Dark Eldar - Royalty List

Eldar addict

We've looked at lists centring around both the Duke and Baron for Dark Eldar before but generally from an e-mailers perspective. Here's my take and something I'm encouraging Vince to put together as he's now collecting Dark Eldar...reasons unknown. Both the Duke and Baron are two of the better characters for Dark Eldar. Neither are too expensive and both are pretty durable for T3 guys (thanks Shadow Field!) and bring some excellent abilities to the army. The key to using any one of them is to maximise their special abilities without hamstringing the list. This effect will be magnified with both of them so we must aim to not over focus on their bonuses and miss out on actual army effectiveness.

So, what do the two of these guys give us? Baron helps us decide who gets first turn and this is pretty big. Remember, going first isn't always the best but deciding who goes first more often than not, is a very nice bonus to have. He also moves Hellions to Troops and gives quite a few buffs to a single squad including a Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Stealth, Skilled Rider and an improved Hit and Run. Duke on the other hand allows for a better reserves game by allowing all vehicles to deep-strike (and units can disembark), improves units with combat drugs by giving them some reliability and gives one Kabalite unit 3+ poisoned weapons. Between the two you get an awesome spread of buffs but you're unlikely to make maximum use of all - to do so would weaken the army as a whole. Taking both of them costs 255 points which is very cheap for the buffs we are getting and two decent combat characters.


Duke Sliscus
Baron Sathonyx

The first unit we'd want to include would therefore be a large Hellion unit. This unit is obviously a great place for Baron to ride around in due the buffs he gives them whilst they also benefit from Duke's double combat drug roll. With two poisoned shots each on 18" assault guns, a 12" move, skilled rider and stealth, they are an excellent midfield shooting unit which can back it up in combat. Thanks to hit and run they can also ensure they don't get bogged down in prolonged engagements. We'll take a squad of 15 which isn't too unwieldy but gives us a lot of numbers which to benefit from the buffs. This is 240 points for 495 total.

15x Hellions

From there we're going to go straight to fire support - Ravagers or Razorwings. We could go either way here but I think we'll have anti-infantry covered with what I have in mind here. We'll take the Ravagers then for cheapness sake. They aren't really benefiting from either of our HQs though they can use Duke's ability to deep-strike anywhere on the battlefield rather than coming on from the table edge if the army reserves. Three of these guys naked costs 315 points for 810 total.

Ravager
Ravager
Ravager

We've got our HQ/buffs, fire support and a scoring midfield unit sorted out with only Fast Attack, some Troops and Elite slots left to fill out. From here, we can really do a lot. We can support our guys with a bunch of Kabalite squads in Raiders/Venoms, grab some Reavers for harassment + heat lances, more Hellions, Beastmasters for some fast combat power, Incubi/Wyches/Bloodbrides for combat punch in Raiders, large Trueborn unit in Raider for anti-infantry firepower, etc. As long as your army covers the bases, well you've got a solid core down so it would be hard to go wrong. Let's see how I would do it.

We'll start with Fast Attack. Since we are using Duke I'd lean away from Scourges. You could of course take them with Haywires as more fire support but with the Duke, Reavers are excellent units capable of delivering Heat Lance fire quickly, coming in from reserve and affecting the battlefield quickly and benefit from combat drugs to be excellent harassers. Beastmasters are also an option and bring a ton of close combat ability to the table with the added bonus of large assault reaches. For this army though I'm going with Reavers for their harassment potential, heat lances and Duke bonuses. A squad of six allows us to have two heat lances and ensures a stiff breeze won't blow them away. Remember to use their skilled rider and turbo-boost to always have a decent save. Two of these squads costs 312 points bringing our total to 1122 points.

6x Reavers w/2x Heat Lances
6x Reavers w/2x Heat Lances

We now really need to look at Troops to support the Hellions. We could get more squads to act as harassers and with the Duke's combat drug bonus and the ability for the Baron to flit from squad to squad, could do this very well. Not really what I want for this list however so we look towards Wyches and Warriors. Wyches would go great with the Duke's ability for Combat Drugs and add some decent combat potential whilst also being an excellent tar pit. Warriors could roll as cheap scoring units in Venoms or larger units in Raiders depending upon points allowance and transport needs and can benefit from the Duke's ability to deep-strike their transports, hop out and shoot stuff. With points tight I'd be leaning towards small Warrior squads in Venoms, though they are really viable. By using the small Warrior squads I can look to take advantage of my open Elite slots. Knowing that points are becoming tight we'll take these squads as cheap as possible with five guys each, a blaster and a Venom. Five of these costs 625 and jumps our total to 1747.

