HQ: Haemonculus with hexrifle (he gives a pain token to the bike squad then sits back in an empty venom)
Elite: 3 Trueborn with 2 Dark Lances in a Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons (trueborn deploy outside the vehicle)
Elite: 3 Trueborn with 2 Dark Lances in a Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Elite: 3 Trueborn with 2 Dark Lances in a Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 8 Wyches with shardnet and Hektrix with agonizer. All with haywire grenades. In a Raider with Aethersails
Troop: 8 Wyches with shardnet and Hektrix with agonizer. All with haywire grenades. In a Raider.
Troop: 5 Kabalite warriors with blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 5 Kabalite warriors with blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 5 Kabalite warriors with blaster in Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons
Troop: 5 Kabalite warriors with blaster in Raider with flickerfield (used as a screen)
Fast: 9 Reaver Jetbikes with arena champion with agoniser. 3 Heat lances.
Heavy: Ravager with three dark lances
Heavy: Ravager with three dark lances
Heavy: Ravager with three dark lances
That's 12 Splinter Cannons, 18 dark lances, 4 Blasters, 3 Heat lances, and a bunch of splinter rifles.
My Wyches are more of a clean up crew then anything. They should help finish off stragglers and do a little tie up of a unit.
Here are my big questions on the list:
- Will the jebikes in a big blob be worth it? With feel no pain they should have some more survivability
- What does the Haemonculus do after handing off the pain token to the bikes?
- Do I need more of a close combat punch, or get rid of the wyches altogether and go strictly firepower
- What do I do if I go second?
- Kill points... just laugh and say I'm going to lose that mission?
- I basically haven't upgraded my vehicles, does it merit dropping something to get some additional protection?
- How do the minimum trueborn squads work, is the 3 man squad silly? I have a feeling I'm just going with target saturation here. I figure if they're in cover they have about as good of a shot surviving as a direct hit to a vehicle.
Things to think about! Now the big question is if I can get all this assembled and painted in 2 months :)
I've played with variants of this list and found the following:
ReplyDelete1. Those 3 man Trueborn squads, while looking fragile, work. With other more pressing squads closing on the enemy or scary looking Ravagers, opponents tend to dismiss the Trueborn. If fire does come at them you can always go to ground. It's always satisfying frustrating an opponent when they throw a massive amount of fire into one small unit and effectively accomplish nothing. Unless you're facing GK Coteaz spam you probably have more units than the enemy so you can afford to suck fire from their units. You'll have more.
2. Trueborn units NEED Venoms. Good call. Otherwise they are screwed in Dawn of War missions. Forget getting into a good firing position in range for turn 2 without a transport. The thing with Venoms is...
3. Venoms don't kill enough models. Unless you're facing blob IG, 'Nid swarm (or Tervigon breeding force), FootDar, or FootOrks your Venoms are going to be going up against Mech or MEQ. Against the former they are useless. Against the latter you'll kill about one Marine/turn. Not terribly impressive for the cost and killpoint liability. A few Venoms are good for late game Guard Vet cleanup. The ones with the Trueborn fit that bill. The rest I would seriously consider swapping for Raiders.
4. Dark Lances suck. I should rephrase ONE Lance sucks. You need about a dozen to Explode or Wreck a single AV12 vehicle. How many of those are you going to face in a typical Mech Guard force? Yeah, that ain't good. I've found you need AT LEAST 24 Dark Lances (or equivalent) to get the job done.
5. Single jetbike units invariably get cornered by rapid firing units at some point. They have about the staying power of a Marine. How are 9 Marines going to hold out against Bladestorm? Or Massed Storm Bolter fire? Or a Hydra Battery? TWO mid-sized units with 2 x Heat Lances each are much preferable to one max sized unit. More encircling options.
6. Exploding transports kill Wyches. Fortunately, open-topped transports only explode at S3. That means only half of your unit gets wounded. Oh. Umm. Ouch. Maybe you'll make one save on their 6+ armour save. Crap. FNP is essential to keeping Wyches alive. Each Wyche unit NEEDS a Haemonculus starting with it to confer FNP. When you get close he stays on the Raider (if it's still alive) they get off and charge. What to do with him?...
7. Give Haemonculi Liquifiers. Hexrifles look sexy on paper. They're not. Any big gribly they hope to kill have enough wounds they'll pass their test. They work if you spam Hexrifles with Wracks in a Rakarth list. Otherwise, no. Again, most units you'll face are MEQ. With random AP you stand a 50% chance of rolling a 1-3 for AP value. I've wiped out whole Marine squads with one Liquifier template! If the Wyche Raiders are still alive move around in those looking for opportunity shots. Otherwise sneak around on foot. Join up with the other Haemonculi for a super liquifier unit and wound allocation fun to keep them alive (this one has a Liquifier, this one a Liquifier and Venom Blade).
You're on the right track here. I'd think about dropping one of the 5-man units to bulk your other Warrior Venoms up to Raiders, flesh out your Wyches to 9 man squads and get another Haemonculus.
Good luck and leave some souls for me!
P.S. Just found your blog. It looks really nice and I like the content. I'll certainly frequent it more now that I've found it!
ReplyDeleteI wish I was going to NOVA since I have a bunch of friends in that area going. Don't think I can swing this year though. Represent Dark Eldar for those of us who can't make it, m'kay?
Trent, thanks for the great insight! Dark Eldar play so different then any other army. I've been used to a rock hard hammer unit with supporting units with more staying power. I picked this army not only because the models are beautiful but they have such a different play style.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to adjust up the list to the comments. It might mean minimizing the bike squad since I don't want to sink a lot of points there. With the addition of the extra Hemo, where would you recommend removing points?
Trent you put out some great feedback, I as well am going to look into trying out some of your suggestions. And BC, I will know if I am a yes tonight.
ReplyDeleteJeff