Editing Warhammer 40,000/9th Edition Tactics/Dark Eldar (section)

===Haemonculus Covens===
====HQ====
<tabs>
<tab name="Haemonculus">
*A nasty little support character for your {{WH40Kkeyword|<haemonculus coven>}} army. On the one hand, he's a buff vector that flat increases your {{WH40Kkeyword|<haemonculus coven> Core}} unit's Toughness by 1 within 6". This makes Grotesques all but immune to small arms fire and is generally nice, plus you can also heal your grotesques and other monster units for d3 wounds per turn, with the usual restrictions. However, the Haemonculus is also an okay combat character. Like all  {{WH40Kkeyword|<haemonculus coven>}} units he comes stock with a 5+++, so combined with his 6 Wounds and the PFP invuln save he can survive quite a bit. But he also has 4 attacks and access to all the nasty poisoned weapons you could want. His tools wound on a 2+, though with no AP it means you'll struggle to actually kill anything with a decent save. Conversely, the scissorhand doubles the amount of attacks you can make and gives a decent -2 AP, though it needs a 4 to wound. His ichor injector allows you to deal a mortal wound if it hits, not a whole lot but it's still practically guaranteed with his 2+ WS. Just don't send him after Vehicles.
</tab>
<tab name="Master Haemonculus (Upgrade)">
*Haemonculus Ancients are back too! That said, they're more costly than their (dubiously) more sane kin at 20 points.
**'''Alchemical Maestro:''' Haemonculi can now cheat death! Once per game when the haemy dies, you can roll a d6 and resurrect them with d3 wounds on a 2+.
**'''Relic - Poisoner's Ampule:''' Once per battle, your haemonculus can pour this stuff. One enemy unit within 9" takes d3 MW on a 2+ and loses all auras for the turn, as well as being unable to benefit from any. This is pretty evil, but has limited use on armies less dependent on auras (not to mention being useless against the Death Guard's contagions).
**'''Warlord Trait - Twisted Animator:''' You ever wonder why your Fleshcraft ability does nothing for your wracks? Those guys who will almost always be the first to get cut down? This allows your haemonculus to raise d3 models in a {{W40kKeyword|<Coven> Wrack}} unit within 3" during the command phase, allowing them to last a bit longer.
*'''Haemoxytes:''' Indeed, to keep all bosses on level, the Haemonculus Ancient (or Urien) can now elevate a pack of Wracks. These guys now add +1 to their Sv, Invuln, and Leadership on top of being to nullify the damage of their first failed save once per phase. YMMV whether this means that you can just stonewall the entire fucking attack (since some attacks don't rely on damage to screw you), because that could make these guys far and away the most broken retinue of the game.  Bear in mind a canny opponent will shoot you with bad guns first to use up the nullification, ''then'' bring the big bad guns to bear.
</tab>
</tabs>

====Troops====
*'''Wracks:''' The thick melee option, only by virtue of a lack of competition. T4 with a 6+/6++/5+++ isn't gonna make them pull off miracles but it's a lot better than what Kabalites/Wyches can provide, making them your go-to objective sitters. Luckily the new Codex buffed their offensive power up a notch, so now their melee weapons are AP-1 and 4+ Poisoned with Blade Artists added in. While Wyches are still gonna have them beat in terms of raw damage output due to their sheer number of attacks and special weapon options, Wracks can now at least expect to kill stuff in melee. The squad leader, the Acothyst, has access to a variety of melee weapons. This also means you can field 2 Liquifiers in a 5-elf unit, or 1 Ossefactor and 1 Liquifier or Hexrifle.
**For the Acothyst's melee weapon, most of the choices you're offered are a waste of time: either stick with the base Wrack Blade to keep the unit cheap or buy an Electrocorrosive Whip - the other melee weapon choices are either strictly worse than the whip or better than it in cases so rare they can be safely ignored.
**The Stinger Pistol is a waste of your time.  The Acothyst should either take a Liquifier (if your gun-elf took a Liquifier), a Hexrifle (if you plan on staying far away and want to take pot-shots), or nothing (if you want to keep the unit cheap).
*** Hexrifle is an interesting choice combined with Dark Technomancers for 3 damage and +1 to wound. Makes it an actual threat against T8 models since you won't be wounding on 5+.
