Army Log - Kabal of the <insert awesome name here>

[Ancient Terror]

Chapter 1: Dark Elves in Space

 

Greetings, fellow slavers. I'm Ancient Terror, resident... ancient terror. Nice to meet you.

 

That... didn't flow as well as I'd hoped.

 

I have wanted to complete a Dark Eldar army since their 5th edition revamp. But before I got so far as to paint more than a test model or two, a number of life circumstances led to me quitting the hobby, getting rid of all my hobby things in the process (why, past self, whyyyy?) and forgetting about 40k for a few years.

 

I've been back at it since last summer, but since I just had a daughter last March and my financial situation hasn't been the best, I've been quite busy. Things are looking up now, so I'm dedicating more time (and money) to 40k again.

 

This weekend I'm finally ready to restart my dream project. I've got a Start Collecting! Dark Eldar box arriving at my local store, and my fingers are already tingling with anticipation.*

 

*Or dehydration

 

The fluff for my army isn't that well sorted yet. I have some vague ideas, but I'm still working on them. Hence the thread title. What I do know to a fairly precise degree is how I want my army to look, and what sorts of units I want in it. I could also use some help with some list building, but more on that later.

 

The Evil Space Fae Aesthetic

 

The thing I love about the Eldar is the supremely otherworldly quality of their design. The elegant, segmented armour; the clean, vibrant colours; the eerie witchlight; the badass runes.

 

The thing I love about the Dark Eldar is that it's all this, but dark, depraved and full of spikes.

 

My working plan for a colour scheme, which may not survive contact with a test model:

I'll paint the armour and hulls black, starting with something like P3 Coal Black or Citadel Dark Reaper, and working up to a bluish grey highlight tone. The main secondary colour will be dark green, used for things like cloth, sails and flags. Together, I want these two colours to look clean and sharp - getting at the crispy part of the Eldar aesthetic, as well as the sinister aspect of the Dark Eldar.

 

Black and green are quite boring on their own, though. For spot colours, I'll use purple or violet for things like eye lenses, ammo canisters etc., to produce that eerie glow I was talking about earlier. This gets to the vibrancy and the creepy witchlight part of the Eldar; a sort of eerie-but-also-shiny feel.

 

I'll also use crimson red as a secondary spot colour, but more sparingly. The intent is to use red to paint Drukhari runes on armour segments and vehicle hulls in freehand, and to draw the eye to small details here and there. I may also use it to trim or highlight some parts of the armour to break the monotony of the black a bit. This will do for the runes and whatnot.

 

Finally, I'll use gold and gunmetal for bling, spikes and the like.

 

I'll get around to posting a test model ASAP once I've gotten a few of my guys assembled. This may also turn out to take 3 months or something.

 

List Building

Plz help I don't know what I'm doing

 

The sort of army theme I want to run can be best summarized as: lots of skimmers, lots of dakka, lots of flyers, very few non-Kabalites.

 

I'm not exactly sure how to make this into an effective list, as being out of the hobby since 5th edition means I'm probably even more clueless than everyone else.

 

My working concept for 2000 points is to spend a little over half the points on Raiders, Venoms, Ravagers and Flyers, with the rest taken up by Kabalites and Reavers, maybe with some mercenary units mixed in for fun.

 

The main bulk of the army would thus look something like this (for example):

 

2 raiders w/dark lances...

220 pts

 

2 Venoms...

160 pts

 

Ravager w/dark lances...

155 pts

 

Ravager w/disintegrator cannons...

185 pts

 

2 Razorwing Jetfighters w/dark lances...

310 pts

 

1 Voidraven w/dark scythes and voidraven missiles

196 pts

 

---

 

I'm planning to add some warriors and maybe some trueborn, though in which exact loadouts I haven't found out yet. Some Reavers will definitely feature, then I'm torn between Scourges and Mandrakes. Any suggestions for what to go with for infantry and support? Weaknesses aside from "needs bodies" to plug in this sort of list? I wouldn't be averse to taking a unit or two for close combat, but I want this list to be primarily dakka.

 

I'm willing to be flexible on the distribution of transports and gunboats, though I do want to keep the total number quite high.

