Editing Warhammer 40,000/7th Edition Tactics/Dark Eldar (section)

==Tactics==

6E Tactic that can work in 7E

===Raider Rush===

Yes.

Oh, sorry, actual tactics. Take as many Warriors as you can, stuff them in as many Raiders as you can, have an Archon and some Incubi or Trueborn in a Venom (or two), and add Haemonculi to taste. Normally you don't need to worry about objectives (you're playing Dark Eldar, you're here to kill), but if you feel it's ''absolutely'' necessary, then take some Wracks in a Raider with a Haemonculi leader, and you'll have a decently hard-to-kill and hard-hitting unit to sit on an objective and distract the opponent from the rest of your army. 

Zoom around the table, shooting the tanks with dark lances and the troops with splinter weapons.  Now comes with Deep-striking goodness for even more mobility.

===Venoms: Fuck The Win===
Simple list design, a single Haemonculus for HQ requirements, then get 3 units of minimum Blasterborn mounted in Venoms with Double Splinter Cannons, 6 units of 5 Warriors with a Blaster mounted in Venoms with Double Splinter Cannons, 3 Ravagers with Triple Dark Lance setup and Nightshields. After that you should probably get any of the following: Beastmasters for a "powerful" Assault unit that can nearly keep pace with the boats, 10 Scourges with 4 Splinter Cannons because nothing says asshole like unit that will hose IG power blobs and MCs in a single turn, 10 Scourges with 4 Haywire Blasters to completely rape vehicles, or Reavers if you're playing in a tournament where comp is taken seriously. You have no idea how much this list rapes ork boy spam lists. Seriously, its completely ridiculous. The only disadvantage with this list build is kill points where it can be crap, but you don't have to worry about it in most games. You may also congratulate yourself on buying twelve vehicles with the same armour value as a birthday balloon and becoming That Guy.

*'''An Alternate Take'''
**The Court of the Archon can also take a Venom if its 5 models, bringing you up to 14 Venoms per force organisation chart. Kit your Archon with a Blaster and possibly Haywire Grenades if you want to do this.
*'''An Alternate Alternate Take'''
**Here are the real issues with this list. 
***Dark Lances are not as good as everyone thinks they are. Yes, they lower 13 or 14 AV to 12. They are also only S8. This makes a Lance only slightly better at killing heavy vehicles than a Lascannon, and slightly worse at killing light vehicles. This does not mean they are bad, but Heat Lances and Haywire are ''so much better'' that if you aren't taking at ''least'' one unit of Scourges with Haywire Blasters or Heat Lances, you are doing it wrong. Splinter Cannon Scourges are great - just not when you're running the frankly ridiculous number of Venoms this tactic calls for. Use Scourges for AV here, because your Dark Lances aren't nearly as reliable. 
***Ravagers have seen some serious nerfs over the years, culminating most recently in a paper boat that is more expensive and has lost Aerial Assault. Ravagers are now best used as Disintegrator Cannon barges - which, obviously, will be better against MEQ armies. The sad fact, though, is that anymore, Ravagers really aren't worth the points most of the time. They're a situational pick, and a better idea would be to field some allies if you're dead set on taking some Heavy Support options. But really, why bother? With six Troops slots, three Elites slots, and ''<b>six objectively better</b>'' Fast Attack slots if you're running Real Space Raiders (and why the fuck ''aren't'' you?), you can safely ignore the poor, forgotten Heavy Support section of Codex: Dark Eldar.
*So here's a '''different take on the Venom Spam list''' (2000 points). Archon + Blaster + WWP (110 points). 3 units of 5 Trueborn + 4 Blasters + 1 Splinter Cannon, and a Venom with a Splinter Cannon for a Dedicated Transport (450 points). 6 units of 5 Warriors + 1 Blaster, and a Venom with a Splinter Cannon for a Dedicated Transport (720 points). 2 units of 6 Scourges with 4 Haywire Blasters/Heat Lances, tailored to your enemy (272 points). 1 unit of 5 Scourges with 4 Splinter Cannons (140 points). 1 unit of 6 Reavers + 2 Heat Lances + 2 Cluster Caltrops (148 points). 1 Razorwing + Splinter Cannon + Night Shields (155 points). The grand total, then, is 9 Venoms (Venom Spam, see?) in a very fast, very versatile, and very Deep Strike-y force that can take on literally any unit in the game if you use it right, all for 1995 points. Attach your Archon to one of your anti-vehicle Scourge squads, and you can Deep Strike ''exactly'' where you need to be with your WWP, ready to unleash a veritable shitstorm of anti-armor fire. Unless you are very, ''very'' unlucky, you will pop a tank in one turn. Having a sixth Scourge in each of your anti-vehicle units also gives you three more poisoned shots, which is helpful if you're transport hunting - doubly so if you took Haywire over Heat Lances. Your Razorwing provides air support, your Warriors provide [[DISTRACTION CARNIFEX]]es for your Trueborn while also bringing rapid-fire poison, and your Reavers can zip around the battlefield wreaking havoc wherever they can. Something to note about Reavers is that not only are they deadly when kitted properly, people are scared ''shitless'' of them (probably due to 6E's Bladevanes). If the Reavers aren't murdering something or tying it up in CC, your opponent will most likely do everything in his/her power to wipe them off the field. This is good. So if you're going to try Venom Spam, try this list instead. I guarantee it'll work better for you.

