DE: Evolution of a competitive list

Double-face Archon is the best Archon.

Man, I am freaking excited to write this article.  There has been a lot of questions floating around lately that I want to address and the more I think about it, the more I can root cause it to this very topic.  I want to talk about the evolution of a competitive list, the aftermath of several games after you've finalized your competitive list.  This is essentially the Part 2 of my rather popular Army Building Guide.

Before I begin in the earnest, let's talk about what kind of questions have been asked in the last couple of days.  Yes, I do get Email and comments both on here and on the Dark City forums.  Some of the topics that have been talked about are:

• How many Dark Lances vs. Dissies?
• Take me through your thought process after the Big FAQ?
• General question asked to all: What does a competitive DE list look like?
• Warriors or Wyches and why?

While all these questions might seem like they don't connect at first, I assure you they do.  At least to the min-maxy type of player like me who likes to play in a competitive setting, all of these questions are completely valid.  They are valid because I've put this list through a lot of thought, theory and practice questions against a variety of lists and opponents.  Some opponents bring harder lists than others, some not so much.  At the end of the day, a lot of these questions can be answered with "well, that depends" because every playing environment is different, and therefore, every meta is different.  Regardless of whether or not you're playing in a local meta or in a GT, you must go into every environment with a gameplan.  This means knowing the meta, predicting the meta, and taking your list through the gauntlet so you can answer what works best for you (in terms of playstyle) and what will be effective on the battlefield.

So, now that you've read through that guide and have a general idea of how I like to min-max my army lists, let's take a trip down memory lane to the very first army list I posted.

This was before the big FAQ:

1998 - 7 CP
Flayed Skull Battalion - 3 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91

TROOP:
5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
Venom, 2x SC = 75
122

5x Warriors, Blaster = 47
Venom, 2x SC = 75
122

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Splinter Racks, Dark Lance = 95
209

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Splinter Racks, Dark Lance = 95
209

10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, Dark Lance = 114
Raider, Splinter Racks, Dark Lance = 95
209

FLYER:
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lances = 145
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lances = 145

+++

Black Heart Spearhead - 1 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91
Warlord: Labyrinthine Cunning
Artifact: Writ of Living Muse

TROOP:
7x Warriors, Blaster = 59
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
144

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dark Lances = 140
Ravager, 3x Dark Lances = 140
Ravager, 3x Dark Lances = 140

>>>
Firepower Analysis:
20 Dark Lances at BS3+
9 Blasters at BS3+
3 Blasters at BS2+
4 Splinter Cannons at BS3+
21 Splinter Rifles at BS3+ with Flayed Skull + Splinter Racks
19 Splinter Rifles at BS3+ elsewhere
2 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+

Possibly the best DE gif to ever exist.

This is not a bad list, but let me take you through all the thought exercises I put myself through while playing with this list over 12 times now.  Remember, when you take your list through a gauntlet, the objective here is to build knowledge and experience.  Knowledge in the sense that you know what every unit in the list is designed to do and what you purchased it to do (very different things), and experience in the sense that in X matchup on Y battlefield in Z scenario, you know what to do with said units.

Here are the thought exercises that I ran through in 12 games.  There might be more, but these are the highlights.  I will write a short blurb about each:

Balancing Dark Lances with Dissies
I started off with a lot of Darklight, and most importantly, a lot of Dark Lances that have 36" range.  This was because my meta is saturated with competitive builds of Imperials (double SR/Dante, Azrael Hellblaster Deathstars, Guard CP bats/Custodes, AdMech Robots/Guard CP, or just Guard CP Tank Park).  While I thought the results were decent, I was finding myself less effective against MEQ out in the open.  Shooting a Dark Lance at a Marine is always satisfying, but it's not the best use of points because it's typically overkill.  It's pretty much just wasted on Guard and less effective vs. Shield-Captains on Dawneagles.  Therefore, I needed to strike a balance between lances for longer engagements and Dissies for volume and more efficient killing those targets I just named.  I can literally go on with this forever, but what you need to do is do a firepower analysis (or whatever your primary killing method is) and range band everything with respect to what units you're engaging.  The targets depend completely on your meta and your predictions for the meta.  More on this later.  Just remember that lances are better vs. T6/7 3+ targets (so basically Rhinos/Robots) while Dissies are better vs. everything else.

