The Dark Footdar have shown they me they are functional, now to fine tune and put them through the paces.
So now that I know feel pretty comfortable with the core of this army, it’s time to begin fine tuning.
A huge thanks to everyone contributing to these ideas and this list. I must say, collaborative list building helps you to see things you missed on your own, and you get ideas and points of view that really open things up. Plus, all the data from people who are or have tried these ideas speeds up the fine tuning process immensely.
Frankie wants a crack at this army and he will be bringing either his Nurgle/Dual Lash/Oblit CSM force (which he’s won multiple tournaments with) or his Lance Spam Dar Eldar, which would be a very interesting match-up as it is so much faster than this list and hits so hard.
| Dark Footdar | 2000pts | ||
| Unit | Description | Size | Cost |
| HQ | |||
| Malys | 1 | 130 | |
| Haemunculous | WWP, Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun | 1 | 100 |
| Haemunculous | WWP, Venom Blade, Liquifier Gun | 1 | 100 |
| Troops | |||
| Warriors | Blaster, Splinter Cannon | 10 | 115 |
| Warriors | Blaster, Splinter Cannon | 10 | 115 |
| Warriors | Blaster, Splinter Cannon | 10 | 115 |
| Wyches | Haywires, Shardnets x 2, Syren, Agoniser | 10 | 170 |
| Elites | |||
| Grotesques | Liquifier, Aberation | 10 | 370 |
| Fast Attack | |||
| Beastmasters | Master x 3, Kymera x 5, Razor x 4 | 12 | 156 |
| Scourges | Haywire Blaster x 2 | 5 | 130 |
| Reavers | Heat Lance x 2 | 6 | 156 |
| Heavy Support | |||
| Talos | Chain Flails, Haywire Blaster | 1 | 115 |
| Talos | Chain Flails, Haywire Blaster | 1 | 115 |
| Cronos | Spirit Probe, Spirit Vortex | 1 | 110 |
| Totals | 88 | 1997 |
I made a few changes.
For one, I dropped the extra points on the Reavers. I want to try them as a dedicated shooting unit, they are a little too squishy in my opinion to invest the extra points in.
I also switched the Heat Lances on the Taloi for the longer ranged Haywire Blasters. The reason being that a savvy player may either surround the WWP or run away from it. In either case, the extra range and increased reliability of the Haywire Blaster really appeals to me. They don’t have the cracking power of the Heat Lance, but they will be more effective more of the time, I think.
I shrunk the Beast squad to a size that would take up less space coming out of the WWP. This was a tough call as I feel they really gain a ton of durability with the bigger unit size, but the points savings allowed me to add a Cronos, which I really just want to try out. Another MC on the field is hardly a bad thing though, especially when it’s shooting Paint Tokens all over the place or soaking firepower. It also helps with redundancy and to mitigate bad dice on reserve rolls.
Lastly, and not surprisingly, we’re switching up the Archon for two Haemis with WWPs, Venom Blades and Liquifier Guns. These guys add versatility in Pain Token distribution, a little more punch in HtH, and they make the unit Fealress, which is important. The Liquifier guns are also nice to soften up targets before assaulting….not that this unit needs it that much! However, if you are going into Draigo and his buddies, every little bit helps.
I stuck with Malys as I really like her anti-psychic powers and deployment tricks.
Other than that, the list is largely the same. He and I will be playing this out this week, so I should have an update on how it performs by Friday or the weekend. Looking forward to trying this out against a top-notch opponent and list!
I am eagerly awaiting the results of this battle. I am happy your going to try the Cronos, I know it wont let you down. I have never taken the spirit probe upgrade because I find it rarely gets into combat. If you have something else you want in the army for the same points as the spirit probe, take that instead.
I hope with the release of 6th edition I can continue to use a WWP list to the same effect.
Yeah, 6th ed is the big question mark, isn’t it? We’ll just have to wait and see. Until then though, we have a good 2 1/2 to 3 months of 5th to enjoy.
Yeah, i would love to see that Cronos kicking ass! I love the idea of it, so hopefully it performs well. I also have a feeling players won’t focus much attention on it as it’s offensive capabilities are so poor. We’ll see!
Interesting list and ideas.
