Most efficient use of Kabbalite Warriors

[micahwc]

Greetings,

 

I'm wondering how everyone is using their warriors? How large of squad are you finding optimal? MSU with blasters, 10 man with dark lance, full 20 man, with or without transports, etc.

 

I will soon have 60 of them and am trying to figure out how I want to bring them. Are groups of 20 too susceptible to morale losses? Are groups of 15 even worth considering since they get no benefit over 10? Are 12 groups of 5 with only blasters just silly?

 

I had the realization that the tougher our enemies basic troops are, the better ours become due to our unique weapon rules. I played recently against a Nurgle daemon army and the warriors did remarkably well.

 

Any thoughts? Mathhammer? Thanks.

[WarriorFish]

I think that squads of 10 are probably best. A large squad will invite attention and doesn't gain much for it (other armies can put a psychic buff on for example). Better to split the models across more units and suffer less from morale, as well as gain more tactical options.

 

I think MSU is of course viable, and could be a good way to spread a lot of models around even more for maximum utility. You're upping your unit count where you may want every advantage trying for that +1 to first turn but can farm more Command Points in exchange. That said, until the new codex arrives not a great deal to use them on. I reckon 10 man is better because they'll be a self contained unit, especially mounted, that can account of themselves well. DE are - for now at least - not gaining a great deal from characters so there's not much to be said for them being a caddy for one.

[Lord Asvaldir]

I know a lot of DE players are big fans of just 5 man units with blasters since they can fit in venoms and work well for a MSU approach, but I personally prefer ten myself. Nice to be able to fit in a blaster and a dark lance, and ten is still a small enough unit that they won't be affected too badly by moral. Only reason I could see for going over ten and taking a twenty man unit is if you want to take a massive unit with the wwp stratagem, deep strike them in and let them unleash a lot of pts with massed poisoned shots. I'm not really a fan of such big units though as they are easy to tie up and if you kill half the unit with moral the other half is finished unless you spend CPs to make them stick around. 

[Rhivan]

There are three good ways to run Kabalite IMO and they are all decent you just have to build your army in a way that they mesh with the overall goal.

 

1. 5 mans with blasters (you don't have to take blasters but I find them useful) (Requires Venom or Raider)
2. 10 mans with blaster and dark lance (a take all comers approach in general) (Requires Raider)
3. 20 man with agonizer, dark lance, and blaster is actually decent if you do some decent planning but the webway stratagem is required.

The general consensus I get from reading about Dark Eldar is that our transports are overcosted in terms of the firepower and the utility they can achieve for our army, let alone the fact that 10 single wound models in 8th are far more durable then a single 10 wound model. Which is pretty unfortunate for us considering that that is our schtick and our name to fame as we are not "blisteringly fast" without our transports. (Or with them since craftworlders are just as if not faster in many cases :P )

 

(This is not saying that they are bad but they aren't "competitive" in a point for point take on them but you can still win with them which I feel I must point out after the last paragraph seems negative and I by no means mean to sound that way, and I have high hopes for our codex :D )

Edited February 23, 2018 by Rhivan

[Dr. Clock]

5-man in Venoms are all I take nowadays, but they're pretty decent if you can preserve them till late game.

 

I save Raiders more for things that can get in combat. Basically right now I run 3x5 Kabalites and a Raider each of Incubi, Grotesques, and Sslyth Court. After that it's all Scourges, Mandrakes and Ravagers...

 

10-man Kabalite Raider squads are definitely fun to play with, but for efficiency the Venom squad wins IMO.

 

Cheers,

 

E