Venoms vs. Raiders
This one was an easier decision for me because I wanted more heavy weapons and transport space for Warriors.  It was either more Dark Lance presence for AT or Dissies for general purpose.  Either way, my meta called for less anti-infantry and more heavy weaponry which only the Raider can deliver.  I also noticed that in my first couple of games, losing Venoms also dropped my SCs which was surprisingly frustrating.  The next point will explain more.

Taking Dark Lances on Warriors
This is just playtesting at work.  I originally thought:  Great!  More lances the better right?  Not really, because I noticed that I tend to move around a lot while engaging, and the new Strategems like Fire and Fade kept my army active at all times.  Investing 20 points into a Dark Lance is good, but having it hit on 4+ after you move is not.  This is pretty much a 50/50 and after several games, I wanted to commit to something more efficient.  This is when I started weighing the importance of having a 10 point SC upgrade on my Warriors vs. 10 point Splinter Racks vs. Flayed Skull and the re-rolls.  I found that the Splinter Racks are good, but math says SCs are point for point much better.  It also stays there after you lose the Raider and further increases in damage with respect to range compared to racks.  Boom, made the switch and I've been liking the results so far.  In some ways, I would say that Warriors carrying SCs is more durable than Venoms because they're less of a fire magnet.

Converting from Flayed Skull to Black Heart
You can find me writing a lot about this, but I wanted to bring more units under Black Heart simply because I can take advantage of the Archon's Living Muse on the Raiders themselves.  The more I played with Black Heart, the more I saw an advantage in keeping my Raiders alive and thus, keeping the bulk of my firepower unharmed and alive as well.  As long as my Warriors are inside and shooting, I felt less pressure on my presence on the board and greater pressure on my opponent once more of his things started dying.  This is what I need because as Dark Eldar, you need to keep pressure and maintain momentum and tempo in a game.  Keeping my units alive was more important to me in that sense, and the more heavy weapons I can put in-range of my Archon, the better results I was having.  There's a follow-up to this below, and that's also because Black Heart transports work better for Obsidian Rose units.

Black Heart Air Wing to unlock AoV
I feel like a genius for discovering this and blogging about it, but not really because it was pretty much a braindead choice.  AoV is great and just having it in the army mindfucks your opponent every time he wants to use a Strategem.  Remember again guys, the more you make your opponents think, the higher your chances are of winning.

Min-maxing different detachments to spread obsession bonuses (Black Rose)
OK, this one I will take credit for because I think it's awesome.  My Kabal of the Black Rose is simply the original pure Kabal list min-maxed as much as possible to suit my playstyle.  Since I was already using Black Heart vehicles for their durability, AoV, re-rolls thanks to Living Muse and Cunning, I knew I needed to compliment that with an Obsession that would fit my particular playstyle.  Flayed Skull was great, I've played it a few times, but it was too much of a glasshammer that encouraged overly aggressive plays.  While I normally like that kind of play because I'm a highly aggressive player, my meta matchups needed something more flexible.  I also noticed that the closer I got to Shield-Captains, the more I subjected myself to losing Raiders.  This is more self-enlightenment more than anything else:  I'm an aggressive player but I needed more threat without exposing myself to painful Space Marine assaults.  I also needed something that I can poke and run because my meta have big scary melee units.  Great, Obsidian Rose it is.  Combine that with Black Heart and I have my Kabal of the Black Rose.  Boom.

