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I don't know anything about Dark Eldar and I don't no anybody that play Dark Eldar. I would just like to no why they are a hated army.
Dark Eldar
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They aren't hated as such its just that they have suckish models and there codex needs an update (but not until 2009) So they don't get played because of those reasons and they are quite hard to play right.
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Dark Eldar are Direct Only. They made them that way a few years back because they weren't really selling and it cost them too much to keep them on the store shelves. (Interestingly enough, it does cost money for something to sit on the shelf, in a roundabout sort of way.) The models are old, although they're not all bad-- the Incubi and the Wyches are pretty cool.
The really funny thing is that the Dark Eldar are probably the best army in the game... they're so damn fast, extremely choppy, and can shoot up a storm. They take some skill to use, but the results are pretty vicious. They're quite challenging to play against, too. Disintegrators do horrible, horrible things to my power armour...
The really funny thing is that the Dark Eldar are probably the best army in the game... they're so damn fast, extremely choppy, and can shoot up a storm. They take some skill to use, but the results are pretty vicious. They're quite challenging to play against, too. Disintegrators do horrible, horrible things to my power armour...
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At my LGS there is one guy that plays them and he wins quite a bit. The incubi and the witches are just nasty in CC, the incubi all have power weapons and they get 3+ saves the leader gets like a 2+ invul. save, and the drakes, those things are just annoying, because they can come into combat like reserves but don't use deep strike they just come in (kind of like the calidus assassin).
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That shadow field is rough... my favorite way to dispose of that 2+ invulnerable save (since he loses it the first time he fails it) is to shoot down his Raider and make him blow it on that... for whatever reason, the Archon invariably fails for things like that, and not anything vaguely important like getting clocked with a power fist in close combat.
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I used to be the only DE player at my shop but now a buddy of mine just started to build them. He was enamored by the abilities of the dark kin so he had to run out and start his own army. I never thought I would play them because I hated the look of the models and it would be a pain in the ass to order everything. But once I sat down with the codex I became in love with them and now they are one of the most feared armies at my local shop.
The things that a DE player hates is that they were pulled form the shelves so the models are a pain to get sometimes. They havent been updated in a while so some of their models look old school. IMO they dont really need a serious update, maybe some clarification to their rules, maybe some new flavor in there to spice things up and a pretty new codex with good looking art instead of the pencil sketches that pepper the pages of the current one.
Some of the things that opponents of the DE hate is their speed, maneuverability, high initiative, good BS and the option to have a lot of Dark Lances on the field. With a good combat drugs roll on my Wyches, I can start assaulting in turn 1. And like the codex says, in the hands of a skilled and seasoned player, the Dark Eldar are near unbeatable, and I dont doubt it.
The things that a DE player hates is that they were pulled form the shelves so the models are a pain to get sometimes. They havent been updated in a while so some of their models look old school. IMO they dont really need a serious update, maybe some clarification to their rules, maybe some new flavor in there to spice things up and a pretty new codex with good looking art instead of the pencil sketches that pepper the pages of the current one.
Some of the things that opponents of the DE hate is their speed, maneuverability, high initiative, good BS and the option to have a lot of Dark Lances on the field. With a good combat drugs roll on my Wyches, I can start assaulting in turn 1. And like the codex says, in the hands of a skilled and seasoned player, the Dark Eldar are near unbeatable, and I dont doubt it.
Silb Tau are not as good as you make 'em sound. They crump up easy once ya touch 'em.:biggrin: The Dark Eldar are a cool idea and many of my funnest games have been vs Dark Eldar. They are fast, shooty, and assaulty. However they are VERY FRAGILE. Also I think that Dark Eldar are Direct Only in the United States, not everywhere else. Dark Eldar are not hated, just undersupported.
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I have seen them on the shelves in a few places....
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still got them in manchester ugly models but cheesey
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I don't like dark eldar. They have the crappiest minis ever, and are too easy to beat. Also, I think they were just copied in from dark elves so they could have a 40k counterpart. Thats my 2 cents
Listen to this man, he knows that of which he speaks. Dark Eldar used to be my main army.
