Playing against Dark Eldar advice?

[Kilofix]

Likely going to be playing against Dark Eldar (no allies) this weekend - around 2000 points. Haven't actually played against them ever before. But I do have the DE Codex and have read it cover to cover.

 

I have a Chaos Marine / Daemon and Renegade IG list. I can field almost anything from those lists. In this case, I'm probably going to run the IG and use lots of armor.

 

I'm assuming I just need to blow up their Ravagers. Then most of their Splinter will be ineffective if I throw lots of AV at them. Except for maybe the incidental Blaster, Scourge or Haywire Wych squad.

 

I'll probably hide my scoring infantry in Chimeras and / or a Fort until I thin my opponent out abit.

 

Just as long as we don't end up getting Night Fighting first round.

 

Am I underestimating anything here? Would appreciate any insights. Thanks!

[Relict]

I would recommend that you check out the excellent battle reports posted on Battle Bunnies. 

 

They have played a number of games using 30K SMs against DE, to great effect.

[Beachymike123]

as an ex DE player,i can tell you that they will generally go first (first turn, first in combat, first blood etc). plan around this and make every hit count - they will hit hard, but are fragile too. anything over S6 is ID to most of their units, except if its a haemonculus coven based army, then they'll largely be on an even level with you. templates and blast weapons will hit them hard too, although a savvy DE player will utilize cover to their advantage.

whether they're running kabalite, wych or coven, all of them wil be vulnerable to your small arms fire to an extent if they aren't in transports. if they're in transports these should be your priority. if you're running guard, use 1st rank fire,2nd rank fire to maximise hits, if you're running CSM bolters will tear through their weedy flesh. i have no experience with daemons socan't comment on them. 

in hand to hand you're going last - archons are I7 and hammies are I5 iirc. make sure you can survive their onslaught, and have something to hit back with. a PF will do the trick, although an axe will also be sufficient if running either guard or CSM. again i don't know about daemons. 

i speak purely as i would have played as a DE player. if you need any other advice pm me. hope this has helped somewhat. 

[redhorse]

Any DE player worth his salt should have some counters to Armor. Those are Ravagers, True born with blasters, Void Ravens, Wyches, DE Jet bikes, Beast Packs and too some degree helions. Heavy Armor IG is the bane of DE. So are heldrakes largely due to vector strike. Honestly if you present a tough wall of armor to DE YOU should win. It is an uphill battle for DE. That being said I play Dark Eldar and have been able to wins some games against armor heavy IG. If your opponent uses void ravens then look out. I run two every game and they are great for taking out armor. They come in from reserve and with their strength 9 lances can consistently pop open tanks. I also use blaster born in venoms. The venoms are small and can be easily maneuvered and hidden. The blasters are strength 8 ap 2 and are also lance. So you gotta watch out for those guys. 

Wyches are also extremely reliable tank hunters due to hay wire. 

I think if you castle up and limit the angles your opponent can attack from you can take DE fairly easily. However, if your opponent is like me and rolls with a beast pack you my be screwed. I take a big pack with at least 15 khymera(4++) and some razor wing( rending). Your guns will be 'useless' due to the invulnerable save. Plus its fast, has a ton of wounds and lots of attacks. If he is running a beast pack spread out and focus on killing the troops and other threats. Try to tie up the beast pack with a blob squad of gaurdsmen. 

[Kilofix]

Interesting, Beast Pack thing is something I wasn't thinking about. Maybe I can use an Armored Sentinel for the Khymera.

 

Thanks for all the advice.

[Hellios]

While it applies against anyone, it goes double for the DE: don't let them play their game. Cripple their mobility, and their ability to deal with certain units (as best you can), and try and make it into a war of attrition. Something guard do fairly well; that the DE really can't deal with in most cases.

[WarriorFish]

As a Guard and DE player: DE cry when the Guard gets their turn. Go all out on numbers and fire power, focusing on cover ignoring stuff (Eradicators will dominate them) and you will blast them off the board. They hit hard yes, but when all they can do is take out a squad of Guardsmen or a cheap Chimera etc then it counts for little.