Trying min-squad vs. decent squad Wyches in Raiders
This feels like the odd-man out here, but I needed to try Wyches because I have like 50 of them sitting in a bin.  They're great, I love them and I think they definitely will see play, but maybe not in a list like mine because the only thing I'm doing is taking away from my firepower.  This is the list schism that I was talking about in my previous articles on how to build lists, and that's if you start to branch off and try to do different things (especially polarizing things), you water down your ability to be effective.  When I mean polarizing, I mean specifically mixing shooting and melee whereas if you take the Meat Mountain + Wyches, you might get better results because there's more of a particular form of pressure that can overwhelm your opponent if they're not ready for it.  Either way, I see merits in both min-squads vs. the larger 8-9 man squads of Wyches in a Raider.  I still think Raiders are their best method of delivery, especially when you have shenanigans like Enhanced Aethersails and Fire and Fade (with a Dissie-mounted Raider) on T1.  If I wanted to play more casual, I'll mix up my lists some more, but if I wanted to just play the ranged game and shoot with my Black Rose, I will go for more shooting, period.

Switching to Dark Lances on my Razorwings
After a bunch of games, I started noticing one thing:  Once I converge with my Razorwings on that first initial high-five with my Living Muse Archon, they flew off to wherever I needed them to go.  I never saw them within ass-slapping range of my Archon ever again so I knew something had to change.  I knew I still needed Dissies, but just how many of them?  This goes back to the question about balancing Dissies with Darklight, but after even more min-max testing, I decided that Ravagers were enough for now.  Having 9 shots that are always in range of re-roll 1s to Hit and Wound was giving me the right results, whereas I've had more success moving Dark Lances to the Razorwings.  The range threat was still the same, but the big difference for me there was that my lances need 3s to wound most things I wanted dead vs. the 5s that I would need with Dissies.  Without the re-rolls, 3s are much better than 5s when dealing damage for sure.  The other factor for me was that I found my previous firepower analysis was a bit biased towards Dissies:  Having 15 Dissies and less 36" range lances.  My first couple of turns in my meta is more probing and poking, and I definitely needed some added long-range weight before I pounce forward with my superior threat range.  Notice how I'm using my experience in games to guide my decisions with what the list looks like in accordance to my meta and playstyle.

What my lists look like after the big FAQ
Well, the good news is that not much really changed for DE.  I min-maxed some shit here and there but overall, the Black Rose emerged pretty victorious after all the dust settled.  My lists are not overly ridiculous with more Ravagers than a bag can hold, and I typically build for more balanced lists than something completely over the top.  OK, the 20 36" lances were kinda hilarious though.  What I need to pay attention to going forward is not how my lists adapt, but how my competitive meta evolves.  I have initial predictions that I will see more Guard players because I think they came out pretty good with the CP boosts for Bats and Brigades.  Armies that relied heavily on alpha-striking with CC and dropping in the first turn also got hit, which further strengthens the power of gunline-oriented armies.  With that said, I need to think about which armies out there will take advantage of the FAQ the most and prepare my list accordingly.  For now, I think my mix is pretty decent since I just converted more units to carry lances, but only time and more playtesting will tell.

Well, there you have it folks.  The first list I posted was on the last day of March.  After all the experience and games, this is what I landed on today:

An artistic expression for my contempt for bad lists.

Kabal of the Black Rose
1999 // 10 CP

Obsidian Rose Bat +5 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster, PGL = 94

TROOP:
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104
10x Warriors, 2x Blaster, SC = 104

+++

Black Heart Spear +1 CP

HQ:
Archon, Agonizer, Blaster = 91
Warlord: Cunning, Living Muse

TROOP:
7x Warriors, Blaster, BP = 69

PARTY BUS:
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85
Raider, Dark Lance = 85

HEAVY:
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125
Ravager, 3x Dissies = 125

+++

Black Heart Wing +1 CP

FLYER:
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145
Razorwing, 2x Dark Lance = 145

>>>
Firepower Analysis:
11 Dark Lances at BS3+
9 Dissies at BS3+
9 Blasters at BS3+
3 Blasters at BS2+
3 Razorwing Missiles at BS3+
4 Splinter Cannons at BS3+
41 Splinter Rifles at BS3+

Is this list perfect?  Hell no.  The big question up in the air right now is what the new competitive meta is going to look like.  However, you bet your ass that I will be actively thinking about all the topics I went over today as we keep on murdering our opponents.  Luckily, I've had enough games with the list above that I'm feeling pretty good, so I'm currently testing other lists to gauge which is more competitive.  That's another story for another time.