Warriors always seem to be a weak link to me, so it’ll be interesting to see what they do. I guess you’re including them because you need more troops and anti tank in the form of their blasters. I also think the addition of haywire on the wyches are for the same reason.
How about reducing the grotesques to 8, it saves a nice 70 pts, and can be used to sure up the anti tank. Haywire blasters are great suppression but you are very short on tank killing (outside combat). My suggestions (and they’re only that,I haven’t played D.FootDar) are:
Lose the Haywire grenades and Shardnets (-40 pts) – i think the points are better used elsewhere
Add a beastmaster, add 2 flocks, lose 1 kymera (+30 pts)
Reduce the Grotesques to 8 (-70 pts)
Change a warrior unit to 10 wracks (-15 pts) – a tougher troop choice that also gives you another assault option
Lose all 3 liquifier guns (-30 pts) – i’ve found them to be a bit random, and rarely used
Drop the aberation (-10 pts) – do you need him if the unit’s fearless
Change the scourges to 6 reavers with heat lances (+26 pts)
Add 4 Trueborn with 4 blasters (+108 pts)
Overall Change = -1 pt
Although the grotesques are smaller they’re still very tough (especially with characters joined to them). However you have tougher troops, more beasts, and more lance & ap1 weapons.
Rathstar
Those are actually some really good ideas. Another unit of Blasterborn is hardly a bad choice. They’re no Firedragons, but they can give you that added punch you need.
My only problem with Wracks is no Fleet. For a dedicated assault unit that hurts. For a dedicated objective grabbing unit that also can assault, not so bad. They are a LOT more durable than Warriors, for sure.
I have actually found those Warrior squads to be really good. They are versatile and big enough to not be easily destroyed. Plus, they shred infantry and the Blaster makes them a threat to nearly any vehicle on the table, which is a nice bonus.
Liquifier guns are random, I totally agree. The points may be better spent elsewhere as that Grote unit will smash damn near anything it hits.
I think the Liquifier in the Grote squad is worth it just for wound allocation, and so is the Aberation. Haywire on Wyches is a must. If you can get that multicharge off even with only 1 Wyche there is a good chance that the vehicle wont be shooting you up next turn.
Exactly, the Liquifier and Aberation are there for wound allocation. I like Haywires a lot, they make the Wyches really multi-functional.
Haywires on the wyches also keep the tarpit from being tarpitted into oblivion. I can’t count the number of times I had walkers assault me when I didn’t have the grenades.
Both units become a write off because the wyches can only hurt with the agonizer, and with the 4++ dodge on the wyches the walkers have a hard time doing enough to break the wyches.
As for wracks, don’t think of them as a dedicated assault unit, think of them as short range specialists, great for units that get too close to that WWP when they walk out.
Don’t over think Liquifiers they are basically flamers, although flamers with rending would be a closer comparison. Throw a Haemie in with a unit of 10 wracks, you have 3 liquifiers that will ignore marine armour 50% the time, and then follow up with a charge where they go first and re-roll to wound. All running T4 with FNP, another surprisingly resilient unit for a DE list.
Excellent points. I will have to consider some Wracks. A mix of units is always good to diversify your army too, so that you don’t face the rock to your scissors. And I agree on the Haywires helping to keep the Wyches from getting stuck on a Dread.
Hi Reecius,
I’m actually quite interested to see how your mate fairs if he brings double lash, as the Malys-Star laughs at such attempts.
If it’s lance-spam… Well… That’ll be another issue.
BTW, not to nitpick, but your model count for the Beasts should be 12 not 21.
Best,
-BT
Ah yes, dyslexia! I made the change to the beast unit, thanks for pointing that out.
I think Dual Lash/Nurgle/Oblit Chaos will be quite a challenge, actually. T5/FNP units are a cast iron bitch for Space Elves usually, so I am curious to see if they can handle it.
The Mech Deldar would definitely be a tough game, maybe tougher. I would have trouble keeping up with him as he danced around me shooting me up. I think that would be a really good test of this list’s ability to overcome adverse match-ups.
I have to admit I am very intrigued by the idea of foot deldar. There isn’t anyone in our area that has played a foot deldar list yet. Blackmoor played some deldar the other day but it wasn’t a foot list, though I hear he is developing a list.
