Topic: how do i beat dark eldar?

[(CoD)Phredom]

for now im proxying anyhting untill i find a nice versatile legion i will stick with, so list anyhting (chaos of course)!

ok my biggest concern is his archon counicl or whatever its called. those guys with one big poleaxe that aer killer in cc.

i havent had much trouble against DE yet but i still havent won against them. what do you guys suggest to take them out?

o ya the guy also like to use lots of raiders.

[Mohawk man!]

oh i hate the archon with 2++, that really gets on my nerves. also the fact that they almost always go b4 u in cc, althogh this can be nullified with a wily tactic of mine.

use fabius bile as ur commander, and upgrade all ur squads, so they got +1S and I, and give them furious charge so they can also get an extra point of each when they charge, this means

a) you will insta kill those weaklings on the charge
b) most important, you go b4 their basic troops and strike silmultaneously with their elitists.

you could even go one better, and make them noise marines so warp scream puts them at -1 I. however, doing so much just to go first will prolly not b worth it.

2 deal with the archon, however, you could just use a dreadaxe.

[CD]

Check out the "which legion should i choose" thread at the top of the forum to decide on your legion.

If you're using Black Legion, Alpha Legion, Word Bearers, Iron Warriors or Night Lords, just use Havocs with autocannons. ACs will take out Raiders awfully fast. If you're using Emperor's Children, use Blastmasters to kill tranports.

Choosing a Legion is up to you, and I'd suggest just getting the one you like the most and then adapting it to fight against DE.

[Sephiael The Redeemed]

for now im proxying anyhting untill i find a nice versatile legion i will stick with, so list anyhting (chaos of course)!

ok my biggest concern is his archon counicl or whatever its called. those guys with one big poleaxe that aer killer in cc.

i havent had much trouble against DE yet but i still havent won against them. what do you guys suggest to take them out?

o ya the guy also like to use lots of raiders.

The thing about a typical Archon HQ is that is usually lacks in firepower. The Archon has at best a splinter pistol or at worst a splinter rifle, and most players prefer punishers on incubi. Since they can't fleet of foot with incubi, I'd just take out the Archon's Raider with a simple bolt gun and then ignore the unit altogether. Let them plod along the table at 6" per turn. Worked really well for me at my club. Its a bit of a be-atch if they actually do catch up with you though!
 
Almost every DE player I know uses lots of raiders. They depend on raiders. They like to shear off one flank at a time, and circle isolated units like sharks. The most important thing to do is not to let the player pressure you. Fight him on your own terms.

I usually use a type of "box formation". I have two squads of marines in lines, effectively sealing off my corner, Havoc and Obiterators pummeling the eldar with heavy weapons, I have two units of Khorne Beserkers behind the marines just waiting to pounce on anyone who breaks through, and a Sorcerror Lord just begging them to get in range of his spells. It fustrates the dark eldar player when they can't find chinks in your formation and after raider's start exploding under heavy fire he'd have no choice but to try charging through.

[The Rainmaker]

You can't give enhanced marines a chaos mark, so they can't be noise marines. You could charge them in at the same time as some daemonettes or noise marines though.

[Colonel Twisting Shadow]

I play DE, so i could help you out...

1) archon and incubi: stature/dredaxe, and d.str, wound the archon, and he insta-dies.  incubi follow soon enough.
(this is asuming you can allocate attacs to certain models... i think ICs can in 4ed)

2) Wyches: not as scary as you'd think, just hope they don't get +1 str, rerolls to hit, or +1 attack in CCW.  If they dont, just charge them with zerks or something, if they do tho... shoot the raider, then the wyches (6+ saves, HAHAHA now i feel bad...).

Actually, just shoot the raiders first chance u get.
With bolters.

3) Grotesques: use lascannons, Autocannons, and HtH on these suckers, cuz you can't hurt them with anything less than str 6.  in shooting that is.

4)Stay away from darklances with tanks, and disintigrators.  the Dissies are anti marine guns (only on raiders and ravagers tho, use bolters as suggested on raiders, but plasma on ravagers), and the Dlances are on troop squads, raiders, and ravagers(the former, use bolters, the median, use bolters, the latter, plasma)

Remember, he can only be glanced if he moves 6+" with his skimmers, but they go BOOM on a damage roll of 3,5,or 6.  he will never move his ravagers that far, if he likes to shoot.  rember, all his guns are crap, cept for the Lances and Dissies, and they shoot a max of 36," show him why range is good.  use the anti tank wpns on ravagers and grotesques, and bolters on eveything else, and above all...


Dont let them take you alive.

Oh, and have fun, too.

-Drazhar

[Volren]

Grotesques are very easy to kill with Plasma Cannons, though I wouldn't waste any fire on them as they move very slowly. Just sink their Raider if they have one, and the squad will go nowhere if unaccompanied (I doubt they will be).

I would personally use my Death Guard against them. DG move slowly but since any Chaos army gives up speed to DE that's no big deal. The thing is you also lack heavy weapons which could be a problem but Warriors armed with Splinter Rifles will barely scratch them and will be overpowered in CC as they will only wound rarely.

Nurglings are a great choice to tie up the Archon and his bodyguards, too, or Wyches.

[Kei'Ariq]

The Dark Eldar are actually a difficult opponent for Chaos because the Dark Eldar have a lot of weapons and abilities that are equally effective against expensive cult Marines as they are against cheaper troops.