 

6th took the wind from the DE's aether sails, but it just makes their life harder and doesn't give you an auto-win. Plus if there's one thing DE players are used to it's having things hard - you wouldn't play the army if you couldn't handle it! Here's a recent battle report in the IG section that may be worth a read.

[Ishagu]

Drop Pod with plasmas, Las Cannons and flyers will crush DE

[Grey Mage]

To bad he cant take Drop Pods.... :/

Id suggest autocannons- glancing on a 3+ is fine, and the sheer volume of fire and the nice 48" range means theyre a threat that *must* be dealt with. Takem in spades, at every opportunity.

[Kilofix]

To bad he cant take Drop Pods.... :/

 

Id suggest autocannons- glancing on a 3+ is fine, and the sheer volume of fire and the nice 48" range means theyre a threat that *must* be dealt with. Takem in spades, at every opportunity.

 

What a coincidence. I actually ran the following instead of IG (we decided to allow allies):

 

Kharybdis w/12 Noise Marines & 1 Sorc (no Mace but Burning Brand)

Helcult (AC and DCCW/Flamer)

Mayhem (with MM & DCCW/Flamer)

A 3rd Cultist squad of 12

 

Nurgle Herald on Palanq

14 Plague Bearers

7 Nurgling Swarms

Soul Grinder (Phelgm)

 

He had almost all Ravagers, Venoms, Kabalite + Trueborn, some bikes.

 

I started the Daemons and the Helcult on the board and hid in cover. His first turn of shooting was mostly ineffective.

 

Then when the Pod and later the Mayhem dropped, most everything on his end got blown up. The Kharybdis on its own is actually a really good light vehicle killer.

 

I lost my Grinder, an HB and a bunch of Cultists in the end but small price compared to what I wrecked on his end.

[Garath]

  If you can ally in IG ,  Hydra tanks will down a skimmer/flyer a turn.  You can take a squadron.  They fire 4 shots each , re-rollable autocannons that ignore jink saves from skimmers and fliers.

[Kilofix]

  If you can ally in IG ,  Hydra tanks will down a skimmer/flyer a turn.  You can take a squadron.  They fire 4 shots each , re-rollable autocannons that ignore jink saves from skimmers and fliers.

 

Hey thanks, I keep forgetting that Skyfire can shoot Skimmers.

 

Must remember that for Tau and Eldar too.

[WarriorFish]

You are a very cruel man Garath :P Keep in mind that this is easier now the new Hydra model is coming out but I've heard it isn't quite as good as before as it loses the cover ignoring rule and gains open topped.

[Garath]

Cruel? When dealing with Dark Eldar , and their "goodie" brothers in arms , there is little mercy present on the table.

Dark Eldar are my first army that is started playing back in 2000 with only a single defeat in 5 years . That army went on to win several tournaments and was feared by many.

That was a long time ago. Truth be told, that was back in 3rd and 4th ed. No, I wasn't making a lot of friends...

It's much harder to play DE now then it was before (not that it was easy then) . What kind of army is your opponent fielding? If you can give me a simple list of units I can perhaps help with insight from HIS prespective - and that might give clue on how to deal with him.

And I apologise if I'm sounding patronising - that was not my intent

[Trevak Dal]

They can drop A LOT of shooting on you.  Dark Lances and poison shots.  My first 6th edtion game I tried out Old Codex CSMs (main) with Old Codex Tau allies because I wanted to try everything and all that.

 

Which was a mistake because it was a lot of New Rules to remember and both of those armies play differently and kind of require me to think differently-so I just got the ever loving crap shot out of me mostly. He used proxies...using Rhinos for their open topped transports. Messed with my head because I thought they were Rhinos.

 

I played him again recently-with my Tau. "Vect" hit the table again so I most happily just gave him first turn-denying him his special move.

 

Of course, it was a trap he walked right into, his elves didn't stand a snowballs chance in hell. He naturally did what everyone seems to do and dumped everything into the Distraction Riptide front and center. And then my Crisis Teams killed everything he had on the table. "Vect" (Space marine commander from Black Reach...it'd been over a year...) was in reserve-along with a few others.

