COMMENT: Dark Eldar ain't shit and lillith can tongue my dong

[General Biakal]

this is an artists reprisentation of inside my friend Al's head today.

Al is a sad bunny.

Yesterday, i fought him with 1000pts a side. he had £200 worth of new dark eldar stuff including hellions, the bikes, wyches, raiders the fucking lot.

And i tabled him in 3/4 turns, losing less tham 8 guardsmen in the process. yes... a handful of men. now Al is a veteran of many years, with several armies. now, it WAS his first battle with DE and he had a few shocking dice rolls but the fact remains he brought a fart to a shit fight. when i first read the codex i did think "im not scared of them".

highlight of the match was Lilith Hesperax assaulting a squad of ten guardsmen, killed NONE, took a single unsaved wound, failed her Ld and ran away. they then followed her last turn and shot her up. nice!

the exterminator leman russ minced the hellions and the chimera twin flamer templates killed all the biker guys.
 
has anyone else faced the DE with similar or differing results?

[Talsin]

one does feel that the tactics used will have been the deciding factor. The vast majority of DE units are imensely fragile, as can be seen by reading the codex.

The DE army is one which takes ages to master, judging its performance on one battle is very unfair, in addition to being insignificant on a scientific level.

[General Biakal]

oh. thats a very warseer response!!!

 i think of all the armies in 40k, i think IG are a real bane of DE. more so than other armies- there is an important reason for this:

first off, because IG units are so weak in HTH there is a big chance they will just get laced up in the first round of combat. this means if a unit of hard DE charge, they will probably get stuck out in the open back at the start of the next IG turn. with SM they would hang around for two or three turns, meaning they will not get shot at so much.

also, the vast majority of IG weaponry is AP4, high strength. Auto cannons, Heavy Bolters, heavy flamers will all be wounding on a 2+ or 3+ with no save.

there are also so many vehicles in the Armory that seem designed with DE in mind. the hydra, the exterminator, the eradicator, the manticore is also AP4 with very long range. the hydra also negates the cover save from turbo boosting...

of COURSE its down to what jade goody would call tic-tacs, that goes without saying, but with the IGs massed high strength, mid AP, super long range weapons can take half the points off the DE player first turn, even if they steal the initiative.

for me this was a battle report more than an actual critique of the dark eldar but more than many other armies (a pred heavy SM list excepted) the IG have less to fear and have the chance to do more damage to the Dark Eldar.

[Talsin]

I do appologise for sounding warseer-ish, it certainly was not my intention.

It is true that IG do have a LOT of ways to counteract DE units, and awful lot.

My comment was intend to be more of a comment on that it was his fist time with a delicate force.

On my first reading of the codex i personally pickedup one the very nasty trick DE have, and only after reading it a few times did i take in the utter frailty of the DE army.

So again I appologise about sounding all warseer, but i do feel that your opponents tactics may have had a major affect, i.e. units not being used to the best of their ability or acting unsupported, especially if as you say it was his first game with his DE army.

Talsin

[General Biakal]

it is the epitome of a glass hammer- mainly that the troops are pretty vulnerable at being shot AT, but leathal in CC. but they are not all that hot in shooting themselves (but they have their moments).

to be honest i was just happy to win a game for once!

[MarkRG]

Well done on your win mate.

Once a good few years ago, i had a big 3000pts battle. My opponet geared his army up to fight my many tanks.

What shock, horrier he had when the only vehicles i had was a squadron of sentinals. (4th ed)

he got the first turn in shooting the pants of my front line troops, but then i openned up. My mortors fired and i got a lucky shot taking out his falcon tank, glancing shot from the back door.

Using 4th ed rules id used my pts up giving them all a better ws skill, so even the basic guards man killed shit loads.

Overall i won. with only loosing a 1/3 of my army.

Game on guys.