Dark Eldar in 5th Edition - Initial Thoughts

My mates are running a campaign where we pick a 1000 point starting army, and get extra points or force organisation slots depending on the results of the battle. Each battle is at the same points and at the moment that ranges from 700-900 points. The campaigns allows us to get a bigger number of games in each gaming night we have, so we can try out new stuff rather than continuously playing with our tweaked tournament armies.

So finally my Dark Eldar were dusted off and hit the gaming table, if only a part of it, for their first games of 5th edition.

My initial thoughts are that they are still very much a glass hammer army (very fragile but can hit hard).

Compared with 4th edition the vehicles did seem a bit more resilient with the new damage table, but the big thing I found was that I hated scattering blast templates.

Ravagers used to hit on 3+ with their template, so unless you roll 4 or less for the scatter they only get a direct hit a third of the time. With opponents used to playing against the new blast template rules they spread out so even a direct hit was not getting too many models, plus the increased cover saves in 5th edition really put a dent in the disintegrator firepower. I was so ready to rush out and buy my 3rd ravager, but I'll probably stick to my previous heavy support of 2 ravagers and a Talos and see how it goes.

One thing I did like about the disintegrator was the lower powered shot, on many occasions I fired the low powered shot which allowed me to move 12” rather than 6”, this allowed me to manoeuvre so as not to give the enemy a cover save (eg. from their drop pod).

On the assault side wyches seemed only ok, a squad charged and killed (over 2 turns) 15 guardsmen, but when you consider the cost of guardsmen compared to wyches and their transport it doesn't seem so hot.

I used to run a pretty shooty Dark Eldar list at 1500 pts, however I like the idea of fast assaults, so now that the standard sized game seems to be 1750 pts I used the extra points to add some assault elements.

I'm wondering whether a hybrid list can work ? Do Dark Eldar only work as either wych assault or kabel shooty or can a hybrid list be viable ? I'll hopefully get some more ideas when I bring out the full list (in the next few weeks).

Rathstar

PS. Below is the current list I'll be taking to any games:

Archon - 137
Punisher, Tormentor Helm
Plasma Grenades
Shadow Field, Combat Drugs

Dracon with 5 Warrior Retinue – 105
2 Dark Lances

8 Wyches (incl Succubus) - 189
Succubus: Agoniser
2 Blasters
Raider

8 Wyches (incl Succubus) - 194
Succubus: Agoniser
2 Blasters
Raider with Disintegrator

Beastmaster & 5 Warp Beasts - 75

5 Warriors - 115
Dark Lance & Blaster
Raider with Disintegrator

8 Warriors (incl Sybarite) - 165
Sybarite: Agoniser
Blaster & Splinter Cannon
Raider with Disintegrator

5 Warriors - 110
Blaster & Splinter Cannon
Raider

10 Warriors – 110
2 Dark Lances & 2 Blasters

10 Warriors - 100
2 Dark Lances

5 Warriors - 110
Dark Lance & Blaster
Raider

Ravager (3 Distintegrators) - 120

Ravager (3 Distintegrators) - 120

Talos – 100

Summary
1750 Points, 81 Models, and a horrendous 20 Kill Points
11 Dark Lances, 9 Disintegrators, 10 Blasters, 2 Splinter Cannons
6 models with close combat weapons that ignore armour saves