Friday, April 15, 2011

Deathstars/Hammers value in Dark Eldar?

Part of the fun of trying new armies is learning new play styles and approaching 40k from different angles.  One list building habit I always get into is building a hammer/deathstar unit.  Call it a unit of terminators in a land raider, nob biker unit, thunderwolves, etc. It's the unit you can hammer into the opponent and cause a lot of damage.  Plus it's a force that intimidates.


When building out my Dark Eldar, I have thought about the same thing.  Nasty characters with big incubi units, bloodbrides with Lelith, beast squads, and other things that can dish out a bunch of attacks.  With the fragile delivery system of DE, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way.  This codex is all about the "death of a thousand cuts".  I think maybe my goal is to really take advantage of the mid range firepower and speed of the DE instead of throwing a haymaker.

The large assault units are not only heavy in the points but put a lot of hope in the staying power long term of the unit - which DE do not have like most other hammer units. If I were to eliminate the thought of a hammer assault unit, is this the best path?  Yes and no.  I still need something to take on my opponent's nastiness.  That's where I feel bloodbrides with shardnets come in. 

Instead of barreling down the flank or middle with raiders filled with wyches, I think I'll take a couple and use them as a counter punch when the pain comes to my area by leaving them back or even in reserve.  The shardnets can do a good job neutralizing the combat characters, and the 4+ invulnerable save (combined with feel no pain if I start with a haemonculus) should tarpit up a unit for awhile. 

We'll see if this strategy pays off.  At least I can try a new strategy out!

3 comments:

  1. nah, bloodbrides , just mean you are paying more points for pretty much the same performance as vanilla wyches and loosing precious trueborn squads to do it,

    use normal wyches for scoring and tarpit duties , take plenty of lance spam ,then outmaneuver and shoot his death-stars /danger units, incubi fall flat vs other dedicated assault units without furious charge so use them to decimate something a bit squishier first.

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  2. Sorrowshard, thanks for the heads up. Yeah Truborn are pretty sweet especially on venom platforms.

    Do you find normal wyches able to claim objectives, or what units do you usually have holding objectives at the game end?

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  3. I've found bloodbrides much better at killing enemies than ordinary wyches. Those extra wych weapons per unit of 10 really makes a HUGE difference.

    Put Lylith in a unit of bloodbrides with shardnets and you've effectively nullified most of the horrific CC units out there (excepting Warrior Born Space Wolf Lords). That's 3 shardnets in the unit and one on lylith if I'm not mistaken.

    I'd suggest Bloodbrides for killing things and warriors in raiders for holding objectives. Alternatively a small squad of Incubi in a venom will kill anything the bloodbrides can't.

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