Is this what you’re thinking of bringing to WGC now? I agree with most of what Rathstar said but I wouldn’t bother with the squad of 4 Trueborn, and I wouldn’t lose the haywire grenades. Haywire grenades prove to be invaluable in deldar lists more often than not.
One of the reasons I like the list is because no one else is really playing it, which makes it fun. Everyone and their mom plays Missile Spam Wolves/Purifier Spam/Draigowing. Variety is one of the things that makes this game fun, might as well exercise it.
Blackmoor is developing a list, and I am curious to see what he comes up with, actually.
No, won’t be taking this to WGC, unfortunately. Not enough time to build and paint it. Plus with 6th looming, I want to see the rules before committing to an entirely new army.
I am the same way right now with my Necron Scythewing army I have been dying to build. I just don’t want to build an army around expensive($$ not points) AV11 vehicles that may become even easier to kill in 6th. I have a sizeable unpainted CSM army still, and a fair amount of Marines sitting around waiting to become Dark Angels so I am excited for either of those new codices as well. I just can’t pull the trigger on any sort of large purchases or time investments in painting until I know what 6th will look like. I am not doom and gloom about 6th but I am conscious of how I spend my money on this hobby of ours!
Have you decided on what to bring to WGC? Last I heard you were still on the fence about footdar.
Exactly! I want to spend money, but not stupidly. I know that I won’t play an army if it’s super weak on the table. I am in a holding pattern for the time being.
I will still buy stuff I know will always be good without hesitation, but something like this that could be made crappy with a rules change is a bit riskier.
If I can get my bugs painted in time, I will bring them. We’re just super busy, so I may not have time.
Hey Reece Ive been working on a similar list. I just wanted to throw some food for thought out there. Have u thought about a 2x haemonculi with 7-8 grotesques wwp delivery unit? You can put 2 wwps down on each side of the board thanks to maximum coherency and the base size of the grots. I put a haemonculi on each end of the unit and it’s roughly a 2 foot long unit that is fearless thanks to the three pain tokens. It’s been working pretty well dawn of war deployment is kind of a pain but can be worked around.
Huckleberry
Yeah, that sounds excellent. I have pretty much shifted to that mode of thought, but with a 10 man unit for the increased resiliency.
I have been putting the WWPs on the end of the unit in order to get maximum board coverage. I think that is the best strategy for sure in most cases.
I like the new list a lot more than the one with the Archon.
The only change I would make is to change the venom blade on one Haemy to something else – really put anything else on him. This gives you another wound allocation group – right now the Haemy’s are identically equipped models and therefore part of the same group.
Actually, the Haemis are independent characters and as such, even with identical equipment, are separate groups for wound allocation purposes.
Hey Reecius, I’ve been watching your blog and watching your WWP list progression. I’m really interested to see how it goes. In all my variations of WWPs, I have not used a full squad of grotesques. I have tried many MANY different variations and can at least add my experience here to help.
What I’ve learned: scourge are fragile. If you are not deepstriking them, jumping them out of a portal potentially will give you headaches if you can’t screen. You don’t want to jump into cover necessarily and risk dangerous terrain tests more than you have to(go go gadget 6++!). 5 bodies just seem to die too easily. I also 2nd a 2nd set of heatblaster bikes. The range on those guys is great and having two units can potentially allow you to disrupt (via bladevane attacks) someone trying to block one of your portals since their attacks hit in the movement phase. Plus as you’ll see, you really will lack for long range anti-tank, getting there will be half the problem.
Another thing that really works well is large squads of wyches. Without the restrictions of raiders, you can bump up to 15 (though I find 12-13 a good number from a pt perspective). With their speed, they have a large threat range and can tie up things until the big monsters can get into range. I usually run 2 or 3 squads of these guys. Since we have no reserve manipulation, you have to play the odds by just having more units when you try and roll reserves.
Speaking of monsters, I find heatlances better. While it’s tempting to take the haywire blaster for the 24″ range, I find it better to just run if you are out of range. No use hanging back with that guy, get him into the fight. Wyches are great for tying up units until he can get there and reinforce.
I would drop the spirit probe from the Chronos. At WS3 S5 and only 2 attacks, he’s really not doing much and I think out of 10 games with that upgrade, he gave out 1 pain token from fighting. Ugh.
