# Dark Eldar Special Characters



## Brian007 (Aug 8, 2008)

OK so I am new to Dark Eldar and I very excited to start playing them. I was looking over the book last night and looking at special characters. As with most characters their price is pretty high. Lets look at Vec. For his cost alone you can get a 10 man group of Incubi, or two units of Wracks warriors or Wyches. I would think that any of those would be better than having just one character, special or not.

So my question is this. Are special characters worth taking with their high point cost? Or is it better to put more models on the table?

Second question: Are there any characters that are better than others for their point cost? I guess I mean are there characters that are worth taking for their points? Which ones and why?

I would normally be playing 2000 point games. Sometimes we do 3000 points.

Thanks much for taking the time to explain and help out a new DE player.


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## Tatsumaki (Oct 22, 2009)

Okay so... With most armies in the latest edition of Warhammer, the characters are there not so much to fight themselves but to support the rest of their army through their special abilities. In that sense some of the DE characters work in that respect, and some of them don't.

First up, Baron Sathonyx... Actually the Baron is a REALLY good special character in most armies. He makes Hellions a Troop choice, he gives the otherwise fragile unit the Stealth rule, makes them all have the Skilled Rider rule so they can actually make the most of that terrain, and best of all he is SCARY in combat. If you have an Archon with the Webway portal, you have a disgustingly fast CC army in which every unit is scoring. Definitely good for a themed army.

Lelith Herisperax: Hmm coming in at a full 105 points ahead of the Baron is Lelith Herisperax. She is a close combat machine, fully capable of tearing the nipples off an entire squad Assault Terminators before they even get a go, she brings new diversity when added to Wyches, making them able to tear through super-heavies like Terminators like never before... But she comes with two major drawbacks, namely her strength and her toughness. See, having a strength value of 3 with no poison means she can't do a great amount of damage to enemies with high toughness. Even with her absurd number of attacks, only a third of those that hit will even stick to an enemy of T4. Secondly her toughness, and her toughness of 6 means she will be dropped by even a single hit from a s6 weapon. That means monsters, Termie equivalents, all of the things she is supposed to be fighting will Instant Death her if they get a single wound. Her 3++ will only go so far unfortunately... To top it off, she doesn't even grant any support abilities to her army, she just hits. For 175 points? I would rather just buy more wyches and be done with it.

Kherdrukah: Well this guy is also a psychopath... But he is more for character sniping. Very good when it comes to killing one guy, but he suffers when you look at how probable it is that his instant death will actually kill them off.. See he can't charge the turn he shows up, so he can't even snipe all that well. And then there's the fact that most characters have a lot of invuln protection nowadays, or would simply walk away from the danger... His real value is in picking off monstrous creatures like Hive Tyrants, or very weak command units like Imperial Command squads, both of which are better hunted by other units. For 140 points, you can do better.

Slicus the Serpent: One of the more-used special characters. He's not like Herisperax, he should only ever be kept in a unit of Carbine Trueborn where his hand to hand skills are able to compensate for their relative melee weakness. He makes poison stronger, he makes your combat drugs more powerful, and he's one of the two special characters with the common sense to bring a Shadow Field to a fight. Always worth it, just watch his low toughness as, again, it is inclined to bring his rampage to a grinding halt.

Lady Malys: Another support unit, Lady Malys is the Dark Eldar's only form of Psychic defense, and she allows you to re-deploy D3 of your units. She is actually decent support, that re-deployment can be very useful. However in combat, she's only so-so. That 4+ won't protect her for very long, and she is quite vulnerable with her low toughness... All of which relegates her, a character with no shooting, to a position on the backfield somehwere... It's a problem alright, so I have to say, again, there are better characters to choose from.

Drazhar: This guy is even more disgusting than Herisperax in terms of Marine Murdering! Very plain and simple, all about the Power Weapon attacks and the Riposte rule means that trying to take him out with volume of attacks is also a "no", because it will merely multiply the number or instant attacks back they will be hit by. But the price sort of dooms him.. He has 7 attacks on the charge and has three wounds.... For that price you could buy almost 10 Incubi. They would get 30 attacks on the charge, and between them have ten wounds. They have a slightly weaker save, but that sure isn't worth the points hit. The lesson here is the same as most characters before: Don't pile points into them, because their equivalent in infantry is usually going to do their job better.

Urien Rakarth: This guy is the dark horse of the Dark Eldar special characters, mostly because his main advantage of making Wracks a scoring choice means buying a lot of finecast wracks. However Wracks are a very good scoring choice because if they go to ground on an objective, they gain a 3+ cover followed by a 4 Feel no Pain. Those saves are even better than a Terminator against most attacks. So he's a good choice, just remember that with his low A value, he should be leading from the back.

Vect: Ah yes, the final special character. An absolutely bolly special character, not only does he have a shadow field, he also has the ability to restore wounds to himself just by throwing the brass orbs... However some of the things you're spending points on, like his Ghostplate armour, the Orbs that restore wounds, they're designed to keep him alive after he's lost his Shadowfield, and it's just futile I'm afraid. Once the Shadow Field is gone, he's as good as toast, because he only has a 6+ invuln and nearly every heavy weapon on the battlefield will wipe him off the table if you roll a crappy one. So he's great if you're able to aim him solely at heavily armoured Marines or Mega Armour, but he has only 6 attacks, and if he gets pitted against a big fearless unit he will become tar-pitted very quickly. And to top it all off, the only army-wide benefit he grants is the Seize The Initiative on a 4+. And as you correctly pointed out, he costs a ridiculous amount of points. You could throw a quarter of your whole army into him only to be taken out by a single unlucky roll from a Loota. There are much more resilient things to invest the points in, which come in a lot cheaper.

