Well here we are, its been 12 years since Codex: Dark Eldar v2 hit the shelves and 12 years since anyone at GW seemed to give a damn about the Dark Kin. But finally they have arrived! For anyone that's been hiding under a rock for the past 3 months, Codex: Dark Eldar's redux was released this past Friday! Let the torturing begin!
This Codex is packed full of fun new stuff and upgraded old stuff. Mostly they didn't take anything away from the Dark Eldar and gave them some nice new abilities. The Alpha Strike is as strong as ever, despite what all the rumors seemed to point to. The hand to hand army is deadlier than ever. And if you fancied webway portal deployment, its probably safer now than it ever has been. And now finally a Haemonculus coven is finally possible with Haemonculi making Wracks troops in their armies!
So what kind of list will I be running?
Originally I decided that the Coven list would be my new bag, after-all I have drooled over Haemmie fluff for 2 years now. However after play testing a few times and now considering the amount of money I would have to spend...I think my hybrid army will be the weapon of choice.
Consider this 2000 point list(notes in italics):
Kabal of Violet Shadows: Redux
1 Baron Sathonyx
The Baron makes a great primary HQ for my army to ensure that I get first turn for my alpha striking capabilities and for the ability to deepstrike in and threaten devastators and long fangs and the like, he isn't very killy, but he doesn't have to be as long as his shadowfield is up!
1 Haemonculus
Standard cheap Haemonculus HQ to get wracks as troops and to throw a pain token into a Trueborn squad, reaver squad or the Baron as I see fit.
4 Trueborn
4 Blasters
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
4 Trueborn
4 Blasters
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
4 Trueborn
4 Blasters
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
I think you will see a lot of Trueborn squads set up like this with the new Codex. This squad of Trueborn throws out 4 Blaster shots a turn (that is an 18" Dark lance shot), has a ride with an invulnerable save, and the ride can move 12" and still shoot 12 poisoned shots at 36". That is a huge threat bubble! People will learn to fear Venoms coupled with dark lance Ravagers or Voidravens.
5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
5 Warriors
Blaster
1 Venom Flickerfield
Splinter cannon
My Warrior squads serve 2 purposes: 1) they get me some cheap blaster squads on the field, 2) they bring another Venom to the fire fight. With 7 Venoms on the table people will not want to have boots on the ground. 7 Venoms generate 84 poisoned shots per turn that effectively have 48" range. Nasty!
10 Wracks
Liquifier (2)
Acothyst
Agonizer
1 Raider Dark Lance
Flickerfield
10 Wracks
Liquifier (2)
Acothyst
Agonizer
1 Raider Dark Lance
Flickerfield
Wracks are my shock troops. These guys can put out a staggering number of attacks and are pretty resilent with T 4 and FNP. The real beauty for them is the 2 Liquifiers though, these flamers are nasty! Marines fear these flamers, hell even Terminators should fear these flamers. And the Wrack units get me 2 more Dark Lances on the field for vehicle bashing.
3 Reavers 1 Heat Lance
Standard cheap Reaver squad. These guys aren't much of a threat first turn, but with a 36" turbo boost and drugs giving them the possibility of fnp, they become a nuisance. The Heat Lance will make people want to kill them and for 78 points, if they do its no big deal. If they survive though that Heat Lance will be trouble for them, as will being able to Turbo-Boost around running squads out of the backfield and contesting objectives.
1 Ravager 3 Dark Lances
1 Ravager 3 Dark Lances
1 Ravager 3 Dark Lances
Ravagers make fill the role of primary tank hunting. These puppies are only 105 points a piece, making them somewhat of a throw away squad. But when packing 3 Dark Lances a piece and being able to move 12" and still fire all 3 guns, they have to be dealt with.
This list is very shooty, but it also has some deceptively good hand to hand in it with the wrack units. I think many DE players will fold to this Hybrid Style of list.
What do you guys think?
Looks really good actually, of course there's the financial burden of buying all those vypers to convert into venoms. Also I see the lists that used to give DE problems previously (guard and SW gunlines) still being a problem (depends on how long those flickers fields hold out). I would be interested in trying something like this out.
ReplyDeleteYeah I think SW are a little easier to deal with now, especially with the Baron helping me go first, those Venoms will wreck long fangs! IG is still a headache, and I don't really have a good strategy for dealing with them...
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