 

Any and all help will be repaid in slaves and invitations to realspace raids later (or possibly with murderous backstabbing... such is life).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[olsol]

Who isn't torn between mandrakes and scourges. Both are really good options for DE atm.

 

Glad to see your getting back into the hobby, I really like DE. especially Kabal units. The list (as in the vehicles) isn't all that bad I would however, stock up on as many dark lances as possible and add extra splinter cannons onto your venoms (12 shots is just too good). I think you might have 1 too many fliers, just cause they're such a high points value and their weapons missiles are random shots (which isn't the best).

 

As far as infantry are concerned if you want to keep the KABAL theme going it wouldn't be a bad idea to get some kabalite warriors plus trueborn for the venoms. Incubi keep really good company with archons and if you want to maximise command points it would hurt to get two archons (being so cheap and survivable it's and auto include for my DE).

 

Min squads of reavers are the way to go in my opinion as being quick character killers, and I might want to invest in the gangs of commoragh box set (if you can find one) as it really boosts your reaver numbers and adds some hellions at a fairly cheap price.

 

As for mandrakes and the scourges... get both. My tactic for DE is an alpha strike: Deep strike both mandrakes and blaster scourges turn 1 and start reaping havoc while my army quickly catches up.

 

However, the best DE armies I've seen have a mix of Kabal, Cult, and Coven units. With the Kabal units dishing out the pain, Cult units on clean up and the Coven units advance up the middle within the 6" +1T super-bubble. 

[Ancient Terror]

Quick update:

 

My Start Collecting! box arrived yesterday. I'm at a fantasy convention most of the weekend, but I'll slowly start assembling my aelfs in spandex for their undercoats. Hopefully I'll have a test scheme ready by the end of next week. I also have a vow placed for the Tale of Gamers that I'd like to finish.

 

---

 

Thanks for checking in Skarbrand.

 

Glad to see your getting back into the hobby, I really like DE. especially Kabal units. The list (as in the vehicles) isn't all that bad I would however, stock up on as many dark lances as possible and add extra splinter cannons onto your venoms (12 shots is just too good). I think you might have 1 too many fliers, just cause they're such a high points value and their weapons missiles are random shots (which isn't the best).

 

 

 

I've been thinking 3 fliers might be overkill, esp. after they nerfed the NECROTOXIN (nice death metal band name) missiles.

 

The Razorwing is cheaper, and the model is a beauty, but I'm wondering about swapping both out for another Voidraven. Maybe that's still overkill, but the void mine looks ridiculously powerful to me. Average damage on a 10+ model unit should be more than a Razorwing will do to most targets in any one round of shooting, which for units that are likely to be priority targets seems quite good.

 

OTOH, it might still be a bit crazy expensive. Maybe one of each would be best (and give me some variety while painting them as well).

 

As to the Venoms, is the 15 points really worth the upgrade from twin splinter rifles? It seems expensive for what you get in return, barring 12"-18" where you obviously get 4 more shots any given turn. I just imagine if I'm going to be ferrying Blasterborn or an Archon with court/Incubi, I'll spend most of the time within 12" anyway. On the other hand, though, it does look very cool on the model.

 

As far as infantry are concerned if you want to keep the KABAL theme going it wouldn't be a bad idea to get some kabalite warriors plus trueborn for the venoms. Incubi keep really good company with archons and if you want to maximise command points it would hurt to get two archons (being so cheap and survivable it's and auto include for my DE).

 

 

 

How do you transport your Archons? As far as I can tell Venoms only take 5 models now, and Incubi are minimum 5 to a unit, so Raiders seem like the only choice unless you're running a Court or fielding understrength units (which I believe is penalized now in matched play).

 

 

Min squads of reavers are the way to go in my opinion as being quick character killers, and I might want to invest in the gangs of commoragh box set (if you can find one) as it really boosts your reaver numbers and adds some hellions at a fairly cheap price.

 

 

Yeah, I might run as many as three Reaver squads. Given how many flying boats I'll have, they should be free to annoy any opponent for quite some time.

 

As for mandrakes and the scourges... get both. My tactic for DE is an alpha strike: Deep strike both mandrakes and blaster scourges turn 1 and start reaping havoc while my army quickly catches up.

 

 

 

Cool idea. Will see how the points look once it's a bit closer to the finished list.

