So, this time on List Review we’ve got a Dark Eldar army up for assistance. DE are in a bit of a bad place right now and can certainly use whatever help they can get from their Craftworld brethren, but the trick is avoiding turning it into an Eldar list that happens to have some DE in it. Let’s see if we’re up to the challenge.
So, the starting point is as follows:
DARK ELDAR COMBINED ARMS
1 Lhamean (Venom w/Cannon)
5 Warriors (Venom w/Cannon)
5 Warriors (Sybarite, Warlord, Venom w/Cannon)
5 Scourges (4 Haywire)
5 Scourges (4 Haywire)
5 Scourges (4 Haywire)
1 Voidraven Bomber (Shatterfield Missiles)
1 Voidraven Bomber (Shatterfield Missiles)
ELDAR ALLIED
1 Autarch (Windrider)
3 Windriders (Scatter Lasers)
CORPSETHIEF CLAW
5 Talos (Ichor Injectors, Haywire)
The original poster was looking for a DE primary list, trimmed to 1850pts for use in tournaments, that doesn’t sink so heavily into Eldar allies so as to accidentally become an Eldar list instead. While DE aren’t really the best around, they do have a couple tricks in their sleeve and some of their matchups are really, really good for them. (Unfortunately, some others are just awful.)
The original list really illustrates a big problem for Dark Eldar- they can be built to kill infantry, or they can be built to kill vehicles, but it is extremely difficult for them to do both. Haywire and Lances do well against tougher AVs, but against Rhinos and the like they end up being a bit inefficient- and as that is what predominates these days (thanks to Battle Company), we really need to look for some better solutions to killing tanks. The Autarch is there to bring our reserves in early and the Scat Bikes are, well, Scat Bikes.
Scourges themselves, while decent end up being something of a one-and-done unit due to their extreme fragility; even just regular Bolters will cut them down in pretty short order. For a unit that is costing a non-trivial number of points (and that has all the difficulties involved in reserves, Deep Striking, and 24″ range) it really doesn’t make for a great solution overall, especially if Tau continue to keep their Interceptor options. Similarly, the Voidraven is just too fragile for its cost to really justify itself- especially since the Razorwing is so much cheaper and does practically the same thing.
The Corpsethief Claw is one of the best things that DE have to offer, but if we’re being wholly honest with ourselves the “right” way to run it is probably as an addition to an Eldar force, but obviously we’re going a different route here- however, since we’re going to bring some Eldar allies to the party, we have to at least consider the potential for bringing along some psychic support to make it be able to work a bit harder.
So, how do we leverage our strengths best here? We use each of our parts to do what they’re strongest at. The Dark Eldar can be pretty punishing to infantry and MCs; Eldar have excellent options for everything, but we can cherry-pick the AT ones for our purposes here. And the Corpsethief can give us our melee defense as well as acting as a solution to most types of deathstars (and Wraithknights.)
1845pts
REALSPACE RAIDERS
1 Lhamean (Venom w/Cannon) (75)
1 Lhamean (Venom w/Cannon) (75)
5 Warriors (Sybarite, Warlord, Venom w/Cannon) (115)
5 Warriors (Venom w/Cannon) (105)
1 Razorwing Fighter (130)
1 Razorwing Fighter (130)
1 Raider (Dark Lance) (60)
1 Raider (Dark Lance) (60)
1 Raider (Dark Lance) (60)
ASPECT HOST
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
CORPSETHIEF CLAW
5 Talos (3 Ichor Injectors, 5 Haywire Blaster) (680)
Seven light transports, two airplanes, and the melee deathstar give us pretty solid tools against most things. We keep the Haywire blasters on the Talos so that we have a backup plan for transports, but ideally we aren’t really using them- we could potentially drop them entirely and sink those 50pts elsewhere. Ichor Injectors ensure we can murder a Wraithknight if needed, but the full five of them is a bit needless in this case (and we’re likely to lose 1-2 squad members before getting into combat with it anyways.) The Fire Dragons go in the Raiders- while they’re pretty fragile, we can Deep Strike them as needed (followed by disembark and Run if we have to) to wipe out targets- and five BS5 shots with +3 on the damage table should wipe out most any vehicle pretty easily. Razorwings and Venoms punish infantry units and the Razor’s S6 blasts can also mess with clustered vehicles where needed.
An alternate build that would be more specialized for spamming vehicles onto the table might look something like this:
1850pts
REALSPACE RAIDERS
1 Lhamean (Venom w/Cannon) (75)
1 Lhamean (Venom w/Cannon) (75)
5 Warriors (Sybarite, Warlord, Venom w/Cannon) (115)
5 Warriors (Venom w/Cannon) (105)
5 Warriors (Venom w/Cannon) (105)
5 Warriors (Venom w/Cannon) (105)
5 Warriors (Venom w/Cannon) (105)
5 Warriors (Venom w/Cannon) (105)
1 Raider (Dark Lance) (60)
1 Raider (Dark Lance) (60)
1 Raider (55)
1 Raider (55)
1 Raider (55)
1 Raider (55)
ASPECT HOST
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
ASPECT HOST
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
5 Fire Dragons (Exarch) (120)
THIS is what we mean by “spamming.” Eight Venoms, six Raiders (two with Lances, even) and two different types of guns in total. You’ve got no backup plan to speak of here- if the enemy can weather your firepower, you’ve got basically nothing, but for anyone who can’t you will grind them down pretty hard. Lack of ObSec hurts a little bit in terms of scoring, but on the other hand you have so MANY scoring units that you can really put the hurt on a lot of things. Jink freely with everything; the Fire Dragons aren’t even affected by it! Oh yeah, the Fire Dragons- while their rides are a bit fragile (even with Jinking) they will wreck tanks of any kind and even most other targets as well. Your warlord is fishing for either Conqueror of Cities (on boards where this is applicable) or Target Priority (to effectively twin-link all the guns in range.)