Joe Wrote:
> Alright, I started following your blog a couple of weeks ago. I like the straight talk and no nonsense that you put out; I'm like that too normally. Yeah, I follow BOLS too and the B&C but I take everyone's word with a grain of salt; kinda why I'm one of those people the State of Florida call "Non-Party Affiliated". Anyways, I started collecting Dark Eldar seriously this past November because I wanted the dark horse and something different from what was always being run at my store (all Marines, no Xenos) and am finally getting around to really working on my army, I've done the list building and such and think I've got something pretty workable...that I'd consider taking to 'Ard Boyz if I'd had more practice with the army, but I'm more comfortable with my Marines. Anyways, going through the Codex repeatedly and such I just can't figure why Dark Eldar are so scary and how they are effective. I've been at tournaments when they've won, didn't play them though. I hear about how great they are in close combat, but I just don't see it in the numbers.
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> I see 3 good weapons" Dark Lances, Disintegraters, Blasters. Splinter weapons are effectively useless; their low strength make them about as effective at causing wounds as a squad of ork boys shooting. The Raiders go down to bolter fire (hence why Nightshields are great, reduce that rapid fire) and yes the spamming of Lances and 3x Dis Ravagers can lay the hurt on Mech and MEQ. Wyches 4+ inv in CC is almost as good as TH/SS termies, but with so many builds granting stubborn or fearless they just don't seem worth it. So while its easy for us to get a first round charge, why bother? Instead just fly around in our aluminum cans just outside of rapid fire range dropping our heavy weapons, what about all that cover?
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> I'm thinking of using some Raider Squads and moving only 6" so I can fire everything inside, generally at the 12" range so I can rapid fire 8 guys or so. Most of the lists online I find recommend using the minimum number of guys in a Raider, whether Wych or Warrior and spam the Raiders. Is that all there is to the army? It just doesn't feel right. I like them for the fluff (what little there is) and I like being competitive but as I said, the numbers just don't feel like they can hold it up in anything.
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> Why are Dark Eldar so scary?
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> Thanks.
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> Joe
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Reply:
You missed Shredders. S6 blasts are fun.
Wyches are ass in CC imo. Always have been.
You've got it correct, fly around on the skateboards of suck and shoot
the other guy to pieces is and always has been the best option for the
Dark Eldar.
The reason Dark Eldar are so scary...well, it's complicated.
1) Nobody knows them very well. Opponents see them so rarely, they
don't know how to defeat them.
2) Dark Eldar can be great in CC, against non-CC troops caught in the
open. They are markedly worse for wear against mech armies, and people
with cover busting weapons tend to shred Wyches. Changes to CC make DE
CC assaults a pejorative affair. Sure you killed the enemy, and then
what? You die to lasrifles. Hey good job stupid.
3) Avoiding CC and instead blowing enemies out of their transports with
mass lance fire then hitting them with wound on 2+ templates is
awesome. Negating many armies shorter reach weapons makes you very able
to fry the enemy without worrying much about return fire.
4) The Webway Portal. Combine this with mass cover, grotesques, and
general lack of long range shooting in many armies...and you have a
special day coming your way. Having an entire army pop out of reserve
in midfield and alpha strike you makes going first nearly meaningless.
Dark Eldar are scary just like Eldar are. They outclass most armies in
the ways that count. Always have.
Note that Dark Eldar do not have meltaweapons nor really any
flamers--but I still consider them an excellent army, unlike say Orks or
Chaos Demons, who are missing melta and don't have lances to make up for
it, nor lots of templates that can keep firing (unlike flamer units
which generally fire once, kill their target, and then in turn are
killed--hey good job stupid, go sit with the wyches, you're on a time out!).
Hope that explains things for you a bit better.
10 comments:
"Why are Dark Eldar so scary?"
Another point that Stelek didn't mention: DEs have the ability for every unit to be strong anti-tank. Even Wyches have 2 Blasters available, and with a Dark Lance on the Raider, that's 3 lance weapons out of an anti-infantry CC unit.
