Flying Under the Radar: Dark Eldar in 6th Edition

Share the pain.

A guest article by jwhite1078 from The Flying Predator.

Welcome readers!

Frequent visitors who have seen my Dark Eldar Tacticas understand that I have tremendous confidence in the army and I truly believe that they are a competitive force in today's 6th Edition environment. In fact, I have had enormous success against a wide array of opponents, but I seem to still get strange looks when I line my fleet up on the table. My love of the game means I often frequent forums, watch battle reports, and otherwise scour the internet to see how the game, and how my preferred army, are changing. Too often, however, I find that feelings about Dark Eldar in 6th edition are ambivalent, at best. At worst, the army is a useless waste of time, effort, and plastic. All too many times I have read stories of complete and utter defeat, rampant frustration, and an overall feeling of disadvantage when compared to other 6th edition powerhouses (looking at you, Necrons). While many of these feelings are warranted, I argue that Dark Eldar are one of the most underrated armies in Warhammer 40k.

Tyranids, BFG and Overtime

Working, working, working..

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, but you know, Heart of the Swarm is coming out soon and we're crunching pretty hard for it!

Anyways, you might remember in my earlier posts that I acquired a fairly large Tyranid army.  This is true.  Now.. how am I going to run them?  Well, my Swarmlord will be leading the way, just like it did in 5th Ed.  Fortunately, we now get to roll some badass spells via Biomancy and its going to be pretty exciting to play with the new and improved Nids.  If Tyranids had a superhero, it would be Bioman the Fearless.

Check out the list:

1751

HQ:

Swarmlord (Bio) = 280

+Tyrant Guard (LW) = 65

TROOP:

10x Termagaunts = 50

Trevigon (Claws, Cluster, Adrenal, Toxin, Catalyst, Onslaught) = 235

10x Termagaunts = 50

Trevigon (Claws, Cluster, Adrenal, Toxin, Catalyst, Onslaught) = 235

19x Genestealers = 266

ELITE:

Doom (Pod) = 130

2x Hive Guard = 100

2x Hive Guard = 100

HEAVY:

Trygon (Prime) = 240

This completely breaks my immersion

Yeah, I have a problem.

My Fast Skimmer with Aethersails moving 42" gets hit by a Guardman's rifle butt on a 3+.

Remember that talk we had a few days ago about good game design?  About immersion and how things make sense?  Yeah, the above absolutely kills all forms of imagination.

What about you folks?  What breaks your immersion in your gaming?

PS - I'm getting into BFG again.  My gaming group here's jumping in pretty hard.  Gonna play Craftworld Eldar, using the FAQ2010 rules.

GDS: The hallmarks to a great book

Remember GDS stands for Game Design Series!

There are three things I look for in a army book when it gets released.

These three things are:
Overall Design
Internal Balance
External Balance

Overall Design is how well the book translates its fluff, lore and background into the gaming world.  I think this is pretty straight forward as you can pretty much read every unit entry, and then read the rules.  Does it reflect well?  Does it make sense?  This should be well-reflected in the "actual" feel of the codex and its rules.  It must feel right to the player playing it, both in consistency terms and in terms of imaginative immersion.

e.g. The Void Raven Bomber is designed to be a more destructive air-ground aircraft compared to the Razorwing.  Both aircraft are designed for ground annihilating ground targets, but the Void Raven has more armor, a Void Mine, stronger Lances, and deadlier missile options.  Because of its heavier payload, its points cost is noticeably higher than the Razorwing.

Internal Balance is a balancing factor with all things considered within your own army book:  How the book comes together, where the units fit in, how do they scale, do they conflict on the force organization, how they're priced compared to other options..etc. Internal is exactly that, it's your book and your book alone.  This plays a heavy part in whether or not a book is considered fun or not.  Does the book have enough viable options for different army builds?  Do those army builds appeal to the new, casual and competitive player?

e.g. Wyches and Warriors fulfill different roles, but are both great Troop choices.  Both excel at their respected roles of close combat and shooting, and both are priced competitively.  As an Dark Eldar player, both are excellent and viable choices when designing their army.

External Balance is a balancing factor when compared to the game as a whole; more importantly, against other "factions" that exist in the same game. How do they balance out compared to those units in respects to unit cost, function, special rules, force organization, ..etc, is strictly comparing one unit from one army to another.  This plays a heavy part in the metagame, general longevity of the army book, and how much fun a player can have before realizing he's either outclassed or is facerolling people.

e.g. Grey Hunters are more cost-effective than Tactical Marines from the Space Marine codex.  For less points, you get Counter-Attack, a close combat weapon, cheaper weapon options, and better upgrades.  No heavy weapon options, but don't get me started on Long Fangs!

From a player/gamer's perspective, there's no greater importance than these three things for me.  The book has to make sense, the fluff has to play out accurately on the table, and the balance must be good.  There is no order of importance because all three are vital to the success of the army book.  Poor design leads to a lot of raised eyebrows and that's always no good.  Shoddy internal balance means less player options, unneeded restrictions and general frustration.  And well, bad external balance means you're either too weak or too powerful to compete fairly in the current metagame with the rest of your peers.  No one likes that.

Let me know what you guys think about this!

I think I'm a Xenos player

Reminds me of Epic Armageddon.

