6th Ed. DE vs. Army Predictions

RPS is a real man's game.

You know what I think?  I think even though 6th Ed. is one of the better editions of 40K I've ever played, it's still got some balance problems.  I know, you're probably thinking no shit, but things got very complicated this edition with allies, fortifications and flyers.  Most of these problems are not because of the actual edition (some parts is), but the fact that certain army books benefits too much from the rules.  For example, Dark Eldar gain Jink on all of their vehicles and love the hell out of Night Fighting, but there's a lot of horrible nerfs to the army as well just from the general rules.

Let's see how many armies there are for 40K:
Blood Angels - Buffs
Chaos Daemons - Buffs
Chaos Space Marines - Nurgle buffs up the ass
Dark Eldar - About even
Eldar - About even
Grey Knights - Buffs
Imperial Guard - Buffs
Necrons - Unbelievably good
Orks - Buffs
Sisters of Battle - Buffs
Space Marines - Buffs
Space Wolves - Even, the lack of anti-Flyers is pretty sad
Tau Empire - Buffs
Tyranids - About even

You know what I think is going to happen next 40K Major?

The top armies will be:

1. Necrons - Just out of control right now.
2. Imperial Guard - Still a force to be reckoned with, and access to the best Flyer (Vendetta).
3. Grey Knights - The best MEQ force with a lot more options.

BR: 1500 DE vs. Orks

Might is right!

Hey guys, I didn't take pictures this time around so I apologize ahead.  This BR will be summary form, taking vital information gathered during the game and sharing it in bullet point format.  The one thing to keep in mind from these BRs is that they're not actually BRs, they're self-reflections on the pros and cons of my play.

My army list:

1500
14 VP

HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer, BP, Haywires) = 105

TROOP:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
10x Warriors (Raider, NS, SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS/AS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL, Haywires) = 215
10x Wyches (Raider NS/AS, Hekatrix/VB/PGL, Haywires) = 225

HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Voidraven (NS/FF, 4x SF) = 205

Notable changes:
-The Wyches' Hekatrix were trying out Venom Blades and PGLs with the 20 points I would normally spend on Agonizers.
-I dropped Blast Pistols because I didn't have the points.
-10 points remaining means I took Aethersails for both of my Wych Raiders.

DE: Taking advantage of 6th Ed.

Death is my meat; terror my wine.

I'm going to briefly cover some 6th Ed. rules that I want everyone to learn and utilize to their game.  There's a lot of things that 6th Ed. brings that greatly favors Dark Eldar and I want to share them.  Sure, there's some nerfs too, but I'd rather concentrate on the good stuff.

Night Fighting and Night Vision
Know that your entire army has Night Vision and that Night Fighting doesn't affect you at all.  Also know that your enemies are in a world of shit if they're fighting Dark Eldar in the pitch dark.  They literally cannot engage you if you're more than 36" away and this should effect how to deploy.  Pre-measuring is in all the time now so you can deploy to best take advantage of these rules.  If your opponents can only engage you by moving his vehicle 6", know that his threat range is then 42" away.  Also understand that if you have Night Shields, the effective range of his weapon is also shortened, so you can pile all these on top of each other.

Another big deal about Night Fighting is that 24-36" makes you count as Shrouded, and 12-24" means you gain Stealth.  Put this on top of the fact that you have 5+ to Jink and your Lances can negotiate enemy vehicles at 36" and gain 3+ cover save under Night Fighting if you move.  This basically makes Dark Eldar the most effective army in the game when it comes to Alpha Striking with heavy weaponry under the Night Fighting rules.  If you Turbo-boost your Raiders to get to a better location (say.. a distant corner that's near an objective), you will gain 2+ cover.  If you find some nice cover for your Raider to shoot from, you can get up to a 2+ cover save from Night Fighting.  That is huge.  You must utilize the darkness to your advantage and that's one of the reasons I always take the Strategic Trait on my Warlord.

My 6th Ed. DE army list

Challenge anyone?

Alright fellas, I got enough 6th Ed. jammed down my throat that it's officially time to revise and update my army list for Dark Eldar.

Needless to say, I kept things very straight forward and maybe even a little boring.  The metagame around me actually looks kinda funny.  There's a couple of CSM players, 3 Necron players (FML), maybe Tyranid player once in a while, another DE player who doesn't really play, a BA/GK player, a few Ork players and some SW players.  There is a single Guard player and a CSM player who's thinking about including traitor IG in his Allies list, but there aren't any serious talks of beard or cheese.