5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom

We now have just the Elites left (and one FA slot). Again, we have a lot of choices. Trueborn in Venoms/Raiders are going to mesh nicely with the Duke's deep strike ability whilst a Shardcarbine unit would also love to have 3+ poisoned shots. Bloodbrides are the exact same as Wyches but with more combat power and again, benefit from Duke's combat drugs. Incubi don't benefit from either of the characters really (though would love the PGL on Baron) but are excellent units in their own right. Looking at the rest of our army we've got quite a bit of shooting without any real combat power. I'd like to have a mix in this army so I'll go with Incubi. They don't benefit majorily from the HQs but Bloodbrides really need combat support from other units (i.e. Incubi or Beastmasters) whilst Incubi can tear through units as they see fit. We'll go with two units then in Raiders with shock prows to bust through infantry formations. We'll be relying on the Venoms for cover saves here though if we have the points we can grab some flickerfields. Two squads of seven with a Raider + shock prow costs 448 bringing our total well over 2000 at 2195.

7x Incubi w/Raider, shock prow
7x Incubi w/Raider, shock prow

We need to trim to go to 2000 points but as we stand, we can easily take this to 2500! Take a third unit of Reavers and then a Trueborn Shardcarbine unit in a Raider with shock prow (should be able to get around eight if you drop some Hellions).

So back to the land of 2000 points. We need to shave 195 which is quite a hefty amount. We could forego the Incubi completely and replace them with Trueborn in Venoms (change two of the Kabalite Warriors to Raiders). Otherwise we are going to have to drop a unit and the only ones we have more than two of are the Ravagers and Warriors. We could drop a whole Warrior squad saving 125 points and then look to trim units. With some quick number crunching here's what we get:

Duke Sliscus
Baron Sathonyx

6x Incubi w/Raider, shock prow
7x Incubi w/Raider, shock prow

12x Hellions
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom
5x Kabalite Warriors w/blaster, Venom

6x Reavers w/2x Heat Lances
6x Reavers w/2x Heat Lances

Ravager
Ravager
Ravager

Totals: 2000 points
9 vehicles
59 infantry

We shaved an incubi and some Hellions and end bang on 2000 points. Let's look at the army as whole and again, there are a ton of options around the Royalty combination so this is by no means set in stone.

With the Duke + Baron we are likely to get to choose who goes first and take advantage of it. If going first is advantageous, we have a lot of firepower + speed to get into position early and hurt our opponent whilst overcoming Dark Eldar fragility. If going second you can reserve effectively to minimise damage with all units able to come on effectively from reserve (either deep-striking or table edge for Reavers/Ravagers as necessary) and hit the enemy in a counter alpha-strike. Our harassment units (Hellions, Reavers) gain great benefits from the Baron and Duke and are therefore much better at their jobs. The Warriors can hold midfield and bring an extra darklight weapon to the table as well as 64 to 80 poisoned shots on the move. The Incubi can break opponent's infantry formations and carve through most units on the charge with easy. Lack of plasma grenades/dedicated PGLs hurts but with shock prows they should be able to set up non-terrain assaults. The Ravagers of course provide back-field pewpew.

All in all the army has a lot of anti-tank (20 darklight shots + potential high strength in combat), lots of anti-infantry and multiple units for the opponent to deal with. Durability for Dark Eldar is as always a problem and without Coven units or Haemonculi to pass around pain tokens, killing units early (especially for the Hellions, Incubi and Reavers) is very valuable. Scoring can be an issue with only 20 Warriors + 12 Hellions but the Baron makes the Hellions very durable in cover, especially if they get a pain token.

All in all a nice list and something I'd like to playtest (no it has been playtested yet) with lots of units I like and a theme which appeals. Discuss.