Spacecurves’ Kabal of the Bad Touch goes to Adepticon!

Well it’s that time of year again, when 40k players from across the country converge on Chicago to attend Adepticon.  This year I am bringing a new army, Dark Eldar.  

I played Dark Eldar a lot in 4th edition and I love the new codex as well.  The Dark Eldar are still the hardest army to play effectively, but they have SO much potential for skillful play that I am very hooked.  In the months after the new codex came out I spent a lot of time playtesting and planning, trying different army types. I eventually settled on a very “weird” portal army. It looks very “different” on paper, but I absolutely love playing it.

The downside of taking so long to hone in on an army build, is that I didn’t have time to finish painting it!  However, I have a ton of older models and I got all the new ones at least 3-color legal, so I can still use them. I just won’t be winning any beauty contests. I feel bad playing with a mishmash of color schemes and completion levels, but this Dark Eldar army is what I’m excited about playing these days.  Using an army you are pumped about is the single most important factor to both having and fun and winning games.  I will have them all painted for the rest of the tournament season.

Baron S. 105

Haemonculus: webway portal 85
Haemonculus: shattershard 65
Incubi: 7 incubi 154

Raider: shock prow 65
Hellions: 15 hellions, including 1 sgt with stun claw 255
Wracks: 3 wracks 30
Venom: 55
Warriors: 5 warriors with blaster 60
Warriors: 5 warriors with blaster 60
Wytches: 10 wytches, 2 shard nets, hekatrix with agonizer, all with haywire grenades 170
Reavers: 6 bikes, 2 heat lances 156
Scourges: 5 scourge, 2 haywire blasters 130
Scourges: 5 scourge, 2 haywire blasters 130
Chronos: spirit vortex, spirit probe 110
Talos: twin linked liquifier gun, twin linked haywire blaster 110
Talos: twin linked liquifier gun, twin linked haywire blaster 110

So at first glance I’ve got a random collection of units, but they all work great together. Here is the basic breakdown:

Baron Sathonyx: This guy makes hellions troops, makes them stealthy, gives them grenades, helps me go first –  just an all around awesome leader. He doesn’t do a whole lot of damage on his own but for 105 pts, he’s an amazing support character.

Haemonculi: The poor guy with the webway has one job, drop that portal and then go down like Mouse in the matrix. The other Haemonculi usually rides with the Incubi in their raider. The shattershard is soooo evil and fun. With this guy in a raider I look for a chance to shatter enemy characters, or just some TH/SS terminators. My Incubi are usually going after these types of targets anyway, so they work well together. The Haemonculi ensures my Incubi have a FNP, so they are quite durable.

Incubi: These guys usually ride in their raider, providing an assault threat my opponents can’t ignore. I like squads of 7 when it comes to Incubi. On average each one will kill 1 marine when they charge, so 7 marine kills is enough to cripple most enemy squads.

Wracks: The portal delivery system. The portal carrier usually starts with them in their venom, and together they drive up, throw down the portal, and then go to ground and pray for backup. Most games they die turn 1-2, but that’s ok they have a simple job to do. They are also a scoring unit, so in games I don’t need the portal midfield, I can start them in reserve and hide them on an objective all game.

Warriors: Cheap troops that are designed to always be in reserve, and run up to objectives/table quarters later on. I like these guys because while usually they will spend the whole game hiding, if I need extra firepower, a blaster shot and 8 poison shots can help a lot. Versatile, cheap, scoring, and 60 pts for each squad.

Wytches: I love my wytches. These guys look out of place with no transport but they play a vital role. They can threaten vehicles (and crucially, dreadnoughts), big monstrous creatures, and still have an 18inch threat range out of the portal. Any more than 1 squad would be too many, but this one unit is just right.

Hellions: These guys are the all-stars of the army. They are so fast, have so much firepower, and throw so many wounds in cc, they always perform well. Just like any DE unit they are made of paper, so you always have to play smart, play crafty, and play evil. Passive aggressive assault is a crucial tactic with these guys. I love closing the distance, staying in combat during my opponents turn, then finishing the combat or hit and running to be free again on my following turn.

Reavers: These provide something you can’t get anywhere else in a dark eldar army: ap 1 penetrating hits when you really need them. Their speed is also really valuable. I love using these guys to surround the back and sides of enemy transports while my wytches or hellions swarm the front to wreck it and force everyone inside to die in a fire.

Scourges: Oh where to start. I was initially skeptical of scourges, but I now realize they are one of the best units in the DE codex. Why? Two words: haywire blasters. These crazy alien weapons are just awesome. Dark Eldar anti-tank is usually pretty poor, but these guys get around all that. They don’t get many vehicle kills, but you don’t need them to. They are all about tank suppression.

Chronos: Another unit that is really fun and effective. He gives some good anti-MEQ firepower, and is still a monsterous creature so poses basically the same threat to vehicles as a talos. The ability to hand out pain tokens is crucial. Quite often having an extra pain token in the right place makes the difference between victory and defeat. Plus no proper dark eldar player can pass up the opportunity to say “My pain engine just probed your guy and sucked out his soul.”

Talos: Talos rarely get a lot of attention, but I find them to be excellent. They do lots of damage, and are pretty tough. They provide a sort of “anvil” to the rest of my army’s “hammer.” Talos still die like dogs to lascannons (they are no wraithlords sadly) but they are really quite cheap. The icing on the cake is that they bring more haywire blasters to the party, so they can help suppress enemy vehicles. These guys along with my scourges mean I can likely prevent 4 vehicles from shooting each turn.

Taken all together, the army works like this: The portal carrier and the wracks get the portal activated on turn 1. My units are so fast I can threaten my entire half of the table, and 18-24 inches out of the portal. This means that if I get the portal where I want it, I can control practically the entire board, all without having a single model on the table! I can also choose to not use the portal if the scenario requires something different. The versatility of deployment options and overall strategy really appeals to me.

So all this being said, it is still a dark eldar army so it has a glass jaw. One mistake and you can lose outright. Tough matchups for me are Mech IG and “normal” Dark Eldar armies that have lots of transports and shooting. Basically anyone who can outshoot me, because if they stay as far from the portal as they can, I have to survive crossing the distance to get to them. I can still beat these armies, it will just require even more trickery than normal!

So what is my goal for the Adepticon Championships? To win of course! I am really looking forward to the Adepticon mission format, I think it will allow a much wider range of army types to compete since small victories can still move you forward in the tournament. Onward to Chicago, slaves and souls await!