===Trolling choice===

This list includes anything that puts your opponent's smile upside down as he sees his tanks being blown up by a lone squad of reaver jet bikes. Take an archon (court optional),  a Succubus with an Archite Glaive to give TEQs something to worry about, a kabalite squad with a dark lance, a squad of six reaver jet bikes with two heat lances and cluster caltrops, a squad of hellions with a stun claw for a possible ID dickpunch and a squad of scourges with haywire weapons.  Because they're dark eldar and because it fucks with any and all armies that attempt to draw line of sight or even assault, abuse the living '''FUCK''' out of the rule known as Fleet.  Turbo boost your jet bikes to get within range of assaulting or to run away after successfully blowing up a tank.  Scourges are there to take out any remaining tanks that the reavers missed the first time around. Kabalite squads should do the following: run, shoot, laugh, run, shoot, laugh.  Wyches should be performing turn 3 deep striking to get FNP to lessen the sting of overwatch while Haywire Grenades on the Hekatrix will give tanks second thoughts.  Using this as a Raiders from Realspace detachment makes this army really lulzy.  The song known as trololo is required when using this list. And remember the power from pain rule, because who doesn't want fearless and feel no pain rule on Wyches?

===Lance Spam===

Do it at your peril.

7th edition is all about bringing the right tools for the job. Don't bitch when only bringing Lances doesn't work. Neither does only bringing melee or only bringing poison.  

The truth is, Dark Eldar do pretty well. Use Lances to pick out the killiest targets. Use Splinter Cannons to deal with the killiest troops. Assault their shooty stuff.

===Let The Poison Flow Through You(r enemies' veins)===

A possible idea for anyone who decides to go multi-force-org-chart with their Deldar.  You crazy Crazy person, we salute you.

*Take a detachment of Realspace Raiders:
**HQ Can be a single Lhamaen footslogging in the background for purposes of being cheap. (10 Points)
**Troops will be two non-upgraded units of Kabalite Warriors jumping in Venoms with Splinter Cannons. (210 Points)
**Elites will be three units of Kabalite Trueborn, each unit taking four Splinter Cannons and then jumping in Venoms with their own Splinter Cannons.  (510 Points)
**Compulsory Fast Attack could be a single Venom with Splinter Cannons (Possible as somewhere to put Your cheapskate HQ).  (65 Points)

This comes in at 795 points and gives you two Venoms pumping out anything from 9 to 24 Poison shots a turn, three Venoms Pumping out anything from 21 to 38 Poison shots per turn and a Single Venom peppering another 4 to 13 (Depending Where your HQ is) Poison shots per turn.

Clearly this would fall apart against armour and would not be ideal for Assault in any way shape or form.  What it may be good for is swamping hordes with poison, what with your combined firepower of '''''175 dice''''' in an optimal shooting phase.

Given the low points cost, another, slightly more anti-vehicle or assaulty, detachment could be expected to fit on the table alongside this spiky, venemous mess.  More Dark Eldar, perhaps even some of those delicious formations the Haemonculous Covens book offers us.  Harlequins could also work well for assault and if we want psyking, then Craftworld Eldar would be the way to go.

===Army Balance===

For going against vehicles Ravagers are no longer the kings of anti tank.  4 Haywire Blaster Scourges are point for point the best vehicle poppers in your army, as you can expect to strip two hull points a turn from any vehicle, armor be damned.  Against anything with a toughness value just overload 'em with poison fire.  A venom loaded with 5 Kabalites can expect to inflict 7 wounds on anything T3 and above for the low low price of only 105 points. A venom with 5 trueborn with 2 splinter cannons will kill those pesky guard/cultist/gaunt blobs.  Against MEQs an Archon in a unit of Incubi with either a Huskblade or Agonizer will wreck faces.  Against TEQs a Succubus with an Archite Glaive in a unit of Incubi will similarly wreck faces, probably killing 5 Termies barring invuln saves.  You are a highly specialized highly mobile army.  The trick is finding what works for your playstyle and local gaming community.

===Things you should note about 7th edition===
* Assaults are still random, however charging through cover has become more forgiving.  This is not anything close to enough for Dark Eldar assault armies to become good.  Stick to shooting.
**On the bright side, you can now take Harlequin allies to do what your Wyches should have been doing all along. Yay. Also on the subject of allies, Banshee Masks now cancel out overwatch. [[Troll|You mad, Tau?]]
* Pinning cancels out overwatch, Dark Eldar's Craftworld Battle Brothers have many pinning weapons and you have leadership shenanigans.  [[Just As Planned|Hello there, Tau player, heh heh heh...]]
* Most mission types have a 50/50 chance of being nightfighting now. We can see in the motherfucking dark. We are also some of the best alpha strikers in the game. Though Night Fighting was nerfed hard, taking some of the edge off DE Night Vision.
* Also, alpha striking while going second is safer now due to Nightfighting and the more forgiving deep strike rules.
* Using Jink saves causes the vehicle to fire snap shots in the next shooting phase. However, this doesn't affect the embarked unit. Put Night Shields on your Raiders and Jink like there's no tomorrow for the delicious 3+ cover save, protecting the squishy troops within. (**The new FAQ states that a unit embarked on a transport that Jinks does not count as having Jinked.)
* The new damage table makes it significantly harder to explode a vehicle.  This might sound good at first given how many transports dark eldar armies tend to run, but it's not.  Your boats still get glanced to death by bolters, and enemy tanks are harder to kill. Worse, your transports are open-topped so flamers will barbeque your infantry through the transport anyway.
* Ignores Cover weapons are your archnemesis. Besides Tau, an army of particular note are the Grey Knights and their Interceptor/Cleansing Flame/Incinerator shenanigans. Beware: Grey Knights are basically faster than you (teleporting and deep striking) and on turn 1 they can deep strike all of their dudes onto your paper boats without scattering if you deployed close enough (e.g. not on the edges of the table). They will annihilate you in one turn of shooting/psychic burninating. Play smart, stay the hell away, and unleash the poison storm.