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| Pop goes the Leman Russ. |
I'm going to outline my thought process how I'm going to incorporate Eldar in my Dark Eldar force. Work's been really busy, so I doubt I'll be able to get this list on the table until another few weeks. Thank goodness I have Vassal to try my lists out despite the fact that the meta is a lot different than what I'm used to.
Well, let's take a look at my Dark Eldar skeleton list. It's basically a solid army list as the primary detachment, but it's missing a lot of support elements. That's where the Eldar come in.
HQ:
Succubus (Agonizer/VB, Haywire) = 95
Just another layout that I'm using on my Succubus. The Agonizer and VB allows me to customize my Succubus in combat vs. high toughness, crappy armor saves, or vs. MEQ without 2+ TDA. She goes in my only unit of Wyches geared out with roughly the same thing. The Blast Pistol has been cut in both cases to save on points.
TROOPS:
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
5x Warriors (Raider NS, Blaster) = 130
10x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
10x Warriors (Raider NS/SR, Blaster, SC) = 195
9x Wyches (Raider NS, Hekatrix/VB, Haywires) = 193
I've decided to play with even numbers for now simply because of the need to double up. Right now I'm sporting two lanceboats, two gunboats and a single Wych boat to go with the Succubus. The lanceboats gives me extra lances for cheap, as well as scoring bodies that I can throw somewhere last minute. Fully-loaded Gunboats gives me plenty of ranged poison shooting and the Wyches are just solid units. While I dislike what they've become in 6th Ed., for the points I can't really complain because of their flexibility.
HEAVY:
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Ravager (NS) = 115
Due to the fact that my only AA source will come from an Eldar craft, I think for now I'll play around with 3x Ravagers. My meta around here doesn't believe in flyer-spam. While it is a realistic concern that I have when someone takes a crap ton of air, my focus shifts in destroy his ground support and scoring elements before the aircav wipes me out. That's where having a ridiculously fast army comes into play: It allows you to rapidly change the momentum of the game and capitalize on whatever mistake (either list building or bad play) your opponent makes.
Alright, now that that's done, what about Eldar?
I've been thinking about how I'm going to best utilize the Farseer in the last couple of days, and the only way I can see how is a Farseer on a Jetbike. My playstyle with my DE is fully mechanized with lots of speed. I play Lance-heavy which gives me a fair amount of bad matchups. However, I'm convinced that as long as your play is good, you can turn tricky 80-20 scenario into a more manageable 60-40.
For now, I'm going to roughly pronounce the Farseer as ~160 points with Lv.3, looking for Guide/Doom on the roll but I'll settle for Divination as well because of Prescience. Let's just say the troop bike tax is going to be ~66 with the Wraithknight coming in at ~300. With about ~190 points left, let's pretend the Crimson Hunter is overpriced and there you have it.
Frankly, I don't like the fact that I only have 3 bikes as troops for my Eldar. Even if they keep the 3+ AS, a T4 Jetbike with a single wound is going to eat loads of shit from enemy fire. That's why they have to hide as much as possible in between terrain, negating as much fire as possible since you can only kill what you can see. I seriously think this might hamper the Farseer's ability to play support since he has the keep pace while keeping himself alive. Who knows? It all depends on my opponent, the map I'm playing on, and the amount of terrain present on the map. If Dark Eldar doesn't play with at least 25% of the table covered in terrain, buildings and LoS blockers, the match is going to be a headache anyway.
Alright, so what does the Wraithknight bring to the table? Well, for one, I think it brings a giant bullet magnet. T8, 6W and 3+ AS isn't really impressive if you think about it. Rockets are going right through that AS, Lascannons certainly doesn't care, and even enough S7 shots are going to do wonders on the giant wraithbone duder. The only realistic chance the WK has to live is from jumping cover to cover while claiming 25% of area terrain. This might not seem realistic with a 9" tall model, but a lot of the 40K terrain around here and at other tournament-holding areas I've seen uses enough buildings to provide 25% cover.
The only way the Wraithknight is going to attract attention is if the guy can shoot. Let's be honest now: If his weapons suck, there's no way anyone's going to care about a giant wet noodle. However, if he's blasting you turn after turn with S10 AP2 Blast Lance shots, then we're going to attract some real attention. As of right now, I'm not sure what the guy is packing but I'm almost 100% sure I'm going to make him a firing solution. Shooting is definitely the way to go this edition and with two Wraithcannons (no idea still..), I'm hoping he'll do enough damage to warrant taking one. Regardless, I plan on buying two of these beasts simply because I like the model, and want to pretend I own a Titan. I seriously pray Wraithcannons are just 36" 5" D-Cannons like the Warp Hunters. That would make the opponent shit bricks of ice-cold fear.
