# Dark eldar heavies



## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

I'm facing a dark eldar player in an 1850 game and I'm not sure what type of heavies he will be bringing. I know that they love raiders and I'm packing plenty of autocannons in my TAC build already. I was going to add 2 manticores in my build and maybe a leman variant or another manticore into my list but i have no idea what type of armor a DE player can field.

Any tips and info?


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## ARMYguy (Feb 8, 2012)

Dark eldar has no heavy units, its all armor 10 or 11. I forget if a razer wing is 12. My friend who plays de masses raiders and venoms packed full of blaster infantry and wyches. Some ravagers which have 3 lances each. every raider also has a lance. prepare to watch all your vehicles blow up in 1 turn from all the lance shots. If he takes night shield, good luck using hand held AT weapons too. (lowers weapon range by 6 inches).

If he plays it right, its a tough match.


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## The_Werewolf_Arngeirr (Apr 3, 2012)

yeah our heavies are ravagers (AV11 11 10) or our MC talos's


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

So ravagers take up a heavy slot?


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## The_Werewolf_Arngeirr (Apr 3, 2012)

Ravagers, Talos, Chronos are our heavies, more or less. we have the razorwing jet fighter and the bomber too, but the bomber is missing a model (a real one) for its design, and the razorwing is meh.


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## Archon Dan (Feb 6, 2012)

Autocannons will suffice for taking out DE vehicles. The only exception is Vect's Dias of Destruction but I don't see that being fielded in an 1850 list. Manticores would be a waste as DE don't have large squads to pie plate and if you explode the open-topped transports, you usually take several of the passengers out too. The big concern should actually be the Talos. It's an MC with T 7 and 3+ armour. But it is not Fleet like most of the army.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

Oh thanks. I just found out I've been facing a team of DE and Orks and they've been fielding 3 Ravagers and 2 BWs (for boyz). So essentially we've been playing 3 heavies vs their 5. This new information is a bit troubling.


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## Antonius (Jan 10, 2012)

Stuff that works against DE: Spammed S6+ weapons with high rate of fire if possible. They down AV11 well, and also rob the DE of their FNP save most of the time. I can see the argument for manticores, but i would almost be tempted to put an exterminator / hydra battery in that last slot. Weapons of choice: Autocannons (Hydras are perhaps best, but regular ones do well too), Multilasers, Plasmaguns, Grenade Launchers, Meltas, Multimeltas and even Heavy Bolters when spammed are effective against DE.

Oh and like SM lasplas razorbacks, the basic DE transport (raiders) can do Anti-tank - so watch out for them too. AV12 saturation makes lances less effective - they're designed for anti-AV14/13, so they're only relying on the S8, plus saturation has its own merits.

So, stay the hell away from CC, and hit the ravagers early (or the blaster venoms dependent on target priority) and use superior ranged power to break them out of their paper planes and make them trudge into flamer range.

I think that a Griffon/Eradicator would be better against DE than the manticore - THEY CAN NEVER HIDE from the Eradicator and they will never get any FNP saves (thank you T3) or an armour save either probably - destroy the remnants of a squad camping in the crater left by their broken transports.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

Ya I've been toying with an eradicator recently and I'm slowly falling in love with them.


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## clever handle (Dec 14, 2009)

what is a TAC build?

I think you should remember against DE: your vehicles are more likely to kill his vehicles than the opposite. He's going to lock you & your squads inside down by glance / penning and relying upon rolling 1's & 2's (hoping for 5's & 6's though...) and if smart, will be spreading that fire around until he's suppressed enough vehicles he can reasonably go in for a focused kill. Of course you'll be doing the same thing.

A dark lance has no real bonus effect against AV 10-12, it is just any other missile launcher to your chimeras, deny clear side shots & realize you're going to get glanced (may honestly be a good choice to deploy platoon's w/ AC's on foot, depending on opponent's build...). Each dark lance shot has a 2/3 x 1/3 x 1/3 = 2/27 chance to destroy a chimera. Your vehicles have a boat load of S5 & S6 shooting on them if you sit still (your guns & his are the same range...). S6 is more effective against his vehicles than S8 is against your front armor due to open topped (1/10 chance to destroy per shot). Your chimera's each have multiple shots & are at least 5 points cheaper, you can out-AV him there... just a matter of who strikes first.