Some of the advice given has been very sensible, particularly the use of Autocannon or Blastmaster Havocs to take down Raiders (and Ravagers). If possible the use of Nurglings, or Plaguebearers, to take on the HQ and Wyches are also very simple.

However, having faith in the Bolter to shoot down Raiders should be left to the Not-Yet-Traitor Marines. It takes 18 Bolter shots to shoot down a Raider on average, not something that you want to relying on terribly often. It is also overly optimistic to say "shoot down the Wych Raider" or similar, as they will naturally fly behind a more expendable Warrior Raider. If you want to take out these then you will need to use an indirect fire weapon, or find someway of outflanking their fast moving force.

A good Dark Eldar player should be able to use terrain and crashed vehicles to prevent you shooting down any more than two Raiders a turn, if they want to come to you. With the speed of the Raiders, that should mean in a best case scenario, that you would shoot down four Raiders, and that anything beyond that, likely including Archon, Incubi and Wyches would get into hand to hand.

The best way to counter that is to have a suitable counter charge force. If you have Nurglings and Plaguebearers they are an excellent choice, otherwise, overwhelming those combat squads with numbers is probably the best way.

A tooled up Daemon Prince with Dreadaxe is a tempting option, but my Dark Eldar Lord and Incubi have faced that three times (I charged all three times), once I killed the Daemon Prince before it got to attack, and the other two times my 130 point Archon and the 210 point Daemon Prince both went down. A better option for such a model would be to wade into the Wyches.

One final note, the other thing that you should be extremely wary of is the presence of a Ravager. They can do a lot of damage to Marines of all types.

[(CoD)Phredom]

i didnt get a chance to read this till just now but heres what happened...

2v2 1500pts/person

i had 3 squads of 5 raptors with meltas and melta bombs and infiltrate (soley to take out raiders) and 2 squads of 5 c.s.marines with melta bombs and infiltrte also to take out raiders. and a lord with stature and dark blade and infiltrate to also clean up raiders.

my partner was IG with like 3 or 4 tanks and a hole lot of troops.

they had....

12 raiders. 6 a peice. both had a squad of lord/incubi and wyches and 4 troop choices.

we got to go first and i downed 5 raiders in the first turn and my partner got another 3 - 4. he ordnaced one of the lord/incubi raiders instantly killing all of them inside. and another troop raider was ordnanced killing all that. then some how they got 3/4ths of there armies up to us and managed to kill everything even though one of the DE had lost 850 pts the firt round. either DE are overpowered or they were cheating. there basic troops managed to kill 9/10ths of my aarmy. o i had havocs with 4xheavy bolters that only ended up killing like 5 troops.

im a newb to the new chaos, i played the old codex for about 2 years before the new one came out. i have only played like 5 games with the new one cuz i just got it.

i love NL, but they have only done extremly good in one game so far. i like to proxy cuz we never play tournies or anything so it doesnt really matter to us.

i like the nurgling tie up thing, ill try that next time. o and can lesser deamons start out on the board or do they HAVE to be summoned into play?

[Volren]

DO NOT attempt to use Meltabombs/CC to knock out Raiders. Chances are good the Dark Eldar will just leave you in the dust or if you get one your squad will be annihilated the next turn, especially as they are only 5-man squads and will have difficulties hitting Skimmers. That suicide squad tactic is more for them, not expensive Marines.

The Raptors were a good idea- but instead of Meltas give them Plasma Guns. Multi-shot, can insta-kill most DE units and will deal with a Raider almost as well. They are also better at troop killing, too, as well as Flamers. The only unit in the DE army I would consider a Meltagun justified against is the Talos, and even then I'd find something else to do with it.

Daemon Summoning rules are in the Codex. You will notice they do not give you any options on how you want to use them.

[Purple Area]

Wait....  You're kidding me.  "Their basic troops knocked out 9/10 of my army."

Maybe they were cheating...  DE warriors just don't cut it against marines.  I've tried it.  My happy sybarite knocks out a marine or 2 each time he goes, but the basic warriors get smacked around!

The only thing warriors have superior to marines in CC is their initiative.  Less armour, strength, toughness.  So...  I really don't know how JUST warriors took out 9/10 of your army.

Maybe if those "basic troops" were incubi and an archon wading around in marines, then I could see them eating through lots of squads.

And from what you describe, their list was composed entirely of raiders!?
No ravagers or reavers?  Or talos?

You also had an advantage against them since your teammate was IG and they were stuck with both DE.  Since your chaos with IG, that gives you much more diversity than 2 DE.

And you are aware that ordnance only kills everything on a penetrating 6 (I think...).  And unless ordnance automatically penetrates, you should be getting glances on raiders.  Maybe theres some rule that isn't registering right now, but that should be the case.

And sure, of course DE are going to take 850 point casualties in the first around against the firepower of IG and chaos.  They DO have paper armour.

However, they have some pretty hard hitting things.  They're basic troops can go tank-busting with lances, and ravagers can smoke 1/2 a squad of marines to a full squad in one good volley.

I'm surprised neither DE player was using an Archon on a Reaver Jetbike.

[General Canderous Fayler]

For DE I like lots of rapid fire weapons, such as bolters, heavy bolters, and auto cannons.  These work well on their vehicles AND their infantry.