 

His reserves didn't come out-so I tabled that Proxying Bastard like I was a Duddley Boy. I'm going to add some Dark Eldar warriors to my Tau objective markers along with all the Space Wolves/dreadnought pieces, Flesh Tearers, Tyranid and Eldar pieces.  Going to have a Firewarrior Planting a RIDICULOUSLY HUGE (2nd Iwo Jima flag huge) flag as he stands triumphant on the mound of corpses/scrap, with something cute written in Tau like "F your couch".

 

 

I digress. They ignore night fight, and are very fast. In another game against them, I used Rhinos with Havoks to soften them up (Had 2 plasma gunners inside firing out), my AC Havoks and ML havoks went Rally Round the Dark Kin, but they were in cover and had elevation.

[Kilofix]

Part of the reason I switched up to using a list with a CSM Drop-pod & Brute DS and in-cover Nurgle Daemons was because I was worried about Night Fighting and a Beast Pack screen.

 

Ironically, in the game I played, Night Fighting and Beast Pack didn't turn up. I'm still wondering about how the above would do against it.

 

Nevertheless, at least I know I can take an all Dark Lance / Splinter list with CSM / CD.

 

Thanks for all the opinions.

[WarriorFish]

The DE deserve everything they get, I was referring to being cruel to your opponent :lol: I think one of the key things to remember is that they function best as a shooting army so that's what you should expect, but don't ignore the potential assault elements that might show up to trouble you.

[Garath]

The DE deserve everything they get, I was referring to being cruel to your opponent I think one of the key things to remember is that they function best as a shooting army so that's what you should expect, but don't ignore the potential assault elements that might show up to trouble you.

... I knew what you ment....i saw what you did there...

Anyway... DE

A few thins cannot be stressed enough:

1. They are a mobile army , and much faster then anything you can throw at them. With that in mind , never ever separate your units. "Blob" them . Deploy them and move them in a way that several units can engege a single enemy target and destroy it.

When playing against DE, your unit gets a single chance to destroy it's target- if it fails, a good opponent will make sure it doesn't get a second chance. So if you have the opportunity to destroy that ravager or raider ir venom - have your units deployed in a way that multiple heavy weapons can target it.

2.DE units are fragile , but hit hard. They bring in the pain! Lots of cheap, disposable units that have the ability to kill your basic trooper no matter what it is. And your tank, and your MC ...etc. To migitate this , take multiple small units that are cheap. 5 guys, heavy weapon. Predator tank costing ...100 pts. That's the way to go. A heavy bolter is enough to destroy their basic transport and an auto cannon does a wonderful job at dealing with their skimmer gunships and fliers.

3. Multiple shot weapons

Lasscannons might be considered overkill. They are even worse! They cost a lot of pts to field, unless in troop choices, and fire only a single shot! That one shot might miss , if it hits it WILL penetrate - but the target gets a jink save. That same save might come from an auto cannon. The auto cannon is however much cheaper and fires twice as many shots . Not only does AC outshoot LC, you can even field more of them!

4. Shoot to kill

Once you start firing at a unit- go ahead and kill it! You have gained nothing by stripping a Hull point . Kill it. If you are fielding tanks, Ravagers with Dark lances are a prime target! Kill those first! If you're fielding an infantry swarm (and that's the best thing against DE) - kill the transports first. Seriously , you can leave Ravagers alone.

They fire 3 DL shots- 2 hit, 2 wound and you have a cover save

You are looking at loosing a single trooper to a 120 pt model.

If they are packing Plasma cannons however, kill them ASAP!

5. "Stretch" the table

Take heavy weapons that have longer range then the DE weapons. Most DE heavy weapons reach only 36". 48" guns available to the chaos forces present a problem to DE players. If your weapons reach further the their- they have to come to you . That might work to your advantage. Placing objectives futhest from the opposition is another good idea. If DE units cannot easly travel from one objective to the next in a single turn - a late game advantage is taken from them.

They, like their cousins , can contest your objectives with speedy units one the last turn. If you deploy objectives far away from one another - this will not be an option for them.

Hope what I just wrote will help .