Dark Eldar and 6th Edition

So yes, call me a heretic, but I don’t just play imperial armies. In total, I have four armies that I play (well, three and a half really because one’s a work-in-progress but still enough to ally with). They are:

- Space Marines

- Death Korps of Krieg (played as regular Imperial Guard) (This is the work-in-progress one)

- Dark Eldar

- Tyranids

So in this little spiel, I’m gonna be highlighting my Dark Eldar of the Frozen Soul.

As you know, 6^th edition is now in full swing, so how does this affect the Dark Eldar? Well, there have been pros and cons for Dark Eldar as there have been with every other army. Honestly, I don’t think any army actually “came out on top”; everyone was boosted here, and everyone suffered there. What matters is where each army was helped and hurt, and by how much.

VEHICLES, HULL POINTS, ETC.

I see these as somewhat of a blessing. Not only do we Dark Eldar players have slightly more survivable vehicles, but now we can focus a wider range of our weapons at enemy vehicles. So those disintegrator cannons can actually do something against Rhinos, Chimeras, and other armor 10/11 vehicles. Nevertheless, I still think that disintegrators are best at anti-heavy infantry like terminators or monstrous creatures.

Also, I don’t know why, but I think Flickerfields are more useful now. I know that they’re still about the same, but it just makes me feel better knowing that I allowed my Raider one more round of shooting because of ignoring a glance. Plus, another upside is that it’s an invulnerable save, not a cover save! This means it works against weapons that ignore cover AND it works for attacks from assaults.

And on the topic of vehicle upgrades, Night Shields seem more useful as well, though as a whole, they probably suffered due to pre-measuring. What I foresee is that if Night Shields puts your Raider out of range, then your opponent is no longer denied the shot and forced to sit there helplessly. Now he can say, “Oh, that doesn’t work. Bummer. Let’s try again with your ‘unit x’ that actually IS in range!” But all in all, I still think I’ll be taking both on all my vehicles.

I've been hearing a lot about haywire goodness, too, and personally I think they may be the best anti-tank, non-vehicle unit out there now. I haven't had the chance to play any 6th ed. games with my Dark Eldar yet, but I'm thinking that just deep-striking them in (I run six strong in a unit) with haywire blasters and/or heat lances and/or blasters, they can pick off almost any vehicle via glancing (especially with the haywire)! I will say that I'm kinda bummed I didn't physically outfit them with haywires. I got them during 5th ed. rules, but now haywires are probably my top choice for them.

Lastly, I read on another site that Dark Lances are not as necessary anymore, since you can glance things to death. Not that the glancing thing isn’t true, but I still think they’re really good. In fact, now they have an even better chance of getting rid of Leman Russ tanks, Land Raiders, etc. I’m not exactly sure where the logic is with saying they’re unnecessary.

RESERVES AND THE NOW-LOATHED WEBWAY PORTAL

Yup. This is probably the hardest hit for my particular lists. I used to have two squads of 10 Warriors, a squad of 10 Wyches, and another squad of 9 Wyches joined by Lelith. Three of these squads were in raiders and I’d usually have either one Wych squad hang back in reserves for the Webway (if it wasn’t an objectives mission) or the Warriors stay in my deployment zone (if it was an objectives mission). If the Wyches weren’t coming out of the Webway, then I’d still be having a squad of Incubi, Reavers, Hellions, Beasts, Wracks, and/or my Cronos Parasite Engine pop out 6 inches away (or 12 for the Hellions) (or 36 for the Reavers!), get a few shots off, and charge their prey! NOT ANYMORE! With reserves being essentially treated like deep-striking, this makes the Webway Portal the most ridiculous use of 35 points in the codex. It still might be useful for Reavers with blade-veins, but I don’t see that as being worth the 35 points.

FEEL NO PAIN/ASSAULTS

This is another blow to the Dark Eldar. Pain Tokens generate Feel No Pain, but now that’s just 5+, not 4+. True, it can be useful against power weapons, so your Wyches stand a slightly better chance against, say, Terminators with Lightning Claws (though it will often be a very close fight since the Wyches are now hardier in hand-to-hand, but still are only strength 3 against toughness four with a 2+ save).

 

Also, the idea of Overwatch is particularly painful to think about with regard to my Wyches. Because of their Invulnerable Save only working in Close Combat, they can be shot up by anything short of lasguns with no saves at all if they don't have a Pain Token already (which, mind you, is now only a 5+, if I didn't mention that already)!

But let’s look into the previous Wych vs. Terminator situation some more. Say there are 5 Assault Terminators all with Lightning Claws against 10 Wyches, with a Hekatrix with an Agoniser and two Wyches with Razor Flails. First let’s assume the Terminators charge. The Wyches get 8 Overwatch shots that hit on 6+. Chances are, one to two 6’s will be reliably rolled. Then the shots wound on 4+ (assuming they’re all splinter pistols). That’s a 50/50 chance. So now we’re down to statistically 1 wounded terminator, who we’ll say makes his save. Great. Next, the Wyches strike first. There are 2x7 attacks from the normal Wyches for a total of 14 attacks; the Hekatrix gets 3 attacks; and the Razor Flail Wyches get 4. They all need 4+ to hit. Statistically, that’s 7 normal hits, 2 Hekatrix hits, and (with re-rolls accounted for) 3 Razor Flail hits. To wound, they need 5+ except for the Hekatrix whose Agoniser needs 4+. That’s a 1 in 3 chance. Now we’re at about 3 wounds plus 1 Agoniser wound (which can honestly be included with the rest by now since it’s AP 3). Four wounds will take down (maybe) one of the terminators, but chances are they’ll all pass their saves until the next round.

From the Terminators, we have 3x5 attacks plus 1x5 for charging: a grand total of 20 attacks. They hit on 4+, so we’re down to 10 hits. These 10 hits will generate roughly 9 wounds with re-rolls for the Lightning Claws. Excellent. Only 1 failed to wound. The Wyches now get their 4+ invulnerable saves, meaning either that 4 bite it, or if the squad has Feel No Pain, 3 bite it.

So to wrap it up, to prevent your Wyches from losing every combat against anything with a toughness of 4, I would include Lelith in the squad. Though she is still wounding on 5+, she hits on 3+ and the wounds that she does inflict IGNORE ARMOR! That doesn’t mean that they are power weapons with an AP value; they simply ignore it all! Plus she gets her glorious 10 attacks against our Terminator squad (4 base attacks +1 for close combat weapons, and +5 for being badass for having 5 more Weapon Skill points than the Terminators). Oh, and she also counts as being armed with a Shardnet and Impaler, so any models in base contact with her have 1 less attack. Sorry, but I kinda felt compelled to rant about her.

 CONCLUSION

Well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment that really pertains to Dark Eldar. I know I left out a few topics, but these were the main ones that pertain to my list in particular. Thoughts? Comments? Lawsuits? Leave all but the lawsuits below!