This article is based on my experiences over the past year playing Dark Eldar at a competative level. This is based on the concept of 'Alpha Strike', ie hitting the enemy before they can hit you. This is designed to largely negate the key weakness of Dark Eldar: fragility. THis tactic will likely nullify most of the enemy units that can really hurt you(ie most of them). This tactic depends entirely on the 2 special characters: Asdrubael Vect and Lady Malys.
For those of you that aren't familiar with the Dark Eldar codex, Asdrubael Vect is the most expensive, and also most powerful character in the book. He has 7 attacks on the charge, with Preferred Enemy against everything, wounding on a 3+ with a power weapon. His greatest strength, however, comes from his rule 'Master Tactician' This allows him to seize the initiative on a 4+. Now, this ability on any other army would be nice. On Dark Eldar, however, this is tremendous. Going first means that you can likely launch 1st turn assaults while avoiding a round of firepower that would likely kill your raiders/venoms. However, when combined with Lady Malys, this gets even better.
Lady Malys has a standard Archon statline with some mediocre gear. She is still relatively cheap at 130 points. Her special rule, 'precognisant', allows you to re-deploy D3 units after both sides have deployed, including placing them in reserve.
When these 2 characters are combined in a mounted assault army, their true worth is shown. Dark Eldar wyches, for example, have a 21-26 inch assault range (depending on fleet rolls). The mere prescence of the 2 characters forces your opponent on the backfoot before the game even begins. Scenario Number 1: if you win the roll off, you would go first. After the opponent has deployed, you would redeploy between 1-3 units to be in a better position to launch a turn 1 assault, which is what you want anyway. Scenario Number 2: if he wins the roll off, he is in a dilemna- if he lets you go first, then Scenario 1 happens. If he goes first, you can deploy to counter him, then Vect will seize the initiative 50% of the time, which will then also lead to a first turn assault.
Merely including Vect and Malys in your army forces your opponent to think long and hard about his deployment, and allows you to control not only yours and his deployment, but you also greatly increase your chance of getting first turn, which is what you want in the first place.
THis is the 2000 points list in which I utilise Alpha Strike. Due to the cost of Vect, I would not recomend taking both Vect and Malys under 1750 points.
2000 points Dark Eldar
HQ: Vect 240 points
HQ: Malys 130 points
Elites: 4 Trueborn with 4 blasters, mounted in a Venom with 2 splinter cannons 173 points
Elites: 4 Trueborn with 4 blasters, mounted in a Venom with 2 splinter cannons 173 points
Troops: 9 wyches with haywire grenades, 1 hydra gauntlets, hekatrix with agoniser, mounted in a Raider with flickerfields and shock prow 223 points
Troops: 9 wyches with haywire grenades, 1 hydra gauntlets, hekatrix with agoniser, mounted in a Raider with flickerfields and shock prow 223 points
Troops: 10 wyches with haywire grenades, 2 hydra gauntlets, hekatrix with agoniser, mounted in a Raider with flickerfields and shock prow 245 points
Troops: 10 wyches with haywire grenades, 2 hydra gauntlets, hekatrix with agoniser, mounted in a Raider with flickerfields and shock prow 245 points
Heavy Support: Ravager with flickerfields 115 points
Heavy Support: Ravager with flickerfields 115 points
Heavy Support: Ravager with flickerfields 115 points
Note: the Ravagers and Raiders all have Dark lances
This list comes up to 1997 points.
Anyway, I hope this article has been of some use. Happy hunting my fellow Archons!
CalasTyphon216, 28th October 2011
