Dark Eldar First Impressions

During 5th edition, Dark Eldar were my primary army.  I picked up two huge lots of Dark Eldar on eBay when they were terribly unpopular and created an army around the old 3rd edition Codex. While not exactly flavorful, the army was able to spam Dark Lances like no other and was pretty effective on the table top.

Once the new Codex dropped my army expanded a bit.  My initial core force was made up of a blob of Warriors, Wracks / Incubi in Venoms, Wyches in Raiders, Trueborn and Ravagers.  Over time the army shifted to be a bit more spammy, but I loved the lore of the Codex and the variety of options I could bring.

My trusty old Dark Eldar army - I brought a similar army to Games Workshop's Throne of Skulls and won "Best Dark Eldar" back in 2011.

Now that the 7th edition Codex is here (at least in rumors), it's time to start planning again.  It's too early to come up with a definitive list, but based on the rumors I do have a few ideas in mind....

First of all, in my games ObSec units tend to be a difference maker.  As such, I'm still drawn to a core of Warriors in Venoms.  Raiders losing flickerfields, and Wyches losing Haywires kind of kills that option for me, but having 4-6 units of Warriors in Venoms gives me quite a few Obsec units.  In most cases they will come in from reserve so that they can be around later in the game for objective grabbing.

There are a few other units that really stand out to me so far.  In the Elites slot I like Grotesques, Mandrakes and (probably) Trueborn.  For Fast Attack, I think Reavers are a great buy at 16 points a pop.  Scourges also really shine here, with the ability to take 4 special weapons in 5 models. I'm not quite sold on Hellions - 13 points may be a bit too much considering they don't have grenades, but I would still like to try them.  Obviously another option here is the Razorwing.

Heavy Support provides some other interesting options.  The Bomber seems too expensive, and Ravagers losing Flickerfields really hurts.  Having to jink to get a save when you only get 3 shots (from Dark Lances at least) puts them out of the top spot - unless Disintegrators get a boost.  What really shines in this spot for me are Talos and Cronos... I'm beginning to see why the Coven supplement may be pretty good (Grotesques in Raiders + Talos / Cronos spam).

I'm still not sure about HQ's.  I think I will be looking for an HQ that helps boost the Grotesque unit as much as possible.  I wouldn't classify them as a "star" unit, but they have potential to do some damage.  If I ally with Eldar I could see myself using Baharroth to get Hit and Run.

I'm not sure if Dark Eldar are going to be strong enough to compete on the top tables in tournaments, but I do think they have the tools to build a flavorful army with quite a bit of variety.