Just had my first 6th edition game and suffice to say I really enjoyed myself with the game. But nonetheless while I was playing the game I could see that the psychic powers, new objective grabbing rules, shooting and assaulting rules will have an effect upon my force in more ways than one.
For one, I can no longer let my troops sit in the transport and just zoom towards an objective. Now I have to get out and take it for myself. In addition the way assault works now, it is quite a high-risk, high-payoff kind of thing as your distance is increased but in return it is random and the enemy units can fire on you like in Fantasy as a response to your assaulting. The Nerf to power weapons in general also made me wonder if the good o' days of tarpitting is the wisest thing to do. And then there are the psykers, and although the psychic powers from the rulebook is random, but they could be very powerful. And flyers.....enough said.
But in return for this weird nerf, the shooting phase is a very nasty and powerful phase as I am allowed to snipe models and kill them off with careful positioning and also Focus Fire. In addition the idea of ignoring Night Fighting is freaking amazing for Dark Eldar, as now the new rules for Night Fighting and Night Vision means that Dark Eldar can play a more aggressive game while having great defenses. having the Strategic Warlord trait to take advantage of stuff also helps in the long run. Challenges in close combat will also be a way in which Dark Eldar players could bully people and/or save our own ass against stuff that we do not want the rest of the squad to face. Last but not least, wound allocation with the Archons will always be fun as their 2+ invul laughs at the allocation quite well.
With these things in mind, I noticed that my playstyle would have to incorporate even more killing power to eliminate opposing scoring units while also have psychic defenses to prevent my forces from being screwed over. Like a shark drawn to the scent of blood, I went about looking in the rulebook to see if I could somehow do this to help myself and suffice to say my solution is actually simpler than I thought it would be; Allies.
And among all of them the most obvious choice for me is the humble Farseer with Doom. Doom as a power is quite ally-friendly as it states that any unit that was targetted by the power allows any hits on that unit to have re-rolls to wound. This is big as it increases the killing power of the army by whole lot. Re-rolling to hits psychic powers are really nice, but they tend to be too short of a range for me to be comfortable with and Doom has a very good range to boot. Besides with my list, I tend to worry about the wounding rather than the hitting. Rune of Warding is the best psychic defense in the game and will shut down anyone wanting to cast their powers while Rune of Witnessing allows me to trigger my power much more easily. And just for shit and giggles the Singing Spear is a good anti-tank weapon.
In addition, if I so feel that Doom may not be as helpful, I can always substitute it with something from either the divination psychic powers or the Telepathy to improve my play (but highly unlikely as Doom is so good already).
In order for the Farseer to keep up with the rest of my army which is monstrously fast, I need to put it on a Jetbike to allow my Farseer to keep up. But to take the Farseer, I need a troop choice from the Codex Eldar, and what better choice to take for the troop choice than that of a Guardian Jetbike squad? Not only it is fast, it can also protect my Farseer as bodyguards of sorts. And just for the fun of it, putting a Shuriken Cannon on one of the bikes will allow for the unit to have some sniping moments and help in the glancing of vehicles. Last but not least, they are also scoring units that are not in vehicles.
Of course, by taking the requisite slot this allow me to take some units from the Eldar codex that would complement my army in more ways than one. As I looked in the book, I noticed one unit that stands out above the rest; War Walkers.
Not only are they quite affordable and survivable, they are also able to dish out some hate in the form of two scatter lasers each and also piss everyone off by outflanking to the sides and target units from unexpected corners. This would also help me in some form of anti-air as well as the number of shots would allow me to at least do something to some flyers if my Razorwing is not up to the task.
So with that my allied contingent would look something like this
Farseer with Doom, Rune of Warding, Rune of Witnessing, Singing Spear and Jetbike - 138 pts
3 Jetbikes with one Shuriken Cannon - 76 pts
3 x War Walker with 2 Scatter Lasers - 180 pts
For a total of 394 pts, I actually solved a number of problems that my list face somehow. I solved psychic defense, objective grabbing and anti-air in one nice swoop.
With that I decided to take out some things from my general list and incorporate the first-hand experiences with 6th edition into this particular list (do note that I am going for the 1999 pts + 1 format, as the true 2k format is very ridiculous and I would be maxing out some slots more than others);
Dark Eldar/ Eldar list 1999 pts
Dark Eldar
Archon with Agoniser, Venom Blade, Haywire Grenade, Combat Drugs, Shadowfield - 130 pts
Haemonculus with Venom Blade and Liquifier gun - 65 pts
4 Blasterborn in a Venom with two splinter cannons - 173 pts
3 Blasterborn in a Venom with two splinter cannons - 146 pts
8 Wyches with Haywire Grenades with Hekatrix with Agoniser and Haywire grenades in Raider with Nightshields - 196 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in Venom with two splinter rifles - 125 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in Venom with two splinter rifles - 125 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in in Raider with Nightshields - 130 pts
5 Kabalite warriors with Blaster in in Raider with Nightshields - 130 pts
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields - 115 pts
Ravager with 3 Dark Lances and Nightshields - 115 pts
Razorwing with Twin-linked Splinter Rifle, 2 Dark Lances, 4 Monoscythe missiles and Flickerfield - 155 pts
Eldar Allied
Farseer with Doom, Rune of Warding, Rune of Witnessing, Singing Spear and Jetbike - 138 pts
3 Jetbikes with one Shuriken Cannon - 76 pts
3 x War Walker with 2 Scatter Lasers - 180 pts
Total pts for list: 1999 pts
In order to incorporate the Eldar stuff for my list, I decided to take out one Wych squad and a Haemonculus as I no longer want to tarpit if possible and decided against another blasterborn squad in Venom as the third blasterborn unit does not truly improve upon my playstyle.
In general the gameplan for the list is quite similar to my older Dark Eldar list of killing everything first and capturing objectives later but instead my list now has a more effective controlling factor into the equation. In addition, with my style of play, I tend to snipe and kill it overwhelmingly and Doom + Dark Lances/Poison shots = WINZ is definitely a good start for that kind of play. The Wych squad is there just in case I need to do some assaulting and/or tossing grenades at something and also act as a sort of bait for the rest of my forces to do their thing.
I would definitely try to test the list soon to see how viable this idea would be. But based upon my experiences with Eldar weaponry and powers, I can safely say that it is a very good compliment to my army.
Well this also gives me the reason to go about converting even more stuff for my Dark Eldar army so I am really stoked to get this list up and running. See ya all soon!
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