Their only real weakness is an army with lots of lightly armored infantry with heavy weapons to shoot down the raiders. Read: all infantry guard. Or even orks with enough big shootahs. Big shootahs killed so many of my raiders.
If a dark eldar player knows what he is doing they are not, by any means, easy to beat.
And I don't really get the ugly minis comments. The warriors look acceptable so long as you don't put too many spikes on them or use the ridiculous bride of frankenstien heads, which there are enough heads that you don't have to. The wyches and incubi look downright good and, although I hate the male archon, the female one is awesome. The raiders look fine. And, on average, you're not going to see anymore than that in a dark eldar army if the guy knows what he's doing...
The models are old but, whatever.
DE aren't exactly hated but they are a bit rare due to three reasons:
a) Lots of crap models - they aren't all terrible but plenty of them are ugly as sin
b) A very very very fragile army. Although they hit hard and fast, just 1 or 2 mistakes can easily cost you the game. DE have absolutely zero staying power vs shooting, and only a select couple units can survive in CC too.
c) Simply put, there is 1 excellent unit (Wyches), 3 good-to-middling units (Warriors, Ravagers, and the uber-killy HQs), and the rest are mediocre-to-crap (reavers are bloody expensive for what they do, Talos are too slow to fit in with the rest of the army, Warp Beasts are alright on the charge but tiny squad size, scourges are just utter crap, and so on)
this means that all DE armies fall into 2 categories:
a) Raider Rush - lots of warriors and wyches and ravagers. Doesn't work too well unless you have heavily terrained board or are fighting someone with next-to-no long-range firepower.
a) WWP Rush. You shuffle your warrior units/WWP carriers forward for a couple turns, then unleash the wyches/ravagers/warp beasts/some (myself included) bring jetbikes too.
Not a lot of variation in lists = a generally "boring" army t'be honest. Fun to play every so often but every game ends up looking very similar after a while. This is the biggest problem with the army - pretty much every DE list consists of:
1 Killy Lord or 1 cheap WWP carrier or 1 of each.
2-5 Warriors with Dark Lances (in raider if Raider Rush, on foot if WWPing, or a combo of both) and 2-3 Wyches in raiders if Cabal. If it's a Cult list, it's 2-5 Wyches and 2-3 warriors.
Usually Warp Beasts - 1 in Cabal, 1-4 in Cult.
Reaver Jetbikes/Ravagers/Talos to taste to fill up the rest of the points. Generally Ravagers in "shooty" lists, Talos as "Fire Magnets", Reavers as either 3-man squads with 2 blasters for mobile anti-tank or slightly larger squads used as CC support for Wyches/Lord or taking out min-maxed las/plas marines/dev squads/etc.
You get fringe cases with Mandrakes, Hellions, Grotesques (as an alternative retinue for the Archon), and Scourges, but those are pretty rare.
You can win a lot of games truth be told - the combination of lots of BS4 lance weapons, the incredible deadliness of Wyches (if you can keep them in CC at all times) and the HQs (DE Archons+Incubi or Archite+Wyches are the deadliest CC squads in the game, depending on target), and the speed at which the army can hit you - especially when using the WWP assault - makes them an army capable of completely wiping opponents off the board be they Marines, Crons, Nids, Tau, or anything else (exception being "I have 90% of my points of unkillable skimmers+troops hiding in them and I'm going to hide them out of LoS until turn6 when I'm going to 24" move them to contest objectives - and the other 10% are jetbikes that are also going to hide. I won't win, but you won't either" Eldar wanklists).
But when it goes wrong, DE tend to get absolutely pasted - some games you'll see you warriors melting under pie plates before getting to shoot and your wyches completely bouncing off of the weakest units. Poor positioning will often lead to complete failure.
They make a great tournament army under the (IMO, rather shitty) "20-0" system simply because they're an army that tends to massacre or be massacred - you don't get many draws or minor wins with or against DE. Under a (IMO more fair) "3pts for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss" scoring system they don't excel quite so well since more solid, dependable, but less-likely-to-massacre-their-opponents armies can score more points overall with minor wins. Also tournaments often have lots of MEqs and MEqs is what DE are best at killing - they have very little chance at the points denial Eldar armies and Hordes can be tricky (although are still beatable) but MEqs get absolutely slaughtered.
