# Help vs Dark Eldar



## evantar (Dec 31, 2007)

I was wondering if anyone could help me with my problem...

A friend of mine fields the Dark Eldar and he basically has a perfect record against us. The only player that has been able to beat him is our Tyranid player. Now I imagine it was because of the Tyranids capabilities in melee but I'm not sure since I wasn't there. However, I witnessed my Chaos friend get creamed by the DE player in the first turn. The Chaos player was so wiped out he pretty much had to forfeit. :blackeye:

What is the best strategy to do against DE if you are a marine? I myself am a Blood Angel player. Honestly, I'm a little worried about getting into melee with him as I'm not 100% sure what all he is capable of. Is there a different approach I should look at when I fight against him next?

I even witnessed the DE player tear through my Space Wolf friend with a ton of AP 2 weapons..... I can't believe the Dark Eldar are able to field so much AP 2, it's almost unreal. :scratchhead:

He goes cheap in whatever he gets. I think his HQ might have cost him 300 points or so, but when it's all said and done he is still able to field 70 or more models. I usually see a Talos but I think he uses that mostly for bait. IDK, I guess I'm just curious on how other marines might play against the DArk Eldar is all.


----------



## casanova (Nov 1, 2007)

try using heavy vechiles like land radiers and try the flanking manouvare it might work if you outflank them good luck


----------



## martin4696 (Oct 30, 2007)

casanova said:


> try using heavy vechiles like land radiers and try the flanking manouvare it might work if you outflank them good luck


bad advice imo as they are THE fastest 40k army out there, and they have lance weaponry so armour isnt the best idea.

could you give more details of his dark eldar army?? and they dont have that much ap2 imo unless he is cheating.

i use drop podding dreads with heavy flamers and assault cannons and it goes a dream, also try whirlwinds 

hope this helps

martin


----------



## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

AP2 isn't the issue. It's AP3. Disintegrators are relatively inexpensive, and you can shred squads with them in a heartbeat. 

It's awfully hard to fight the Dark Eldar on your own terms, as they're going to outmaneuver you. I'd hold back and let them come to you, and use your Death Company as a mobile reserve. When the Archon and his buddies get stuck in and start cutting up your squads, you can have the Death Company jump in to help out-- they've got the best shot of bringing down the Archon quickly. 

If you have any supply of high volume, moderate strength heavy weapons (such as heavy bolters and assault cannons) they'll help out a fair bit. Bolters can shoot down Raiders, but heavy bolters and assault cannons do it better. If you can shoot the raiders down, particularly the one with the Archon in it, you'll be okay. The ones with the Warriors in them are purely there to protect the Archon and make sure he gets into combat. A Space Marine is more than a match for a Dark Eldar in close combat-- it's the Sybarites and Wyches you need to worry about, and they tend not to be in large numbers. You can figure out where the Wyches are by where he places Raiders as Elites-- shoot them (and the HQ one, if you can draw a line of sight to it) first.


----------



## evantar (Dec 31, 2007)

Are Disintigraters AP3? If so he was using them wrong... Otherwise, I was thinking of using a 2 Baal Pradator with heavy bolter sponsons and a Predator Destructor with heavy dolter sponsons Heavy support core as my main punch. I could also take a Hellfire dread and a Venerable dread for added fire power. Maybe drop them in behind enemy lines. Or else I could go with attack bike squads. 

I'll just post the list I'm sitting here looking at in the army lists section.


----------



## casanova (Nov 1, 2007)

looking at it know you need something to help out manoeuvre 
the enemy like a bike squadron or assault squad

as a question wouldnt a predator be able to help?


----------



## squadiee (Nov 4, 2007)

The Baals and destructor will make short work of almost anything they can field, so I'd recommend you bring those. Drop podding dreads are also an excellent choice, but only go for DCCW and ass. cannon, far better choice than a hellfire due to the fact that it will rip apart alot of his army in both CC and ranged combat. As long as you remember to take down the elites and HQs Raiders, you should have little problem mopping up survivors


----------



## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

I've only ever played against a dark eldar army once. It was a hard fought battle but I won. i was using the standard codex marines. His HQ ripped through my big tactical squad but got ripped to shit by my fully pimped HQ squad fight fire with fire. Wait for him to come to you and counter charge whenever possible and get the charge. Charge or be charged.