My biggest concern in all my portal games is getting the portal into the right place. There’s a lot of factors that go into it. Some opponents you need to be as far forward as possible and others not so much. Of course I guess it depends a bit on what you have coming out of them, but that 1st turn is critical for getting out at least 1 portal and having it ready for reserves on turn 2. Dawn of War really hurts your grotesque’s ability to drop the portal far forward, but that may be less of an issue in your strategy. I went to great lengths to try and mitigate stupid dawn of war in my lists. I really enjoy playing the portal lists, quite a change of pace from running all mech. It’s just so unpredictable with the reserve rolls. I will have to go and try out some grots again and see how they perform. Sorry for the long winded post. Keep up the good work. Thanks.
-T
Hey Tabyrd,
Thanks for the in-depth reply, you post some excellent points. I had not thought about how the Heat Lances would be better against MCs as I was strictly thinking how to crack transports or suppress gun ships. That is a really good point and something that bears consideration. I tend to lean in the direction of transport cracking if I have to make a choice as to one or the other.
Funny, you have not had luck with Scourges, while others have said the same thing about the Reavers. I wonder what factors come into play in determining why that is? I will continue to use both I think for a few more games and see which of them suits me better. I have a felling I will stick with one of each, but we’ll see.
I can see the placement of the portal being a bit of an art. You don’t always need to run forward and place it as close to the enemy as possible. A lot of that touch comes from playing the army a lot and learning what to do against which enemies. I will have to be mindful of where I place the WWPs in my games.
scourge vs bikes.
I’ve played both extensively and I generally lean towards bikes. The difficulty with bikes is that they are a finesse unit and are generally (right or wrong), a big target priority for opponents. You can use this to your advantage sometimes. You are paying a premium for these guys, but their speed advantage cannot be underestimated. The trick is knowing how to use them. One wrong choice, turbo boost them too far forward and they are dead… That’s why I find having two units (even more points!) makes for some tough decisions by the opponent. Scourge are just going to sit there and shoot, mostly at tanks with their two haywire blasters. They are great at suppression, until you play some grey knights and then they are sitting there hoping they roll high. Considering the plethora of grey knights, I’ll pass. You could give them blasters, but damn it just seems that blasters are so finicky and with only 5 bodies, you quickly can start losing guys.
Meanwhile the bikes can pop tanks, fly fast over infantry, fly fast and contest, and in a pinch, aide in an assault. Everyone forgets they have the eldar jetbike move in assault, so you have to become an artist in judging distances with them. They live and die by their cover saves and are prime flamer bait without a token. And with the turbo boost rules, you have to think ahead in terms of if you want to turbo the next turn when you move them. Jump them into terrain and you’ve just said no turbo-boosting next turn. More difficult to use, but when you are lacking for range, the bikes give you a great extension, especially out of a portal. People do crazy things when those bikes boost 36″ across the board. Ooh look, I’m now on the back board edge behind your long fangs! If for nothing else than changing up my opponent’s plans, they are worth it. If heatlances aren’t your thing, there’s a case for blasters (what, blasters on bikes?!). If you are not within 9″, that S6 AP1 shot doesn’t look nearly as good. Staying at range and popping blaster shots at 18″ makes getting ‘close’ less of a gamble with your 6″ assault move back. YMMV, getting the bikes to work is tricky, but when they do, they are immense fun.
I know identical models are considered a single wound group. I am not aware of a special dispensation for this granted to IC,
I will have to reread the IC rules – but I believe I they count as a single wound allocation group for the purposes of allocation and removing casualties. I asked this question at dakka in the context of Khorne Heralds, and they seem to support this interpretation thus far. Naturally that may change – either way I look forward to hearing how the new iteration works.
I really like Lady Malys in this list, she is the HQ choice that jumped out at me as being very interesting when I read the codex.
ICs become there own units during combat, and as such, can only be hit by attacks directed at them. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about grouping wounds onto them simultaneously. Now for shooting though, I can see that perhaps there is an argument there. I will have to look further into it also.
Ewwww… Cronos are icky. Id honestly recommend 2 scourge units over the reavers; cheaper moneywise, and cheaper pointswise.
Keep up the good work reece and get back to more dakka reps!
I want to like the cronos! haha, I will give it a fair shake and see how it plays out. It may not be worth the points.