Also, even the good units are going to get utterly shafted by 5th ed rules. the sniper squads are going to get their lances killed very quickly, the area terrain no longer blocking LoS makes their units even more likely to wither under fire, the change in LD for losing combat means the DE will run away even more than they currently do, and the lack of "killing zones" in CC means wyches are going to get completely torn apart by return attacks they wouldn't normally suffer, and so on.
a) Lots of crap models - they aren't all terrible but plenty of them are ugly as sin
b) A very very very fragile army. Although they hit hard and fast, just 1 or 2 mistakes can easily cost you the game. DE have absolutely zero staying power vs shooting, and only a select couple units can survive in CC too.
c) Simply put, there is 1 excellent unit (Wyches), 3 good-to-middling units (Warriors, Ravagers, and the uber-killy HQs), and the rest are mediocre-to-crap (reavers are bloody expensive for what they do, Talos are too slow to fit in with the rest of the army, Warp Beasts are alright on the charge but tiny squad size, scourges are just utter crap, and so on)
this means that all DE armies fall into 2 categories:
a) Raider Rush - lots of warriors and wyches and ravagers. Doesn't work too well unless you have heavily terrained board or are fighting someone with next-to-no long-range firepower.
a) WWP Rush. You shuffle your warrior units/WWP carriers forward for a couple turns, then unleash the wyches/ravagers/warp beasts/some (myself included) bring jetbikes too.
Not a lot of variation in lists = a generally "boring" army t'be honest. Fun to play every so often but every game ends up looking very similar after a while. This is the biggest problem with the army - pretty much every DE list consists of:
1 Killy Lord or 1 cheap WWP carrier or 1 of each.
2-5 Warriors with Dark Lances (in raider if Raider Rush, on foot if WWPing, or a combo of both) and 2-3 Wyches in raiders if Cabal. If it's a Cult list, it's 2-5 Wyches and 2-3 warriors.
Usually Warp Beasts - 1 in Cabal, 1-4 in Cult.
Reaver Jetbikes/Ravagers/Talos to taste to fill up the rest of the points. Generally Ravagers in "shooty" lists, Talos as "Fire Magnets", Reavers as either 3-man squads with 2 blasters for mobile anti-tank or slightly larger squads used as CC support for Wyches/Lord or taking out min-maxed las/plas marines/dev squads/etc.
You get fringe cases with Mandrakes, Hellions, Grotesques (as an alternative retinue for the Archon), and Scourges, but those are pretty rare.
You can win a lot of games truth be told - the combination of lots of BS4 lance weapons, the incredible deadliness of Wyches (if you can keep them in CC at all times) and the HQs (DE Archons+Incubi or Archite+Wyches are the deadliest CC squads in the game, depending on target), and the speed at which the army can hit you - especially when using the WWP assault - makes them an army capable of completely wiping opponents off the board be they Marines, Crons, Nids, Tau, or anything else (exception being "I have 90% of my points of unkillable skimmers+troops hiding in them and I'm going to hide them out of LoS until turn6 when I'm going to 24" move them to contest objectives - and the other 10% are jetbikes that are also going to hide. I won't win, but you won't either" Eldar wanklists).
But when it goes wrong, DE tend to get absolutely pasted - some games you'll see you warriors melting under pie plates before getting to shoot and your wyches completely bouncing off of the weakest units. Poor positioning will often lead to complete failure.
They make a great tournament army under the (IMO, rather shitty) "20-0" system simply because they're an army that tends to massacre or be massacred - you don't get many draws or minor wins with or against DE. Under a (IMO more fair) "3pts for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss" scoring system they don't excel quite so well since more solid, dependable, but less-likely-to-massacre-their-opponents armies can score more points overall with minor wins. Also tournaments often have lots of MEqs and MEqs is what DE are best at killing - they have very little chance at the points denial Eldar armies and Hordes can be tricky (although are still beatable) but MEqs get absolutely slaughtered.
Also, even the good units are going to get utterly shafted by 5th ed rules. the sniper squads are going to get their lances killed very quickly, the area terrain no longer blocking LoS makes their units even more likely to wither under fire, the change in LD for losing combat means the DE will run away even more than they currently do, and the lack of "killing zones" in CC means wyches are going to get completely torn apart by return attacks they wouldn't normally suffer, and so on.
