DH vs. Dark Eldar

[Clishay]

Greetings, I've been lurking here for months, but haven't had anything worthwhile to ask or contribute up until now. I have a grudge match coming up sometime this week against a friend and long-time tabletop opponent and thought I'd ask for a quick sanity check and run down of my army list to see if there's any glaring mistakes. This post has kind of mushroomed over the course of the afternoon into something a lot longer than I was originally expecting, so apologies in advance for the length.

 

 

My Army:

 

< HQ >

Brother Captain

Psycannon

Retinue of 5 Terms (4 w/ Thunderhammer and Storm Shield, 1 with a Psycannon)

 

< Elites >

Inquisitor

Psycannon, Artificer Armor, and Auspex

Retinue of 3 Gun Servitors (2 HB, 1 Plasma Cannon)

 

Callidus Assassin

 

3 Death Cult Assassins

 

< Troops >

10 PaGK's Justicar with psycannon bolts, 2 Psycannons

 

10 PaGK's Justicar with psycannon bolts, 2 Incinerators

 

< Heavy Support >

Godhammer Land Raider with Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers, and a Search Light

 

GK Dreadnaught with TLLasC, Missile Launcher, Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers, HK Missile, and a Search Light

 

GK Dreadnaught with TL Autocannon, DCCW, Incinerator, Extra Armor, Smoke Launchers, and a Search Light

 

 

My estimations regarding his force:

 

Dark Lance-apalooza. My opponent was pretty upset that he wasn't able to knock out my LR's in the previous game we played (he was playing chaos), and so has decided to dust off the Dark Eldar and give it another go. I'm sure his thought is that with all the DL's the Dark Eldar can get, it should be enough to bypass the AV14 on a LR. He'll be expecting me to run 2 or even 3 LR's in our game. Up until this point I've kept my lists pretty simple (GK's are a new army to me after playing Eldar exclusively for the last 15 years); LR's + PaGK's ala SilentRequiem's fantastic tactica. I'm reasonably certain his list will look something like this:

 

- At least one Talos,

- 2 to 3 raiders armed with Dark Lances the squads inside will likely also have DL's,

- A heavy raider (the 3 DL variety, blanking on the name currently),

- A heavy weapon's squad bristling with DL's,

- A Homunculus with retinue, all on Jetbikes,

- Possibly some witches/mandrakes/beast masters, and some form of HQ.

 

 

My thoughts when building my army list was to prevent him crippling me, should he manage to take out my LR's and to level as much AP4 dakka as possible at him. With that in mind, I decided to try out the dread's and Inquisitor/retinue for my anti-armor component. I'm also banking on being able to pop his relatively weak armor on his transports without too much trouble (hence the 2nd GK Dread with just an autocannon, Justicar's without melta bombs, etc). My current strategy is to use the Callidus's 'A Word in Your Ear' ability to move his heavy weapons squad out of position and force them to waste the first turn moving back into position. I'm also going to try and move them closer to a flank, if possible, in the hopes of using the Death Cult Assassins in a flanking maneuver to wipe them out turn 2. As for the Calli's actual positioning , that will depend on the layout of the terrain, and where I think she'll be able to do the most good. The Inquisitor with his retinue will likely be parked in cover with some good lanes of fire, the Las/ML Dread nearby, I equipped him with an auspex to hopefully minimize any shenanigans from Mandrakes. I haven't decided if I'm going to deepstrike the BC and his retinue or not, if I don't they'll be joining the LR and the Autocannon Dread on a flank for a march upfield. The PaGK Squad with the incinerator's will be loaded up into the LR. and Finally, the other PaGK squad will be parked on the closest objective to my deployment zone.

 

Thanks again for reading, I just wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything blatant in my list or general strategies. Any thoughts or comments you'd like to add will be most welcome.

[number6]

I've only played against Dark Eldar four times, against four different people, but the army builds were either shooty or assaulty. In both cases, they were extremely fast.

 

I'm not terribly familar with DE, but it looks to me like the list your opponent would be bringing leans heavily on the shooting phase. This is A Good Thing. DE are very squishy, and even though they can pour out a lot of dakka, standard GK techniques of minimizing your exposed models, maximizing use of terrain, and so on, will help to minimize casualties. My successes against such lists were by castling up on a flank and pouring fire from it into the army, hitting and eliminating whatever was coming at me fastest, using assault to clean up.

 

An assault-oriented DE list is much more frightening and difficult to defeat. Open-topped, fast skimmers with fleet assault specialist infantry inside. Smart DE generals will spam the board with skimmers, too many for almost any GK/DH army to successfully down. Doesn't matter that they're no tougher than tissue paper, with pure numbers some of them will get through to you. They have the ability to hit you from up to 26" away, which means that even with psycannons and heavy bolters at maximum range, they can be on you inside of a turn. Kiting is of limited utility as that cuts down psycannon range, and if you're within stormbolter range you're already too close and are going to be assaulted. On top of that, the army still has enough shooting to cause you fits if you expose yourself needlessly.

 

In the end, I've defeated the DE when I was able to shoot down skimmers, expose the infantry inside, and pepper them with stormbolter fire. Getting caught in an assault that last more than a single assault phase is a recipe for disaster as then they just gang up on you and wipe you out with Fearless/No Retreat wounds ... if they don't cut you down outright. I wouldn't worry too much about the Talos. It's shooting is bizarre and annoying, but it isn't nearly as dangerous as the bulk of the DE lists I've faced. Try to ignore it, though assaulting it isn't a bad idea. I actually sought out assaults against Talos because GKs can pretty easily kill it with NFW strikes while staying safe from DE shooting.

 

Good luck!

[Grand Master Tyrak]

A heavy raider (the 3 DL variety, blanking on the name currently),

 

*Gets out DE Codex*

 

Ravager.