I'm the type of DE player who barely took Blasterborn last edition and even less Venoms.  I love myself some Trueborn, but I was never a fan of Venomspam and thus didn't bother building any!  OK, that's a lie because I actually built one, but I have 2 more NIB that I haven't touched yet.  In fact, I only proxy'd and Vassal'd with the Flyers last edition and didn't really find them enjoyable or worth their points compared to the Ravager.  With this edition, things might change because I can definitely see the use of a Flyer; both as a counter-flyer and as a straight up damage tool that can apply damage without fear of retaliation.

Another thing about me as a player is that I love Kabal Dark Eldar.  I don't like the fluff, mechanics and playstyle of the Haemonculi and thus, I keep all of my units Kabal-themed.  In a way, most of my units are not the typical MSU Venom heavy lists that you'll find elsewhere.  My lists are designed to be specialized over target saturation, built for quality and not for quantity.  This caters to my playstyle and I must say, it's been working out quite well for me.  Most of my wins with Dark Eldar depends on precision tactics where I use terrain to my advantage as I pick off high priority targets.  I place my models in a way that LoS is difficult and retaliation is even harder without a handsome cover save.  I'm a Dark Lance heavy player and I view precision and firepower as the hallmark of my playstyle.

A look at DE HQs in 6th

Here I go again!

In 6th Ed, DE power weapons become AP3.  This means that the Agonizer and Huskblade are basically ass vs. anything with a 2+ armor save.  I don't know how your meta is guys, but mine is still obsessed with Grey Knights, Artificer Armor and MEQ in general.  The better question to ask yourself is whether or not is how many Librarians are out there that can't sport a 2+ armor save.  Since Librarians will be all over the place because of the lovely new Psyker rules, I tend to hate on them a lot as Dark Eldar.  Space Wolves have Runic Armor for theirs and Grey Knight Librarians come with TDA.  I still can't for the life of me figure out how Dark Eldar, in all their arrogance and technology haven't figure out a way to cut through Imperial trash.  It blows my mind.

Anyways, let's talk about the cheap HQ route.  I like the combat route for my characters so I never take any Haemonculi in my lists.  The HQs I like to concentrate are Archons and Succubi.

Here are some configurations I'll be playing with the next couple of days:

6th Ed. First Impressions

Pen and paper, keeping it old school.

I played a 1500 point game today against my friends Blood Angels and here's what I learned.  Once again, this will be done in bullet points, so it's easier to follow.

Dark Eldar was the army I used and here is the army list:

1500

14 VP

HQ:

Archon (Huskblade, BP, ST, SF, Drugs) = 160

TROOP:

5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130

5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130

10x Warriors (Raider, NS, Blaster, SC) = 185

9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/Agonizer/BP, Haywires) = 225

10x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/Agonizer/BP, Haywires) = 235

HEAVY:

Ravager (NS) = 115

Ravager (NS) = 115

Voidraven (NS/FF, 4x SF) = 205

Here are the changes I made to my Dark Eldar:

• Dropped Flickerfields on transports.
• Added Haywires to the Wyches because they're amazing.
• Dropped my normal 2 unit of Wyches for more Lances because Wyches are more utility now.
• Added a Voidraven with Flickerfield because then he doesn't need to take any Jink saves.  The 4x Shatterfield Missiles are there because they're awesome.
• Switched the Archon to my Huskblade setup because I wanted to play with him this game.

Here is what I learned from playing my first game of 6th Ed:

6th Ed. Challenges and other stuff

Learn it, use it.

For one, I like challenges in 6th Ed.  This is somewhat of a double-edged sword sometimes, but I think for the majority of the time, it'll be a strong mechanic.

Let's look at the Huskblade, Shadowfield, Soul Trap build for the Archon.  Right now, it sucks ass because being an unusual power weapon, it's AP3.  With almost every Space Marine IC in the game having 2+ armor, this makes for a very lame time if they challenge you to a duel.  Or would it?  It's one of those things those double-edged swords because you'll probably go first as the Archon being I7, and you'll hopefully force some ID wounds down your opponent's throat.  Sure, he'll have to roll a 1, but there's no FNP involved and if he fails and doesn't have EW, he dies.  Not to mention he'll be stuck in combat with you and the chances of wounds getting through your 2+ invul is also lower.  In short, you are better in duels than most ICs, because the threat of Instant Death is always there, and a 2+ invulnerable save is just bullshit for duels.

Would I always challenge with my Huskblade Archon?  Fuck yes.  The reason why is because you literally shit on every SM Sarge in the game (aside from 2+ ones like Termies or Sanguinary Guard).  You get in combat, issue a challenge, and if they decline, they can't attack.  If you charged a unit of Space Marines and the sarge is carrying a Power Fist, you issue a challenge and either force him to fight, or not use his Fist.  This allows faster ICs like Archons the ability to pick out Power Fists and slay them before they get the strike and therefore, saving your IC from all sorts of ID threat.