"Hey Kirby,
I have been playing a decent of angels list for a while and wanted to try something totally different. So I have been trying think of a dark eldar list using vect. Figured it would need a maximum amount of shooting to take advantage of his special rule as well as a good place to put him to guarantee he gets into combat. I came up with this.
Disclaimer. I find vect only really works well at 2000+ and would rather see him in 2500 lists. Shooting and combat works well with Vect as both can be used to full effect when you seize against an opponent. Remember though that seizing 50% of the time isn't something you should base your list or deployment on. If you don't seize or your opponent gives you 1st turn, your army still needs to operate effectively.
Vect
Humuclus, casket of flencing, venom blade
5 trueborn, 2x dark lance,
venom, 2x cannon
5 trueborn, 2x dark lance,
venom, 2x cannon
8 harlequines, 6x kiss, shadowseer
20 warriors, 2x dark lance, blaster, sybarite
10 warriors, dark lance, blaster
raider, night shields
10 warriors, dark lance, blaster
raider, night shields
6 bikers, 2x blasters
ravager, night shields
ravager, night shields
ravager, night shields
Heat lances on bikers. You take Bikes for heat lances as this is one of the only places you can get them. One squad is pretty meh so we need to look at making two squads of these guys. Otherwise you've got a lot of lances and then Harlequins as your combat unit. Harlies are nice but they problem is they are only one squad and whilst Shadowseer will protect them early, once they get close they are going to be double-tapped by bolters/lasguns and without Fortune or a transport to protect them, they will fall over. A unit which can come with a Raider then IMO would best as Vect can hitch a ride and you've got more firepower in the event you do seize. The two ideal units for this are Wyches and Incubi. Wyches aren't super hard hitting but are Troops so I'd look at these guys to shore up your Incubi squad. We need the Trueborn for access to their Venoms so a single squad of Incubi may be our best bet but we'll see how points go.
Before we start with the re-working let's read the rest.
Still on the fence about night shields vs flicker fields. They cost the same so switching from one to the other is no issue. Vect goes with the harlequins for protection from shooting and the unit provides something that nobody short of thunderhammer wielding termies wants to charge. Lots of guns, decent movement, strong counter punch/offensive unit (if nobody is advancing).
If you're using the Harlequins as a counter-punch unit, the Shadowseer is fine. It begs the question though why are you using it as such? Most armies don't need to get close to Dark Eldar to hurt them (AV10 open-topped does that) and whilst they will shred units that do come close, why not get an offensively minded unit to go with Vect's abilities?
I figure with the shooting I should be able to stop any land raiders from advancing and start opening up transports to slow down the enemy's advance. Vect and the harlies should be able to stop most enemys from getting to me and if he fails I can always boost 24in away. The only real issue I see is that I have no ability to stop hoards. Cunning strategies will be needed there.
I was trying to fit a unit of witches or beasts into the list and if I drop one warrior squad and the bike guys (forget the name) I can fit a decent unit of either, possibly with a 5 man blaster unit in a venom to go with it.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
A guy from the net."
Mass lance spam works well at slowing armor but there's always that little issue in actually killing armor. 20+ S8 lance shots will do it but sometimes you just need that bit of reliability and this comes from AP1 or heat lances. This is why they are so important if you are not taking Beastmasters. I think Wyches are a good idea (a Beastmaster unit as well instead of Incubi works but then Vect has no real place to camp) as they can help support your main assault unit (whatever it is).
With all this in mind let's take a look at what we can do. We obviously need to drop some guys so let's start with the large Warrior squad and the Haemonculus (we can add him in later for the Incubi if needed). We are obviously dropping the Quins as well. We want to add in a couple of Wych units, Incubi unit and another Reaver squad. This is going to be very tight. Let's do some quick numbers on the following: Vect; 2x3x Trueborn w/DLs, Venoms; 4x Inubi, Venom; 2x10x Wyches, Raider; 2x10x Warriors, DL, Blaster, Raider; 2x6x Reavers, 2x heat lance; 3x ravagers... and we get 2022 so this should be workable. We need some weapons on the Wyches however and potential upgrades on Raiders so some things will need to be dropped.
Let's have a quick gander at how many points we want on the Wyches. I'm thinking 2x Wych weapons each (40 points) + Hekatriks (20 points) and probably Venom Blades (10 points). We're now about 100 points over so harder to do some cutting and upgrades on Raiders are going to be difficult. Let's first change the Trueborn. Having them start on foot with Lances and the Venoms run around is great but if you don't get that first turn or your enemy deploys well against them, they aren't doing much as part of your alpha-strike. If we had Malys... Regardless let's change these to the 'standard' blaster Trueborn which only really saves us 5 points per unit. We could drop the Blasters from the Warrior squads but they become quite static which isn't what we want. We'll therefore have to trim the Wych squads and we end up with something like:
Vect
2x3x Trueborn w/Blasters, Venom
4x Incubi w/Venom
2x7x Wyches w/Shardnet, Hekatrik w/Venom Blade, Raider
2x10x Warriors w/Dark Lance, Blaster, Raider
2x6x Reavers w/2x Heat Lance
3x Ravagers
Totals: 2002 points
10 vehicles
57 infantry (12 jetbikes)
Need to drop 2 points somewhere to make this legal obviously but keeps the combat element which can strike out fast (and is more than just a single squad) whilst also having the mobility and firepower to take advantage of potential seizes.
Another option is to run full Incubi in Elites but will do a separate post on that I think.