That being said, a raider / ravager has an effective 48" threat range when you couple movement & weapon range, if deploying first do what you can to minimize his use of cover from your AC/ML/HB's & ensure that you will be within your 36" range with at least some shooting. If he has nightshields (which he should be declaring prior to game) you need to be within 30". By aggressively in pitched battle you've already got range. Your AC's wether deployed inside chimeras, or on foot should be within range almost anywhere on the table. This forces him to play pretty aggressive as he can't sit back at range & pick off targets as safely.
If going second try to deploy so that his guns can really only focus on one or two obvious targets & only get the occasional, obscured shot at AV12 on any others. If he isn't playing an assaulty or venom heavy list (which if he's loading up on raiders he may not be...) consider deploying troops with autocannons on foot, this allows your autocannons to continue shooting even if a chimera gets dinged & provides more targets for your opponent's shooting (of course if he has a splinter heavy or assaulty army deploying on foot is probably not the best idea...)


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## Seppuku (Jan 8, 2012)

*Heavy Support: *For heavy support I can't imagine a better opponent for hydras. Ignore the skimmer saves, 72" range, high rate of fire, can move and shoot, and AV12. You lose nothing vs. lance weaponry with a hydra. Leman Russ and ilk suffer mightily from lance weapons, as the Dark Lance and Blasters both drop your AV.

*Fast Attack: *Yes, your vendettas will have a plethora of targets every round. However, do not ignore the hellhound. Baron Sathonyx is the lord of the hellions, and he is an extremely popular HQ choice. He's got a ton of advantages on a 160 point chassis, and he makes hellions troops. However, they are all T3 base. That's right, a S6 AP4 template can vaporize hundreds of points of dark eldar in one shot from a fast vehicle with smoke and AV12 side armor. The inferno cannon removes several major DE advantages: cover saves, armor saves, and FNP. In addition, a HB can drop venoms and raiders if you lack viable targets. 

*Range: *Unfortunately the night shields reducing range by 6" is a serious limitation for your multi-lasers, as he gains the advantage at the 36" range (dark lances and shuriken cannons). Autocannons at 48" drop to 42", which means he can move a venom from outside your reach and pump 12 poison shots into any infantry. DE are hyper-effective between 24" and 42", and one of the few armies where you will utilize the full length of your weaponry. 

*Reserves: * DE are masters of the pounce. They have speed and range, but no durability. You put your dudes out, your opponent devotes 100% of his force to killing 20% of yours, and then relies on range and cover to avoid the remainder of your force. A way you can retake or even seize momentum may be reserves. Fortunately the IG tanks can all move and shoot something, which means strolling on from your deployment zone gives you a chance to down some of his offense before it's been able to reach the remainder of your force. 

Good luck! I just had my Orks teeth kicked in by a venom-spam army. He blew up two battlewagons and stunned a third with the luckiest dark lance shots I've ever seen. After that, it was just poison dakka into my boyz, and it was ugly. The worst loss I've suffered in tournament play possibly ever...


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

Thanks, that was pretty helpful. I always run with hellhounds in my list and I have them outflanking with Creed alongside a platoon of autos and chimeras. I have an executioner, but I'll keep that in reserve so I can take out a few dark lances with my autos and hydras before I bring it on in turn two. I'm using tons of reserved units as well, so this should turn out pretty fun.


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## ARMYguy (Feb 8, 2012)

hey if you figure out a way to beat DE let me know, i still cant do it and iv played my friend's DE at least 30 times with IG.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

I'm outflanking and keeping things in reserves for most of the game. I'm also keeping a lot of my troops in chimeras to keep them from being killed right away. I'll use them as a wall for my tanks too. I'll post later tonight or tomorrow morning to let you know what happened.