----------



## Katie Drake (Nov 28, 2007)

I'm experienced when it comes to taking on the Dark Eldar, so I'll offer you what I know.

Firstly, no matter which units you take in an attempt to out maneuver him, you're going to lose. Period. The Dark Eldar are simply faster than anything you can hope to field so don't go into the battle under the impression that you can play the speed game with him and win.

Secondly, you're going to lose models. Probably a lot of them. The Dark Eldar are capable of fielding a scary number of AP2 and 3 weapons and excel at shredding small, elite units like Space Marines in close combat.

Finally, the Dark Eldar have almost no armor. They have exactly one unit with a decent armor save (not counting the Talos) and that will often accompany his Lord in a Raider transport.

What all of this means if that you need to have an army that has the ability to fire a lot of medium strength shots at a decent range. Land Speeder Tornadoes with heavy bolters and assault cannons can work wonders as they're the only thing in your army that's fast enough to keep up with a Raider. Use these to hunt transports down or cut holes into his units of infantry.

Dreadnoughts in Drop Pods with assault cannons and heavy flamers are grand. Not only are they nearly guaranteed to take down a transport on the turn they land (especially if the heavy flamer is in range) they're also more than capable of roasting those annoying 10 man units with Dark Lances that like to sit in cover and blast away at your tanks.

Whirlwinds can be a godsend against Dark Eldar. Using the incendary round you can scour their static units from their hiding spots with ease (and the normal Vengeance missiles work pretty damned good on everything else).

As a rule, you want to avoid anything with heavier armor than a Dreadnought. Dark Eldar are able to field a scary number of Dark Lances which ignore even the thickest armor so there's no sense in giving them any easy targets.

In general, do your best to stay in cover. Though it probably won't help you much when it comes to assault (as many of their assault units take plasma grenades) it'll mean that you'll take far fewer losses from Dark Eldar shooting and that can only be a good thing. Be sure to have some decent counter-attack units (Death Company works fine) and see off any assaulting units as quickly as possible.

Good luck,

Katie D


----------



## evantar (Dec 31, 2007)

If I took whirlwinds would I want 2 and a different heavy choice, or would 3 be worth it against the dark eldar? 

The whirlwinds and the dreads sound like a great idea against him. While he's working on getting into firing position on the whirlies, I'm dropping in behind him taking shots at his rear armor and forcing him to switch his attention to his rear line. I need to break open a rule book too. I think i remember seeing something about template/blast weapons against open topped vehicles. If that's the case, Plasma cannons would be a plus as well wouldn't they? Maybe 2 whirlies and a Devastator squad with plasma cannons or missile launchers?

I think in the end I will end up taking Dreads against him. I did once and it performed great, until it got one shotted by an Agonizer.  I hate pseudo necron weapons....


----------



## Wolfbyte2586 (Nov 15, 2007)

the thing with Dark Eldar is that once you point a gun in their general direction, something dies. Their strengths are the RIDICULOUS amount of Dark Lances they can field (or Disintegrators, if they feel like swapping out, but the lists i typically see field mostly DLs, with only one or maybe two Ravagers with Dissies). I know that i personally can fit upwards of 20 DLs into 2k points, half of which are mounted on platforms that move 12" and can still fire them.

Against DE you simply have to dump more fire into them then they can dump into you. DL spam lists are attrition lists, they work to disable your army before you can disable theirs. As others have said, lots of shots are your best bet. S4 AP anything is good enough really. The majority of their armor saves will be 5+ or worse, so just take weapons that will dump out a lot of shots. Identify his firing lanes and try to neutralize them with Heavy Bolters, Assault Cannons, and the like.

And Yes, Open topped weapons are Vulnerable to blasts.


----------



## Mad King George (Jan 15, 2008)

are dark eldar liek evil eldar because they rejected the craftworld way and use illegal eldar weps ?


----------



## Churlton (Nov 23, 2007)

Katie Drake said:


> I'm experienced when it comes to taking on the Dark Eldar, so I'll offer you what I know.
> 
> Katie D


Take KDs advice

Just get them walking as soon as possible.

