First Game with new Dark Eldar + Unit Synopsis

You guys might remember Nick, who helped me get The Dice Abide started, well he's back at it with the Dark Eldar release.  Check out his blog, Hobby Sherpa.  Not only does he have some good Dark Eldar insights, but he also frequently has some screaming good deals up on ebay! Last night I played my first game with the new Dark Eldar.  I played against a Space Wolf Thunderwolf army with a super-deathstar armed to the teeth with Thunder Hammers, Runic Armor and Stormshields.  They were supported by Imperial Fists (Librarian on Bike, 2 units of Centurions in Drop Pods, and 5 Tactical Marines). Not exactly a walk in the park. Did I mention that he rolled invisibility?

Here was my list:

Haemonculi w/ WWP, Flesh Gauntlet, Armor of Misery - 150

6x5 Warriors in Venoms - 630

9 Grotesques - 315

3x5 Scourges with 4 Haywires - 360

2 Voidravens - 400 

The Haemonculi and Grotesques did not do much early in the game.  I deepstruck them far away from my opponents super unit (in his own backfield) onto an objective.  I was hoping to either bait his super unit away from the rest of my fragile army, or discourage his reserves from coming in to claim the objective I was on.  The bait was unsuccessful, but I did block my opponent.  These guys sprung to action late in the game (turn 4) and killed a couple of characters with ease.  They didn't do much, but they did give me some pretty good board control.  Against an army with less Thunderhammers, they would have been in the thick of things.

The Warriors and Venoms performed similarly to how they did in previous editions.  I started all the Warriors on the board and the Venoms in reserve - I didn't want the Centurions to drop in and kill a Venom before I got to shoot. This also helped allow me to overwhelm my opponent with MSU and give him plenty of targets to choose from.  On Turn 6 I still had Warriors alive, and they benefitted from being Fearless and the FNP bonuses.  The new Power from Pain chart was quite nice.

The Scourges did not have many good targets this game, but they did drop down and kill the Drop Pods with relative ease.  When I compare them to Warp Spiders or Swooping Hawks, 120 points seems like a lot, but they were effective in their role.  In games with not as many vehicles they can play a late game contesting unit, as it's probably best to keep them out of harms way.  The 24" range is nice, as it does let me drop them down further away from the fight.

The Voidravens were nice, but probably not effective for 200 points a pop. My opponent had nothing that could effectively deal with flyers, so I could dominate the skies. Even with that advantage, I was not impressed.

In future lists, I probably won't use the Voidravens again.  I'll also probably swap out a unit of Haywire Scourges for Heat Lances.  Dark Eldar still do MSU with the best of them and I was able to pull off a win.  We played LVO mission 6 and we tied on the primary, and I won the secondary Maelstrom and had First Blood and Linebreaker, giving me a 5-1 victory over the super friends.  As I mentioned, the new power from pain chart is great - as it allows units who were hiding or not in the fight to benefit from it.

I'm definitely going to tweak my list a bit, I'm excited to see it evolve!