** They can get one Ossefactor or one Liquifier per 5 Wracks. The Ossefactors are one-shot assault weapons meant to give the wracks a chance to kill one Space Marine per shot, but they're bad at it - an Ossefactor deals fewer wounds to MEQ than a Liquifier.  It does more wounds per point if you only look at the cost of the wielder, but if you think of it as wielded by 5 elves at once, it goes back down to fewer wounds per point.  Skip the Ossefactor - take a Liquifier or nothing (if you plan on spending all your time in melee or far away) on the gun elf.
** Note that if you take Experimental Creations, while Wracks will benefit from the part of the trait granting the +1 Strength, it has little effect given that a good number of the weapon options available are Poisoned weapons. Only Grotesques and Taloi really benefit from this. 
** Wracks from the {{WH40Kkeyword|Prophets of Flesh}} Coven are the toughest objective secured troop unit in a pure Drukhari list. Combine with a nearby Haemonculus and you have both a decent anchor for controlling an objective and a simple patrol detachment.
**'''Haemoxytes:''' If you grab Urien or a Master Haemonculus, you can upgrade a pack of up to 10 Wracks. These guys improve their save and invulnerable save by +1 (invuln to a max of 4+) and add +1 to Leadership. In addition, they can negate their first failed save once per phase, which might potentially be giga-cheese unless they're focus-fired to death.

====Elites====
*'''Grotesques:''' Massively scary. They have an impressive statline complete with A4 WS3+ S5 and T5 W4 Sv6+/5+++ for 35 points and you can take 3-6 per unit. For armament they come stock with a Flesh Gauntlet - S+1(6) AP0 D1, nat 6 to wound is +1 MW - and a Monstrous Cleaver: A+1 SU(5) AP-2 D2 (and of course they have Blade Artists, so nat 6 to wound improves AP by 1) . The Cleaver does very well indeed against T4 and less while the Flesh Gauntlet does well against T3 and high invulnerable saves units with W1. Can also take Liquifiers by swapping out their Cleavers and paying points.
**As a general rule, anything Grotesques would do in melee, Incubi do ''better'', even when you perform fancy tricks that require your coven.  Problem is, they're ''far'' too expensive as Liquifier platforms now that Dark Technomancers won't make it worth the effort.  You can apply The Torturer's Craft strat to Grotesques if you're Prophets of Flesh, and Incubi have no strat that's remotely as good, but it's a whopping 2CP.  That's just about the only way to make Grotesques worth taking, though.
***Alternate take: Grotesques at T5 (T6 with a Haemonculus nearby) are far more resilient than Incubi. If you need to look down a board quarter against some Necron Wraiths, look to Grotesques to tarpit their tarpit. For roughly the same points as 5 Incubi a MSU of Grotesques give you twice the wounds at twice the toughness. 
**If you dislike the models or failcast resin, or aren't made of money, the '''Crypt Horrors''' and '''Stormfiends''' from AoS are nice plastic alternatives.

====Heavy Support====
*'''Cronos:''' The support Engine. The Cronos comes stock with a spirit syphon, an Assault heavy flamer with AP-2 that does +1 damage (2 total) on 6s to wound. For 10 points you can add a spirit vortex that does nearly the same but without the auto-hits, in exchange for being Blast and having extra 6" of range. More importantly, it can also take a spirit probe for measly 5 points. This lets {{W40Kkeyword|DRUKHARI CORE}} and {{W40Kkeyword|DRUKHARI CHARACTER}} units within 6" re-roll 1s to wound in melee, which makes your Grotesques even scarier. In addition, each time it kills any model in melee with its spirit-leech tentacles, you can choose one {{W40Kkeyword|DRUKHARI CORE}} unit within 6" to either heal 1 Wound or restore a lost model at 1 Wound. A4 WS4+ S5 AP-1 per model (so A12 for a full unit, since you only need 1 probe for the whole unit) isn't ''that'' bad, but the Cronos won't exactly blend entire hordes into spirit-juice. Still, it ''can'' resurrect a Wrack if you're worried about it falling below half-strength.
**'''Dark Technomancers:''' Because Dark Technomancers doesn't work on Liquifiers (Twin or not), the Cronos is the best use you have for Dark Technomancers: the base gun can't cause any mortal wounds but works with the Obsession, and you can add a second gun for a decent price - plus, you have immediate access to healing any wounds you do suffer by murdering things in melee.