 

Watch out if he takes the Crucible of Malediction. :tu: You must pass a Ld test with your nearest psyker (-1 Ld if within 12" of the Crucible, +1 if over 24" away from the Crucible) or be removed without any saves and regardless of remaining wounds. If you pass, continue on to the next nearest psyker. Continue this until one dies or you run out of psykers to test on.

 

That can seriously ruin you day with a GK army, as for the purposes of the Crucible all BCs, GMs and Justicars count as psykers.

[jakehunter52]

Dude, I'm sorry for ya. It's a personal motto of mine that I will not play against DE cause they are so broken...but also unfortunately makes my advice questionable so take it as you will. I like what number6 and Grand Master Tyrak have said so far but I would like to comment on your army composition. Dude, playing with only two units of PAGKs is going to be rough. I am sure they will become a huge target for him once he realizes how much your stormbolters can chew up. And that is going to be killer if it is a sieze ground mission and all you can do is hopefully claim two and hope that he doesn't speed his way to all the other objectives. So to make up for this, I would take out the death cult assassins. Sure, they hit simo with the DE and get a lot of attacks but really they will probably die because they are squishy too, have a low save and are a practical free kill points in annihilation. Death cultists do a lot better against anything else than eldar because they will generally go first and kill some, helping them survive the ensuing retribution. So instead of taking those, go for another PAGK squad. It will get you more bodies on the board which is great because he is going so anti-armour heavy and will waste a lot of those lance shots. Also watch out for wyches, they are harlies but worse, way worse cause they are dirt cheap (like IST cheap) and get special bonus's from their combat drugs which own face. Kill them at all costs. Also, what exactly are you using the psycannons for? I am curious because I don't see them being really effective anti-armour in this case and that you might do better with some more PAGKs (or even 5 man squads of IST doom!) since you will be getting more wounds along with more shots and better CC ability. Lastly, you might want to throw some servo skulls in the retinue just to take up the random hits he will throw at you so that way you don't lose your PC right off the bat. Other than that man, looks good and best of luck...seriously. :D

[Auedawen]

Clishay, for the most part you have a very solid list. My one suggestion would be the removal of the Death Cult Assassins. I don't think there is a single unit in the DE codex which will strike AFTER the DCA's (even with their initiative of 5). Being 40 points each AND a Killpoint makes them some of the worst options in our codex, especially against Dark Eldar. If deployment wasn't so important to Dark Eldar I would suggest removing the Callidus as well (dropped the 3 DCA's and Callidus would allow you to take 8PAGK and an incinerator, for instance). However, A Word In Your Ear may end up making the Callidus worth it, not to mention that her Neural Shredder is pretty potent against low leadership models.

 

Now, I was a bit confused as to why you assigned most of your Terminators with TH/SS combinations. However, as they'll attack slower than most/all of his army anyway, the 2 extra strength may come in handy! When playing with your GKT though, make sure to keep them hidden from most of his army by staying close to your Land Raider. Those dark lances will make a mockery of their armor saves.

[Thaelion Hexis]

My main army is Dark Eldar, so a few points:

 

Bearing in mind that most of the army has a 5+ save, Incubi/Talos 3+, I would not worry too much about psycannons/AP4. Psycannons dp have a better chance to take out his raiders, but I think more Grey Knights would be useful. Reaver jet bikes do have a 4+ save, but I've never used them.

 

An error on his part would be the abundance of lances. With the raiders and lance squads, a Ravager with disintegrators would have been my choice against MEQs in small numbers, since they have the stats of a plasma cannon with no overheating, plus a defensive mode of firing, meaning it can keep firing all weapons while at Cruising Speed.

 

You do not want to let his Archon get to combat, especially with an Incubi retinue. They eat power armoured units for breakfast. The Talos can be a pain in close combat, but their attacks are random. I engage it in close combat with nothing other than a dreadnought ( a little risky) or your brother captain and terminators, since the thunder hammers will still wound it on 3+

 

When you say heavy weapon squad, do you mean Warrior squad with heavy weapon or Scourges?

[Brother Delias]

I agree, copius amounts of DLs are not as much to worry about as opposed to a few DLs and copius amounts of SCs.

[Clishay]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys, I think the biggest change I'll be making will be to lose the DCA's in favor of some more PaGK's and beefing up the Inquisitor's retinue with a few ablative wounds. The suggestions of anti-DE tactics will also be helpful. Fortunately the DE are a relatively new army for both of us, we'd chipped in and bought it for a mutual friend we were trying to get hooked on the game. Sadly our nefarious plans were ruined by time constraints and wife-agro on the mutual friend's part.

 

Tyrak, the Crucible of Malediction does indeed sound really nasty! Out of curiosity, wouldn't the GK ability to always pass a leadership test negate that item though? I don't have my codex handy (silly work), but I'm pretty sure the wording says something to the effect of automatically passing any leadership-based test they'd be required to take. I could be wrong though.

 

Our schedules aligned to make tonight the game night, so I should have an update on how everything went later on tonight. Thanks again for the suggestions

[Grand Master Tyrak]

Tyrak, the Crucible of Malediction does indeed sound really nasty! Out of curiosity, wouldn't the GK ability to always pass a leadership test negate that item though? I don't have my codex handy (silly work), but I'm pretty sure the wording says something to the effect of automatically passing any leadership-based test they'd be required to take. I could be wrong though.

 

Fearless applies to Morale and Pinning tests, not Leadership tests. Otherwise we would auto-pass psychic tests too. B)

[Clishay]

Fearless applies to Morale and Pinning tests, not Leadership tests. Otherwise we would auto-pass psychic tests too. :(

 

Ah pity, lets hope he doesn't see that little trick laying around then! B)