dedicated shooting into this unit, you want solid CC in order to tackle it and it’s most likely going to be a trap!

• 5x Wracks in a Raider – Cheap, scoring, anti-tank that can get out and do decent CC.  The Liquidfier is there to threaten any type of infantry on the table and the unit is dirt cheap so there’s a lot of them on the table.  Venoms might be a better choice because of the lower profile, but the Dark Lance has been very helpful on getting enemy troops out of their transports.

• 3-4x Trueborn w/ Blasters in a Venom w/ 2x Splinter Cannons – Small profile kill squad that can be given long-range anti-infantry options (12 Poisoned shots from 36″) or 3x S8 AP2 Lances from 18″ once you close the game.  The flexibility and cost of this unit is just fantastic.  It’s pretty much the most flexible unit in the entire book for the elite slot.  There’s simply no better option.

• Ravager w/ 3x Disintegrators – Since my friend plays the MSU style of play and has min squads of resilient troops riding Raiders, he’s able to keep up with the amount of Dark Lances I can put out with just 2 Ravagers.  With that said, he runs his third Ravager with Disintegrators to give him anti-Elite infantry flexibility and firepower.  Very smart use of points.

I’ll tell you right now that I’m having lots of fun with this codex.  There are lots of options and everything seems to be do-able.  We still haven’t tried a bunch of stuff yet, but all our games have been pretty positive.  It’s safe to say that we’re doing pretty well score wise.

As for stuff that I fear (as a Dark Eldar player), here’s what you should know:

• Massed S6-S7 shooting; Shuriken Cannons or Autocannon spam – This is ridiculous to handle with Dark Eldar.  A lot of glancing and pen shots will disable or wreck a good amount of vehicles and the S value denies FNP on all of our troop/standard units.  AC/LC Predators absolutely wreck DE vehicles.

• Walkers – Any kind of Walker that can take on Agonizers without caring will shut down Wracks, Warriors, Incubi, Wyches, Trueborn, Bloodbrides..etc.  I know full well that Wyches can take Haywire Grenades, or your precious little Archon can take Haywire Grenades, but hitting on 6s, needing 6s to pen and then praying for a solid result means very little to the Dreadnought you’re stuck in combat with.  Most glancing results will not bail you out of combat and once you’re stuck in combat with a Walker, you’re pretty much there all game unless you roll really well.  I hate hate hate Walkers.

• AV12 wall – Yes, we all saw this coming.  If you put enough vehicles on the table that can trade shots better than you can, you’re going to run into trouble.  Mech Guard is still a very hard matchup for Dark Eldar and they weren’t winning  vs. Guard with 2x as many Dark Lances before the new codex.

• Light terrain – If the terrain on the board is light, or medium, Dark Eldar will suffer a little more.  A lot of people say that everyone benefits from cover but I disagree.  Sure, everyone benefits from having a 4+ cover save, but no one in the game needs to deny line of sight and obtain cover in sneaky ways like Dark Eldar.  They are the truest glass cannon in the game and on a board with lighter terrain, it pretty much turns into a turkey shoot.

Well, that’s all I got so far.  There’s still a bunch of options to try out and I’m dying to give ’em a go.  The Duke is going to be a great buy because of his cost and Voidraven Bombers may or may not be worth it.  All I know is, it’s going to take a very long time for players to discover the “winning” build with Dark Eldar.  Everything seems to do well if you play the army right and that’s exactly what I’m looking for in an army book.

To check our some of my battle reports or army lists, check out my blog here.  What are you guys seeing on the table from the Dark City?