*'''Talos:''' The killy Engine. Can serve both as an anvil and a battering ram of your army, with more emphasis placed on one of these roles depending on the choice of Obsession and wargear. The standard load-out of 2 macro-scalpels and 2 splinter cannons offers decent MEQ-removing capability thanks to multiple D2 attacks. However, each arm and the tail weapon can be swapped for a variety of anti-infantry and/or anti-armour tools depending on its designated role. Only the Talos gauntlet and twin liqufier gun cost any additional points.
**'''Melee weapons''': Chain-flails grant each Talos 10 S6 attacks, which sounds nice until you notice AP0. This amounts to hitting enemy units with big, heavy pillows, although that is indeed a lot of attacks to potentially proc Blade Artists with, for what it's worth. The default pair of macro-scalpels can do some solid work against heavy infantry as well as light vehicles and monsters, especially if you boost their Strength. However, despite some disadvantages, the Talos gauntlet is a superior weapon; for +5 points it can easily destroy Gravis marines and crack some big, tough targets. The Talos ichor injector is also an interesting option to add some mortal wounds to the damage output. All in all, the macro-scalpels shouldn't disappoint, but if you want to send your Taloses against the most durable foes, gauntlet + ichor injector is worth considering.
***'''1 Melee Weapon + 1 Twin Liquifier''': There's a strong argument to be made that a twin Liquifier will do more work than an extra scalpel. They got buffed during the codex update to S4 AP -2, making them a bit killier than they were, and +1 attack from having a second Scalpel is unlikely to have the same impact as on average ''seven'' autohits from the liquifiers. You will be dishing out 15 extra points for the privilege, however.  Unless you're doing this to keep the unit as cheap as possible, you should still always shell out to upgrade the 1 melee weapon you do have from a Scalpel to a Gauntlet - the Twin Liquifier will do plenty to murder hordes, you'll want the Gauntlet for punching anything heavy.
**'''Choosing tail weapons:''' Pain Engines suffer from BS4+, so their shooting weapons should be chosen with care depending on what role you want your big bois to play. Luckily, with the new Codex they're now all free! Splinter cannons give them some extra anti-infantry firepower, but reduce their effectiveness against vehicles. Haywire blasters are effective against vehicles: a squad of three Taloi puts out 6D3 S3 AP-3 D1d3 shots which successfully wound vehicles on 4+, and on 6+ cause additional D3 mortal wounds. The odd inclusion of Blast makes them not-terrible against most infantry, but be mindful of the low Strength. Heat lances are basically super-blasters that grant the ability to pop units that are big and sturdy from afar (or up close, you can shoot in melee now). The stinger pod is probably the worst choice out of all, potentially giving your Talos the most shots per gun (2D6) if you roll well, but with a worse statline compared to its closest competitor: the twin splinter cannons.
***You can turn these fellows into nice DISTRACTION CARNIFEXES by giving them an Ichor Injector, Talos Gauntlet, and Haywire Blasters. A jittery imperial with his Knight Crusader will shoot at it until this thing is totally dead, giving your real units all the time they need to move in.
**'''Artists of the Flesh''': The anvil. With native defensive stats of T6 W7 Sv3+/6++/5+++, the Talos is durable for a Drukhari unit. As for Obsessions, the Prophets of Flesh are not quite what they used to be: regenerating 1 Wound ''per unit'' at the start of your Command Phase is underwhelming, and the defensive buff against weapons that are below S8 is useless to a boosted Talos. Pick Artists of the Flesh if you intend to rely on the big guys as the damage sponges in your army: reducing incoming Damage by 1 (to a minimum of 1) will increase their survivability a great deal - they ''will'' attract lots of high-damage attacks, only to laugh them off a lot of the time.
**'''Experimental Creations''': The battering ram. S8 macro-scalpels become significantly more effective against vehicles and monsters, and the Talos gauntlet also enjoys S9 against some of the hardest opponents. This is merely half of the build, though, because you pick another custom Obsession to accompany this one. Hungry for Flesh provides a useful re-roll to charges; Master Torturers reduces the CP cost of the Torturer's Craft stratagem (re-roll melee wounds) to 1 CP; Splinter Blades generates an additional hit for each unmodified hit roll of 6, which is +1 WS but better since it stacks with round 3+ Power From Pain.  In fact, if you were serious about being good at melee and took a Talos gauntlet, Splinter Blades is better than Experimental Creations in practice against almost everything in the game - you can take both, or you can just go with Splinter Blades + Hungry for Flesh.