Saturday, November 27, 2010

Dark Eldar Weaknesses


In order to fully master the Dark Eldar army, we Archons (and Succubi and Heamonculi) must be aware of the weaknesses the new codex has.  Through two tournaments and numerous practice games I've come up with a short list of weaknesses that have plagued me.  I would appreciate any readers to contribute what they perceive to be some inherent weaknesses in the Dark Eldar Codex, or tough match-ups for Dark Eldar.
  • KP Missions - my 1,850 point list has 22 kill points in it.  Not to mention the KP's aren't exactly difficult to get.
  • Mass S6+ Shots - it's bad enough we have armor 10 on just about everything.  When the opponent throws down a mass of shots that glance on a 4+, our flickerfields and night shields only go so far.
  • Armies that can cripple 3+ Raiders a turn with 48"+ weaponry like Space Wolf armies with 3x Long Fangs or Mechanized Imperial Guard.  Our vehicles will obviously be hiding turn one, but it's only a matter of time before we have to advance.  
  • Not getting the first turn - this can be minimized with defensive deployments, cover and reserves but I think Dark Eldar perform much better if they are able to get the first round of shooting off.  Blown up or immobilized transports leaving Wyches or Trueborn to trek across the field puts a big damper on strategy.  

6 comments:

  1. One word....daemons. Invulnerable saves plus eternal warrior is a big hinderence to a lot of my list. However, most weaknesses can be overcome. Against daemons, outnumbering is the best way to go. I recently played a 500pt practice game where a ten man wych unit wiped out two five-man bloodletter squads in succession with no losses. Also, my archon did okay by successfully rolling his saves and killing the masque. Yay for rerolls to wound drugs! Although, my warrior squad was almost wiped out by some pink horrors.

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  2. I would say, perhaps, a little bit of predictability. If you 'get' Dark Eldar then Target Priority won't be that difficult unless being played exceptionally well.

    Also, the closer you get to 2k, the more your superiority gives a clear advantage over Daemons, especially sub-par things like Bloodletters. :)

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  3. Against invulnerable saves I would suggest mass splinter weaponry. Venom blades in CC would probably be pretty darn useful too.

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  4. Agreed, 2k seems to very much be the list building sweet spot for DE.

    Torrent should see off the deamons, and massed poison even seems to work well enough on plague bearers in my experience.

    AT is a DE weakness now , what with the price and nature of DL's, some games you just bounce bounce bounce , very frustrating

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  5. I've had the same experience with my Dark Lances. If they don't come in groups of 3 (Ravagers or Trueborn) they really don't seem to get the job done. All the more reason to switch over to Venoms I guess.

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  6. You could also opt for disintegraters on your raiders if you don't care for the single darklance shots. I agree that individually they may not amount to much but since you can spam them so easily it adds up. If you definately have enough anti tank in other sources, though (like ravagers/trueborn) then perhaps getting disintigraters would be a safe bet, they are like the new starcannons!

    Also, part of the effectiveness for a Dark Eldar army is spam. You spam so many threats and cram them down the throat of the enemy. I think being defensive at first is smart but then you have to shove your forces into the face of the enemy. In every game we played, for example, you would have been much better off having sent all of your wyches and wracks turbo boosting into my face all in one turn. I don't think I would have been able to deal with all of that.

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