Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Dark Eldar (section)

==Army Building and Tactics==

===Army Building===

*'''Overall''': The Drukhari have the potential to make some extremely potent Alpha Strikes. Their absurd firepower coupled with high mobility coupled with smart positioning makes them extremely viable as of the beginning of 8th Edition. The Meta is bound to shift as more Codexes come out but as of right now your access to lots of very good Anti-Infantry and Anti-Vehicle weapons is allowing the Drukhari to stay competitive. 
*'''How Many Drops?''' Recent changes to the rules to determine who goes first means an interesting meta for your list building. You now roll off to determine who goes first, but whoever finishes first gets a +1. So you can pick between finishing first to get that +1 and potentially not have to burn a CP to re-roll seize the initiative, or you can use Chaff units (Venoms, Kabalites, Wyches and Court of the Archon usits are excellent at this) to get more information on your opponents deployment. ''Note: you can no longer burn CP to reroll seize. ''
*'''Unit Spamming''': Formations are gone yet spam is still legal to a silly degree. Venoms are among the best units for spamming as they are absurdly mobile, high durability (for a Drukhari unit), no damage chart, and can combine strong anti-armour (Kabalite units inside with 1-4 Darklight weapons, Wych unit leaders with Blast Pistols, Blaster Archons etc), anti-infantry (Double Splinter Cannons), and Fly in one point efficient model cheap enough to may a role as chaff for deployment.
*'''Keep your <s>Allies</s> Lesser Kin you aren't currently scheming against close...''': Remember you aren't just a Drukhari army, you are an Aeldari army. You can cherry pick the best units from the Craftworlds, Ynnari, Harlequins and Corsairs lists. While you do have a Mirror to most Craftworld units, there are some things that cover what you lack:
**The most notable and fluffy unit you can bring are Rangers, which provide something that you sorely lack: access to a good sniper unit.
**An allied Farseer sounds odd given it can only Buff Asuryanni units but Smite and Executioner are a reliable source of Mortal Wounds that can be tossed around against harder targets or smaller squads of infantry, as the situation demands. It also gives you an answer to enemy Psykers as spamming Haemonculi is not efficient.
**Warlocks are another cheap source of Deny the Witch.
**Swooping Hawks are good against GEQ's, who your poison would normally struggle against, and outrange Shredder Scourges, and can have the Alaitoc trait so they can tank light fire and kite enemy melee units.
**Harlequin Troupes are another fluffy pick. They are much more offensively oriented than Wyches, plus Shadowseers bring along more Smite and Deny the Witch.
**Of course Wraith units are a very powerful addition to any Drukhari force. Heck, you could even paint them in Kabal colours and say your Archon captured a bunch. Plus your only Lord of War options are in the Craftworld List. Though just how your Archon managed to get their hands on a Wraithknight is another thing entirely...
**Corsairs are one last Fluffy option. For 60 Points you can get a unit of 5 Pirates with Shardcarbines and Jet Packs! [[Awesome |Plus one of them can swap out their gun for one of several heavy or special weapons including Flamers, Fusion Guns, Shredders, Shuriken Cannons, Dark Lances, Blasters, and even Aeldari Missile Launchers!]]
*'''Darklight & Poison''': [Note: this sub-section is incredibly outdated - look elsewhere for better, more cost effective tactics.] It's pretty well known but For 1982 Points you can take a <s>Brigade</s> Battalion Detachment with 2 Archons with Blaster, Grenade Launcher and Agoniser in a Double Cannon Venom, 5 Units of 5 Kabalite Warriors with Blaster each, Sybarites packing Agonisers and Grenade Launchers all in a Double Cannon Venom each, and 3 Ravagers along with an Air Wing Detachment with 3 Razorwings with Double Dark Lances and Splinter Cannon each. 
**So that is a total of: <s>9</s> <s>6</s> 9 Command Points (5+1+3=9), 12 Drops, 2 <s>Leadership</s> Re-roll Hit Auras you won't use, 7 Blasters, 15 Dark Lances, 16 Splinter Rifles, 15 Splinter Cannons, 7 Agonisers, 7 Grenade Launchers, <b>zero</b> Disintegrators or Haywire Blasters, and absolutely no close combat support. It's not hard to switch an Archon for a Succubus, Haemonculus (if you want to lose access to Obsessions like a dummy because all you brought was a single Battalion and a single Air Wing), or even switch the Archon's Blaster for a pistol if you want more close combat bite (alongside your...Venoms? What even is this list?). Dropping the Agonisers and Grenade Launchers from the Sybarites frees up enough points to take a Sslyth to guard the Archons so there is that too. Each Venom is packing [[Dakka |7-14 Splinter Shots and 1 Blaster shot]]. In one round of shooting you can put out [[Dakka |35-70 Splinter Shots]] from the Venoms alone! [[Rape |Add in the Razorwings and you have 44-88 Splinter Shots and add in the Darklight Weapons from the Ravagers and Razorwings and that is 44-88 Splinter Shots and 23 S8 AP -4 Shots]] [[Fail |(a third of which will miss because you have no Obsessions, no footslogging Archons, and no Writ - congrats on your wasted points).]] (okay, so don't bring Succubus or Haemonculus moron, and take flayed skull for rerolls in transports and flyers, poisoned tongue for reroll 1's, or obsidian rose for extra range) Totalling 111 Shots. You can play leadership Shenanigans with the cheap Grenade Launchers and if you have to charge something or get charged, the Agonisers on every infantry unit let you do <s>work</s> ok in the Fight Phase, I guess, until a regular Tac Marine decides to punch your guys in the face. You ARE punching on 2's and rerolling Charges from Turn 3 onwards (why would you charge in a shooty list, though?) after all so you might as well use those stupidly cheap Agonisers for something if the Venom explodes (use Raiders - embrace the future). To whoever ruined this entry, learn math and be consistent in edits. Overall its a fine shooty list, but can definitely be improved on. 