I try to target the transports, hoping they entangle etc & lose bods in the crash (all to change in 5th Ed (allegedly!)).
Then target the closest units, FoF is still dangerous to tie your units up until the hard-hitters arrive (+ block LOS etc).
Target priority for me (squads) would be: Wyches (nasty,nasty,nasty!), HQ then remaining troops.
Concentrate systematically until they are cleared.

Ignor all else until you blunt the lightning assault, unless the talos(') is/are getting into charge range that is.

Their static firebase and Ravager(s) will be hurting you, but you hope to weather them until you can free up & send your counter-assault units after them.

Never underestimate a good DE player


----------



## roricon (Jan 11, 2008)

Mad King George said:


> are dark eldar liek evil eldar because they rejected the craftworld way and use illegal eldar weps ?


The Eldar once became so evil and horrible that they ended up accidently creating Slaanesh and destroying their homeworld. That's why they wear soulstones, to prevent their souls going to Slaanesh. They cleaned up their act though.

Dark Eldar stayed bad.

This is of course a very simplified version of that particular backstory, but there you go.


----------



## Lord Sinkoran (Dec 23, 2006)

destroy their transports


----------



## stormshroud (Apr 27, 2007)

Just an echo of what everyone else has said. 

Neutralise their transports, whirlwinds can be your friend against hidden trnasports. Don't forget open topped are vulnerable to blasts. As a guard player my mortar squads have had great success dropping trnasports and pinning elements of DE armies.

Pinning elements of a DE army can be a quite effective tactic allowing you to limit your opponents options in their turn, so thats whirlwinds and maybe some sniper scouts.

They will outmaneuver you, so accept that. They have a lot of low AP weaponry so use cover, can also help when you get assaulted.

For me it is similar to fighting 'nids target priority is key. Pick your number 1 priority and make sure it drops or stops before you move onto secondary targets.


----------



## Shadowfane (Oct 17, 2007)

Hmmmm..... I tell you what, since you've had plenty of advice from people who've had experience fighting DE, I'll point out a few things I don't like seeing in a SM army as someone who's used DE since they first appeared in 40k 

First of all, do not underestimate the annoyance factor of a full squad of tactical marines. When your basic weapon can potentially gut one of my transports, I do NOT enjoy seeing lots of them on the board. For your special/heavy weapons, I'd steer clear of lascannons - they are nothing but overkill, especially with just the one shot. Look at the missile launcher (krak for raiders, frag for the warriors in the next turn) or a heavy bolter. For special weapons, I'd be more tempted by the plasma gun: the melta has waaaay too short a range against the DE (since for the most part they can stop 19 inches away from you and still charge in next turn), and the flamer, whilst fun against T3, 5+ save troops, again - they'll have already charged in.

Again, I'll echo the posters above me - A rhino heavy, speedy army will get butchered in short order against a DE general who knows what he's doing. If you want fast troops, hold them in reserve for when the Wyches or the Archon and his Incubi hit your lines; unless you're really lucky, chances are they'll paste whatever they hit in the first turn, and you have to have something to throw back at them before they start rolling down your battleline - assault squads/death company tend to work well here.

Whirlwinds are fun, mainly because they blast static groups into the dirt, but a Dread with assault cannon and missile launcher can make a nasty mess too, and can start the game in cover so they don't instantly get shot at, so make a useful alternative.

Honestly, you need to plan for three things: How to bring down the transports, blasting them afterwards, and how to plug the gap the close combat elements of the army will punch through your lines.

Hmmmm... this was probably less help than I hoped it would be


----------



## evantar (Dec 31, 2007)

Awesome advice everyone. I think I have a good idea what I'm going to take against him when we go head-to-head. We just did a looong 2v2 last night and he was teamed up with a necron player, I was with a chaos player. After seeing what a few things were able to do to his transports and troops, I think I have a better idea of what it takes to bring him down. I have to leave for a bit, but when I get back I might post a 1500 point final list to critique. I think what I had last night did ok, but we ended up playing long-board and I had short range weapons so I had a major disadvantage. And wouldn't you know, I was a prime target for the DE player. :shok:


----------



## Mad King George (Jan 15, 2008)

you probably need

bolters 

anti tank

and a tank to kill a dark eldar team

and a god cc group


----------