Well 5th edition speculation aside (I'm of the mind of don't count your chicken till they hatch).
I play Dark Eldar and played well they are by far the nastiest army in 40K. Played poorly you might as well not play. However it's an army you play if you don't want to have any friends. Thats what I was told after taking them to a tournament, and brutalized 3 unlucky players.
How brutal? 3 games
Game 1 - Dark Eldar vs Ultramarines turn 3 he was packing up.
Game 2 - Dark Eldar vs Chaos (old chaos) turn 4 his last mini on the table was destroyed. I killed his 3 rhino CSM squads so fast his daemons never made it onto the table. His Daemon prince was downed by warp beasts.
Game 3 - Dark Eldar vs vanilla marines turn 2 he was groaning, turn 3 he called it rather than watch me finish off the rest.
Their codex calls it perfectly they are a glass knife. On one hand extremely fragile and require a lot of plotting, and strategy to be succesfull. I get headaches playing them in tournaments from thinking so much.
On the other hand when it all comes together people shrike in terror.
It's the only army I've played that on a whole anybody who's played against Dark Eldar before start moaning the minute they realize they have to fight dark eldar.
Some of their models look funny but no funnier than any other mini's from their era. Most seem to forget they haven't been updated in a long long time. Basically their codex is 2nd edition, and then later updated slightly and called a new codex.
They offer 2 types of main armies. Wych cults, and standard Kabals. However I've never met 2 Dark Eldar players who agree on what the best units are. Some love mandrakes, other hate them. Some love warp beasts other think they're junk.
I chalk that up to the fact that so much of how well a Dark Eldar army performs is up to the player and their preffered enemy. I can guarantee this much if you played 20 Dark Eldar players maybe 2 of their armies would match.
It's just not the kind of army you can grab a list of the net and be succesfull with. You really have to sit down with the codex, playtest a lot, and then decide what kind of scheme you want to employ.
However I'll say this much and then I'll quit. Nothing makes you happier than to watch in a single game your lone Archon cut down 2 wraithlords, and 2 1/2 dire avenger squads, and walk away unscathed.
I play Dark Eldar and played well they are by far the nastiest army in 40K. Played poorly you might as well not play. However it's an army you play if you don't want to have any friends. Thats what I was told after taking them to a tournament, and brutalized 3 unlucky players.
How brutal? 3 games
Game 1 - Dark Eldar vs Ultramarines turn 3 he was packing up.
Game 2 - Dark Eldar vs Chaos (old chaos) turn 4 his last mini on the table was destroyed. I killed his 3 rhino CSM squads so fast his daemons never made it onto the table. His Daemon prince was downed by warp beasts.
Game 3 - Dark Eldar vs vanilla marines turn 2 he was groaning, turn 3 he called it rather than watch me finish off the rest.
Their codex calls it perfectly they are a glass knife. On one hand extremely fragile and require a lot of plotting, and strategy to be succesfull. I get headaches playing them in tournaments from thinking so much.
On the other hand when it all comes together people shrike in terror.
It's the only army I've played that on a whole anybody who's played against Dark Eldar before start moaning the minute they realize they have to fight dark eldar.
Some of their models look funny but no funnier than any other mini's from their era. Most seem to forget they haven't been updated in a long long time. Basically their codex is 2nd edition, and then later updated slightly and called a new codex.
They offer 2 types of main armies. Wych cults, and standard Kabals. However I've never met 2 Dark Eldar players who agree on what the best units are. Some love mandrakes, other hate them. Some love warp beasts other think they're junk.
I chalk that up to the fact that so much of how well a Dark Eldar army performs is up to the player and their preffered enemy. I can guarantee this much if you played 20 Dark Eldar players maybe 2 of their armies would match.
It's just not the kind of army you can grab a list of the net and be succesfull with. You really have to sit down with the codex, playtest a lot, and then decide what kind of scheme you want to employ.
However I'll say this much and then I'll quit. Nothing makes you happier than to watch in a single game your lone Archon cut down 2 wraithlords, and 2 1/2 dire avenger squads, and walk away unscathed.
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