====Detachments and CP====
*'''Detachments and You''': The Dark El-- I mean Drukhari's Raiding Party rule gives them an interesting army-listing consideration that other factions don't have. Usually a Patrol detachment is only useful for low point games or Tyranids using them for allying with Guards using Genestealer Cults; our edgy knife-ears, however, can gain Command Points if they have 3 or 6 Patrols (+4 or +8, respectively), although the latter will virtually never happen if you're following the rulebook's suggestion detachment limit based on points limit. The difference between using a Battalion + 'specialist' and multiple Patrols is that while you may not have as many Elites slots available, you'll have more varied Obsessions to use, which isn't something you want to ignore considering how powerful they are if you use Patrols. Read the Raiding Force section above for other considerations, but overall taking an MSU approach to your Patrol detachments (i.e. a bare bones HQ and one MSU troop per patrol) can give you a disproportionately high amount of CP relative to the points cost of using them.

===Tactics===

*'''Drukhari Soup''': With the way the new codex is effectively three armies in one book, you have a lot of options. A ''lot'' of options - more than the Drukhari have ever had, in fact. While the tournament meta may continue being mono-build Kabal spam, something to consider is the ease with which we have access to very good HQ choices, and all the benefits they bring with them. Fielding an army that consists of all three Drukhari sub-groups gives you arguably greater tactical flexibility than simply spamming Warriors in Raiders while camping your Archon among your Ravagers. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of each group: Kabals are ''ridiculously'' shooty, but they have trouble holding objectives due to their unfortunate tendency toward dying if looked at crosswise; Cults are screamingly fast, hit like a metric ton of spikey bricks in close combat, and can keep your enemy's most valuable units perpetually tied up in combat, but have almost no ranged weaponry to speak of and suffer from the same objective grabbing issues as their Kabal cousins; Covens are the toughest units in our army (and can be made to be even tougher), can dish out the pain in close combat, and can camp objectives like nobody's business, but suffer from a lack of any reliable ranged weaponry. So, combining all those strengths together - and peppering in Scourges/Mandrakes/Incubi to taste - gives you a tremendously versatile army that can do basically anything you need it to, whenever you need it to. To boot, you can buff your already great HQ choices into CC murder machines and/or megatanks that double as force multipliers and character assassins for just a few CP. In smaller games taking three Patrol Detachments will get you by just fine (Raiding Party, mmmmmm...), and in larger ones it's a simple process to take two Battalions and a Patrol/Air Wing/Outrider/Spearhead/Vanguard Detachment. This edition should be making you think outside the box rather than clinging white-knuckled to what worked in the past (*cough*Trueborn*cough*).
*'''Nova Charged Venom Spam''': Run a custom covens battalion using the "Experimental Creations" and "Dark Technomancers" traits, then take as many venoms as you want (2 haemonculi and 3 squads of wracks gets you 5 transport slots) with double splinter cannons. Now when you overcharge your splinter cannons, you are getting +1 to wound and +1 damage, add on the +1 to wound Experimental Creations gives when targeting anything T4 and below (T5 if you have a nearby Haemonculus buffing your venom's toughness) and now you wound almost all infantry in the game on 2+ with 2 damage. You wound monsters on 3+ and vehicles on 5+, which makes a big difference against heavy mech armies. And because of how the drukhari transports work, you can still throw some kabalites or wyches into the transports to fulfill other jobs. The drawbacks here are that you give up rerolls of any kind and you can hurt your self when you roll wound rolls of 1, but the offensive boost you get heavily outweighs the negatives. To illustrate, a supercharged venom will kill 2 primaris marines on average while a flayed skull venom will only do 1.5 wounds to a single primaris.
***The Phoenix Rising FAQ did away with this particular combo, as “Experimental Creations” +1 to wound buff now only works for Melee Poisoned Weapons, so no 2+ to wound Splinter Cannons anymore.
**You can swap out Experimental Creations for Masters of Mutagens if you'd rather be better at murdering non-vehicles than murdering T4 or less; Experimental Creations is better when it triggers, but Masters of Mutagens will trigger against more targets, all told.
**Double Liquifier wrack squads are the most points efficient contents for your venoms (due to how incredible Dark Technomancers Liquifiers are), but that assumes you're getting into range, which won't happen immediately if these boats are deep striking, so plan accordingly.
**If you don't care to bother with Troops slots, remember that you can take Drazhar as your HQ, and then Incubi as Elites, without removing the {{W40Kkeyword|<Coven>}} assignment of your Venoms - Drazhar + 3xIncubi gets you 4 {{W40Kkeyword|<Coven>}} Venoms.
**If you want to do this with Raiders, a Disintegrator Cannon and Phantasm Grenade Launcher are the way to go - it'll typically underperform compared to Venoms as far as points per wound, but you ''will'' get transport slots more efficiently, in case you end up needing more.

[[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics(8E)]]
[[Category:Eldar]]
[[Category:Dark Eldar]]
{{Warhammer_40k_Tactics}}