 

However, the best DE armies I've seen have a mix of Kabal, Cult, and Coven units. With the Kabal units dishing out the pain, Cult units on clean up and the Coven units advance up the middle within the 6" +1T super-bubble. 

 

 

I might do something like this, but I'd like to keep the Wych and Coven elements down to an HQ with one or two units at most, so as to preserve the overall theme. 

 

For some reason I remembered Wracks as being finecast, but I see I could potentially take a unit or two and a Haemonculus, plus maybe a pain engine. That sounds like a fun investment.

 

---

 

Making another attempt at a list, this time for the full 2000 points. 

 

Not too sure about the Coven units here. Would consider replacing them with an Archon and some more Kabalites. The Mandrakes and possibly a Reaver squad are also replacable. Also not sure about the points investment in the Succubus + Bloodbrides, but it ought to be a fairly lethal and annoying tarpit.

 

I'd really like to keep to the gunboat theme and have at least this many transports, Ravagers and Flyers, but I'm willing to reconsider their loadouts and reconfigure other units as necessary. Also willing to shift boots and bikes into more skimmers, because skimmers are fun.

 

Still, leaving the list as is to show my thought process (and because I have pressing obligations at the moment). C&C welcome.

 

Edit: Also not sure if I'm understanding the keyword system correctly. Feel free to point out if my army is illegal or something.

 

Battalion Detachment - Drukhari

 

HQ

 

Succubus w/archite glaive, agoniser 

76 pts

 

Haemonculus 

75 pts

 

Troops

 

2x5 Warriors w/blaster

100 pts

|

Raider w/ dark lance

115 pts

 

2x5 Wracks

100 pts

 

Elites

 

9 Hekatrix Bloodbrides, w/agoniser & hydra gauntlets 

125 pts

|

Raider w/dark lance

115 pts

 

5 Trueborn w/4 blasters

115 pts

|

Venom w/splinter cannon

95 pts

 

5 Mandrakes

95 pts

 

Fast Attack

 

3x3 Reavers w/agoniser & blaster

327 pts

 

Heavy Support

 

2 Ravagers w/dark lances

310 pts

 

Flyers

 

Razorwing w/dark lances

155 pts

 

Voidraven w/dark scythes, voidraven missiles

194 pts

 

Total

1997 pts

Edited July 29, 2017 by Ancient Terror

[olsol]

Nice idea with the split Kab in the one raider, that extra blaster is going to be very useful. You have created a very balanced list with a good mix of harassing and shooting units. As far as the HQs are concerned id replace the agoniser with a blast pistol as it drastically increases her damage output plus you'll probably be using the Archite glaive pretty much all of the time in melee. And the haemonculus needs to get a melee weapon, I recommend the Electro-corrosive (another good death metal band name) whip as its only 8 points (7 considering you have to take a haemonculus tool) and is the ultimate character bane in the index. 

 

Your trueborn and mandrakes are good to go as well as the reavers, although I would add some weapons to the wracks (go for the ossifactor) and maybe a scissor hand on the Acothyst and you haven't factored in their melee weapons on them either (they come with haemonculus tools which is 1 point per model, making the total for 10 wracks 110 points). 

 

Considering the Start Collecting box comes with an archon I would put him into the list instead of the Succubus. While she does dish out the pain she hinders the weapon options for the Bloodbrides (3 hydra gauntlets are preferred) and the archon is cheaper and more survivable. plus you already have one.

 

Having said that, increase the size of the Wyche squad to 10 and add weapons. or make them 2 units of 5 and put them into venoms them you can run around the board to grab objectives and the like.

 

however, YOU NEED A DEDICATED HARD HITTING MELEE UNIT!!! Incubi and Talos pain engines fit this role very, very well. (I once luckily killed two custodes in one round of combat from my Klaivex) the incubi I can't stress enough about how good they are for me in particular when they're with an archon plus their such lovely looking models. and put a unit of 5 in a raider with your archon.

 

TLDR: your army needs to be able to deal with something that can stop a deepstriking heavy infantry unit (Terminators, Sanguinary Guard, EVERY GREY KNIGHT UNIT) and you need to go through your army and add points values for weapons and upgrades.