Conversely, every unit has the potential to be scary to infantry, pretty much everything can take anti-infantry weapons (Dissies, Shredders, Splinter Cannons).
Oh, and every commonly-taken unit in the army except Ravagers has the ability to be dangerous in CC. Not overwhelming like SS/TH Termies or Berzerkers, but strong enough to get out of a Raider and decisively finish stomping a unit that got weakened by their shooting. Unlike IG, they are not limited to hurting you in the shooting phase. They can enter Rapid Fire range, knock your unit down to half strength (but you keep your 2-3 specialist/leaders)... and then they assault you and your 5 survivors get killed instead of getting a turn to shoot back. Yes, if they do this with a first turn charge they are asking for it, but if they shoot for a few turns, they have the ability to finish off armies in melee.
So... anti-tank from all units so you can't ever get rid of all their anti-tank with tabling them. Anti-infantry, same. Ability to fight in CC tolerably well and with excellent assault range so that soon as you leave a unit out unsupported they can finish it off piecemeal. Their survivability is crap, but their offensive abilities are great and well balanced, and too spread out to shut down.
Not having specialist "anti-tank" and "anti-infantry" units is a weakness if the generalists aren't good at the tasks. But DE generalist units can be very good at anti-tank and they can be very good at anti-infantry, so they end up with a great advantage in having every unit that they take be able to threaten (almost) every single unit that anyone else can field.
As Stelek mentioned in his post, #1 is probably the biggest factor of all. It comes down to the enemy not being able to prioritize threats or how to judge our charge range or potency in combat.
I think one style of DE list that even scares a fellow DE player is the "Raider Spam" (or Air Force) list by putting as many raiders into the list as possible and then putting nightshields on all of them. Just start them on the table and you will simply overwhelm your opponent with 14 skimmers (11 raiders and 3 ravagers).
I noticed in a lot of 'Ard boyz lists that those who took 1st or 2nd in their tournament was some sort of Raider Spam. Its been in existance since 2nd or 3rd edition and its still viable to this edition. You just have to pick up the raiders for such a list.
Dark Eldar didn't exist in 2nd. I'm baffled by how common a misconception this is...
It's just how old they are is all. ;)
In 3rd ed, fugly Squats blossomed into the beautiful lithe Dark Eldar we see today.
Now that I'm actually getting to play with my Dark Eldar, I can see how they can be nasty...or just suck. 3 games in it seems that I might as well roll a single die at the beginning of the game to determine if I win...4+ its a victory, cuz that is what I need all the time...4+ to GLANCE most vehicles, 4+ to Immobilize them...so really I want 5+...since that's what I need to wound anything with my splinter weapons...but the weight of fire and still succeed. I'm running a series of battle reports for my DE from the small Escalation League I'm playing in ATM, at http://www.40konline.com/community/index.php?topic=186447.0 if you want to follow; 3 games in and 2-1.
Once you get people out of their transports, Dark Eldar armies tend to obliterate enemy armies quickly.
Getting them out is usually not difficult with lots of Lance fire.
Another reason why Dark Eldar are commonly feared is that Dark Eldar players tend to be very good players. There are two primary reasons for this. First of all, they've been playing the army for ten years and have found out what works and what doesn't. Second, Dark Eldar are not the type of army that can be played by an incompetent general to good effect. Newbs that pick up Dark Eldar either become good players quickly or get tired of being massacred and sell their armies in favor of Marines, Orks and now Guard.
Wyches are no way 'ass' in close combat! In my most recent game my Wyches were charged by a unit of Blood Letters and completely wiped them out without suffering a single wound. Fair enough they are only str3 but with the right combat drug result and a Succubus with Agoniser they can wipe out a lot of nasties.
My most recent game had my opponent steal the initiative (he was fielding an all raider army)
hit with every single dark lance and heavy weapon he had, and then penetrate every one of my vehicles either wrecking or stunning them. The next 4 turns was him pounding my transportless army in a forest with raider after raider of weapons and troops.
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