And yeah, we will get back on the Dakka reps, been so busy lately we haven’t been able to.
Hi Recius,
Just as an experiment, I told my friend to make a Foot DE list with WWP, and he did a modified version at 1500pts.
I played a pretty hard SW army with my usual Thunderwolves and Long Fang nonsense.
We played Annihilation and Pitched Battle with some LoS blocking terrain.
The Result?
He beat me like a one-eyed kitten.
Seriously, putting a WWP BEHIND a piece of LoS terrain with Scourges or other guys that can leap out and over is just rude. He used Hellions w/o the Baron, and it worked if only because they tied up my Long Fangs and I just couldn’t do much to his wall of Grotesques.
I even got my TWC to charge on Turn 2, but it didn’t matter, as he was fearless from his Pain Tokens and he just beat my head in.
One thing I did notice, is that if you do go with a standard Archon, the Soul Trap is kind of invaluable in terms of a deterrent, as the only real things that can stop you (besides dreads) are MCs and ICs… both of which will power up the Archon. I ended up doing this… twice and then well… It didn’t go so well.
So yeah, next time, I’m running away. Foot DE is mean!
Best,
-BT
As I’ve said, I’ve tried tons of variations of lists. One of my favorites came from a light mech delivery list. I had a 4man wrack squad in a venom and a 8 man wrack squad in a raider. Everything else was basic foot stuff. Even grots will still fit. The raider had enhanced sails as a basic. I then ran an archon w/portal + an haemonculus ancient (what what!?) with that 8 wrack raider squad. I had a second haemonculus w/liquifier + portal for the small wrack venom squad. The idea being that I could hide the small venom hopefully out of LOS and move 12 and deploy 1st turn. The raider can then fly fast (sails) to position for the 2nd portal deep in the enemy lines. Even if (when) it explodes, you are now able to move out, drop the portal and still assault. I gave the archon a PGL and a huskblade and toyed around with a huskblade or agonizer on the ancient and something fun like a shattershard. With two tokens to start (or possibly 3 if the archon’s drugs roll PT), you def have furious charge. Assuming everything goes off right, you have a WS5 ancient at I6 and 8 wracks at I5 attacking plus the archon. Also, you now have two portals widely spread to give you good coverage. If you go 2nd and fear the raider getting shot up, you can put it in reserve and still deploy it far forward from reserves for a late portal drop (if anything is left in reserve).
I’ve played around with variations of this where that ancient is just a regular haemo and he jumps out to join a unit of infiltrating mandrakes, etc. It lends itself to DOW deployment and gives you flexibility. If you don’t need to deploy forward, you can just deploy the raider in reserve as a disposable ram to tankshock. Lots of fun combos.
Thanks for the information, Tabyrd. You have a lot of good data there for us to consider.
The JSJ on the bikes is awesome, for sure. As a long time Eldar player, I know how useful/annoying that ability can be. Particularly with heat lances or blasters. I think, as you said, this is a unit that just requires a lot of practice to use right. They have a lot of useful tools in their toolbox, but they are exceedingly fragile. Definitely a finesse unit.
s for Scourges w/ Haywires vs. Grey Knights, that is an excellent point that I had failed to consider. As a suppression unit, they will be considerably less useful against units with Fortitude (curse you Mat Ward!). Considering how saturated the meta is with GKs, that is definitely something that needs to be considered.
Scourges have to date worked very well for me so I think I will continue to use one unit of each, but I can see how the Reavers may be the better choice for some people.
I considered running the mobile WWP delivery units in vehicles, but that is a really terrain dependent strategy. If you go second on a board with little to no terrain, you’re hosed in a big way. The Grotes allow you to reliably drop those portals come hell or high water which is why I like them.
Hey Reecius, I hate getting shot down and losing troops in a firey wreck……So i’ve also working on a webway list for an upcoming tournament but really hadn’t thought about using Grotesques on foot…..AND Malys……nice.
I’m running Haemie/Wracks/Venom but of course if the cover allows it, I will attempt to field Haemie hidden on his own to deploy…..
My own playtesting has proven that it is such a fun way to play DE, and it really does take the opponent by surprise, which I think is the biggest advantage.
That sounds cool too. You should let us know how your test games go!
You are giving away the secrets!!!