After looking through the Dark Angels codex briefly, I can't help but look through my collection of armies past and present and make some self reflections.

I started Warhammer 40K playing Grey Knights.  I then bought into Space Marines, followed by Space Wolves and then Blood Angels.  Eventually, I sold all my Grey Knights for Eldar and Dark Eldar, but ended up selling them before I moved to Cali.  Somewhere along those lines, I got into Death Guard as well.  In short, I was a Power Armor player for the longest time.  As much as I won with my PA armies, my win rate didn't even come close to the success I had with Eldar.

So that's when it hit me.  Am I meant to be an Eldar player?  I pretty much accepted the fact that my knowledge of the game from an Dark Eldar perspective is a lot more profound.  There's just a lot more thought processes going on at once.  I write better tactics, share more in-depth strategies, and give more responsive feedback.  As a result, I also preform a lot better on the table.

What about you guys?  Which armies do you own and which one defines you the most as a player?

Look what I picked up today

Looks like I got a bug problem.

Man.. Merry Christmas to me!
Looks like that some very alien battle reports are going to be rolling out in the next couple of weeks.

Have fun with this one guys.  I need to grab myself the new Hive Tyrant kit and 3x Tervigons to finish it all.

PS - If anyone has any Carnifex Devourer sprues, let me know.  Two of my fexes don't have any weapons!

PPS - The Blood Angels are claimed! Everything else is still left!

Cleaning house, fresh start

Maybe?  Should I?

UPDATED with what I'm actually selling!!!

Alright guys, I think I'm going to do some cleaning house.
I haven't done this since I got rid of my Dwarves some many years ago, but I think I'm going to part ways with some of my armies.

First, all my current active armies:
Dark Eldar (since 3rd)
Space Wolves (since 3rd)
Blood Angels (since 3rd)
High Elves (since 6th)

My current inactive armies:
Death Guard (FW) (never really play them)
Cygnar (stopped playing WM for the most part)
Axis (No one plays Dust Warfare)

I'm actually thinking about parting ways with all of my inactive armies and one active army.
Unfortunately, Blood Angels drew the short end of the stick.

I don't enjoy playing them as much as I did back in 3rd and I find myself taking them out less and less with Dark Eldar and Space Wolves in my army arsenal.

If any of you readers are willing to take these armies off my hand, let me know.
All models are current, all assembled and expertly cleaned, unprimed, unpainted.

+++INCOMING TRANSMISSION+++

Since a lot of people have asked about the armies... here's what I have..

Death Guard
PICS:
http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2012/07/more-death-guard-on-way.html
35x Forgeworld Death Guard
4x Meltaguns, 4x Plasma Guns, 4x Champs with Fists, rest are Bolters, 2x with Icons.
FW Death Guard Sorcerer NIB
2x FW Death Guard Marine conversion kits
2x FW Death Guard Terminator conversion kits
An epic ass ton of sprues, has a bunch of special weapons (at least 4x of each), and enough to build 10 more marines, 5 as Death Guard (yes, I have more bodies and shoulder pads), 5 more Termies, and it even has possessed and CSM Lord stuff.
Last I asked was $325 for the lot.
SOLD

Blood Angels
PICS:
http://lkhero.blogspot.com/2010/04/blood-angels-released.html
30x ASM with BA Icons, kit-bashed with Death Company stuff
2x Infernus pistols as meltas in every squad, each squad has a Champ with Fist
3x kit-bashed Sanguinary Priests, 2 with JP, 1 on foot
1x kit-bashed Libby with JP
5x Sanguinary Guard, Fist, Banner
3x Baal Predators (new plastics)
Metal Tycho
Metal Mephiston
Metal Dante
An epic ass ton of BA sprues
Asking for 30% off MSRP, everything is already assembled.  Essentially, you're paying to get a battle-proven army, from someone you know (read and learn from hopefully!), and are helping him gear for his next army.  Asking for 350.
SOLD

Dust Warfare:
Gorillas Pack + Markus
2x Panzer Walkers
2x Battle Grenadiers
1x Heavy Recon Grenadier
1x Heavy Kommandotrupp
1x Observer + Sniper
1x Core set

Only played twice.
Asking for 150.
SOLD

Perdita Crew for Malifaux
Comes with..
Perdita Box
Enslaved Nephilim
Executioner
2x Death Marshals (NIB)
Guild cards

Only played once.
Asking for 75.

pStryker
eHaley
pNemo, eNemo
Siege
Squire
Charger
2x Hunters (1 NIB)
2x Defender/Ironclad/Cyclone magnetized
1x Ol' Rowdy
1x Thorn
1x Lancer
full ATGM + UA NIB, new models
Rangers
Full Storm blades + UA, 3x gunners, all metal
B13
Arlan Strangewayes
2x Gun Mage Captain Adepts (1 NIB)
2x Jr warmaster (male, female)
1x Viktor Pendrake
pEyriss
Reinhodlt
Piper
Gorman
Aiyana and Holt
Anastasia
and probably more merc solos, I don't even remember
Asking for 300 for the lot.
SOLD

All models are well constructed, expertly put together, well-cleaned and battle-proven. Asking for retail - Asking for 50% off retail

+++END TRANSMISSION+++