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## HOBO (Dec 7, 2007)

I thought this Thread was about DE Heavies and nothing to do with IG beating them:grin:

There's a Thread further down the first page on this subject, and you'll get plenty of advice on how to beat DE. Personally I find DE fairly easy to beat and it's almost one of the cases where a particular list build alone will be a huge advantage in winning a game against them - a mech'ed IG list is just about the perfect foil against them...field as many Chimeras as possible, and as many S6+ weaponry as you can (even HB's will do it) and that alone will just about be enough, although the killing blow will be if you also have any Hydras. You then have both anti - Infantry and anti - AV sorted, with the biggest hurdle left been the Dice Gods.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

We ended up with a draw. I had more kill points in the primary mission (12/8) and he had more objectives with the secondary mission, so we called it a draw. And it seems to me that outflanking and baiting the DE into going for other units worked for me. For instance, I put my hydras all the way to the left of the table and sure enough, he fielded all of his ravagers on that side to take them out. Then I brought in my 1 reserved leman and and he focused nearly everything he could against that. My two outflanking squads of scout sentinels with multilasers ended up working great. 

HOBO: I would agree with you on going full mech with AV12 vehicles. Once he took out all my troops with splinter cannons, he couldn't touch the rest of my vehicles since he nearly ran out of dark lances. 

It was a fun game


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## HOBO (Dec 7, 2007)

Jdojo18 said:


> HOBO: I would agree with you on going full mech with AV12 vehicles. Once he took out all my troops with splinter cannons, he couldn't touch the rest of my vehicles since he nearly ran out of dark lances.
> 
> It was a fun game


It's certainly worked for me in the few dozen games I've played against DE...bad luck aside of course, but that's beyond all our control:biggrin:


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

We've all had our kucky and bad luck games. The last turn, we both shot at each other and both of us missed everything. Not a single shot hit haha we decided to call the game at that point.


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## ARMYguy (Feb 8, 2012)

Jdojo18 said:


> We ended up with a draw. I had more kill points in the primary mission (12/8) and he had more objectives with the secondary mission, so we called it a draw. And it seems to me that outflanking and baiting the DE into going for other units worked for me. For instance, I put my hydras all the way to the left of the table and sure enough, he fielded all of his ravagers on that side to take them out. Then I brought in my 1 reserved leman and and he focused nearly everything he could against that. My two outflanking squads of scout sentinels with multilasers ended up working great.
> 
> HOBO: I would agree with you on going full mech with AV12 vehicles. Once he took out all my troops with splinter cannons, he couldn't touch the rest of my vehicles since he nearly ran out of dark lances.
> 
> It was a fun game


The DE player i play has a ton of blaster infantry on top of 12 or so lances. You cant kill all those lances or blasters, and he still can kill a platoon blob each turn with the other shooty he has. Sounds like the DE you played does not have a good list, or as good anyways. Lucky you, can we trade DE armies to play? lol

The DE heavies i actually wish i could fight more of, its the infantry mass of wyches and blasters that is painful.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

He had 19 lances and about 15 splinter cannons. I'm telling you, outflanking and baiting works great. I did the same against a nid player with basilisks. His list was pretty solid, and he is a pretty good player. Just everything I had came in on the side and forced him to turn around and move over 48 inches to get to me.


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## ARMYguy (Feb 8, 2012)

Ill have to try it, as i don't usually use reserves for anything other than the vendettas.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

I outflanked 2 squads of sentinels with just multilasers, 1 hellhound squad of 2, and a platoon of alrahem and 2 troops in chimeras. I used creed to outflank the hounds. Take an astropath, obviously.


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## Jdojo18 (May 8, 2012)

Just pray that your reserves don't come in on turn 2 otherwise all of your outflanking units will probably come in right next to his raiders that are holding the wyches. I was lucky and had all of my reserves come in on turn 3 and I was able to choose where they all came in at on the table.


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