In my opinion, the only time it's worth investing a large amount of points in a special character is when he powers up the rest of your force significantly. For example, Eldrad Ulthran from the Craftworld Eldar can make nearby troops far tougher and their shots even more accurate and deadly. Or there's Vulkan Hestan, who makes all melta and flamer weapons in a whole Marines force twin-linked just by being on the table. Essentially what I'm trying to say is that the best special characters aren't "Point and Click" weapons, but they support the force in some way the or allow a unit to take on an enemy it usually couldn't harm. If you keep to this philosophy, I'm sure you can't go wrong ^^..

(As a side note, this is why I quite dislike the Tau Empire book, because of O'Shovah. Not only does he cost too much and doesn't kill enough, why does he make the rest of his army *weaker*!? That doesn't make any sense!!)


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

_Only_ six attacks?

I think that Vect is fantastic as long as you take him at 1750pts+, more preferably 2k, or he starts to weaken the army as it loses vital tools. His weaknesses are easily compensated for if you have the points, unlike some SCs - with a large squad of Incubi, they can take all of the ID hits on the retinue and a few weaker hits on Vect. The fact that he has 6 attacks at WS: lots and re-rolling to hit (and wound against other Eldar, CE or DE) and poison IIRC, he beats face with the best of them and only gets better with Pain Tokens (7 attacks charging, hitting on 3s with re-rolls, wounding on 4s with re-rolls at an initiative topped only by Keepers of Secrets and Banshee Masks. Seizing the initiative and the potential to take the Dais if you want more firepower is just the icing on the cake. Always worth a look.

Midnight


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

just to point something out. there are 3 special characters with shadow field. Baron, Duke, and Vect.


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## khrone forever (Dec 13, 2010)

one thing good about the duke that i dont think was mentioned is that he allows raiders/ravegers to deep strike


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

If you plan on using Raider mounted Wyches as the majority of your forcve then the Duke is a borderline auto-buy.
He gives you 2 attempts on the Combat drug chart (you pick the roll you prefer). And yes, although he would turn Carbine mounted Trueborn into something fierce, I tend to run him in a normal Splinter Rifle Warrior squad, mounted on a raider with Splinter racks. That's a lot of re-rolls to hit and wounding on a 3+. 
Deepstriking this into the enemy midst allows a volley of rapidfire.

Aside from the Duke and Baron, I really don't believe any of the DE characters work in competitive play. You can make Archons of around 150 points some of the most deadly combat characters in game. This makes the Combat special characters redundant, as none provide sufficient army wide bonuses to make heir extended cost worthwhile.

And incase anyone has yet to notice, the Duke's main influence in design is Lord Byron.


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## Tatsumaki (Oct 22, 2009)

Damn, Sathonyx gets a shadowfield too? He's so awesome!

And yeah indeed Vect does get 6 attacks on the charge, but for those kinda points? The Dias is even more pricey. I wouldn't use him, but I would definitely agree that if you were to field him, it would have to be in biiiig points games.

Oh yeah and the Duke's Deep Strike thing is cool, but you could do that with Retrofire Jets, and it's pretty dangerous Deep Sriking a vehicle that can be glanced to death by nearly all of the enemy's guns (Or even take Pens vs. Tau)


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## Skari (Dec 20, 2011)

If I were to rate them:
- Baron... A+: This guy is awesome. I actually had to -try- and move away from him and his hellions as they are a great choice. He has so many rules... and he is so cheap... a must take IMO.
- Duke... A: I like him a lot, this was the one character that jumped out at me when I first read the book, although to use him to his fullest have one kabalite unit with him and then wyches, and more wyches, and reavers... all to take advantage of the drug roll. 
- Vect... A: Yes, he is expensive, but he makes up for it in psychological warfare, the alfa strike potential is inmense, in larger games being able to almost always go first even after you have made your opponent deploy first is amazingly good. 

(the rest go here). Although fun, I do not find the others to be worthwhile of my game time, being limited. I feel that the basic options in the book are a lot better for cheaper in these cases, succubuses, archons and regular heamies.


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

If I'm very much mistaken, do Hellions not also have access to combat drugs?

I do not have my codex on me and i haven't played DE in some few months.


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## Skari (Dec 20, 2011)

Yes, hellions do use drugs. (although the baron does not)


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## zotb (Mar 10, 2011)

Midnight, Vect wounds on threes, not fours. Vect is really expensive but his stat-line except for toughness is awesome. Stick him with a squad of wytch and a homunculus and he's ridiculously killy and hard to kill.


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## Styro-J (Jan 20, 2009)

Just noting that Vect does have 7 attacks on the charge. 5 base, 1 for two CC weapons, and 1 for charging. He rerolls to hit anyone, but only to wound against Eldar. He won't against anyone else, since his weapons are not poison. If you can get him engaged with the enemy then he'll probably just chew through them. He is super potent, but expensive.


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## Tatsumaki (Oct 22, 2009)

He is super potent, but there are far more dangerous things like having a whole unit of 10 Incubi for that price, or even 8 with a Raider?


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## Skari (Dec 20, 2011)

You buy vect for the sieze. Any good opponent going second will reserve to force vects hand. But he is also a killer when it comes to dealing with tough things in combat.


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

You would run Vect alongside either the Duke (to deepstrike in) or Lady Malys (Vect to seize and Malys to reshuffle your attacking/vanguard units).

The latter works a charm in Apoc or large games.


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