Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Dark Eldar Unit Break Downs: Part 1, HQ Choices



Over the next couple weeks I will go over some of the useful and not so useful units in the dark elder list. I will be sticking to and going more in depth on the actual units that I field and have had success fielding. The first unit I will cover will be our HQ choices. Depending on the type of army your going to play will decide who your main HQ will be. There are 3 main HQ choices you can field. Your choices are: Archon, Wych Archite, or Haemonculus. Archons and Drachons are the leaders of a Kabal list, which is the "Standard" Dark Eldar list. Wych Archites and Wych Drachites are the leaders of Wych cult lists. And Haemonculus arefill in HQs in my opinion, never used them, but will be fielding a few to see how they play out.


The main lists that I run usually always have an Archon as the main HQ. I do run wych heavy, but I don't run an all out Wych cult list. In my experience Wych cults are extremely flimsy and extremely unforgiving tothe inexperienced player. One bad move or one skipped assault will 95% of the time cost you the entire game. There are numerous ways you can gear your HQs. Just like in most armies you can gear them to kill monstrous creatures or be troop killers. I prefer the troop killers over the monstrous creature killers because I tend to stack agonizers(power weapon that always wounds on a 4+) in every squad.


Quickly I'll go over some gear setups for decent HQs. Troop killing HQs will always have a punisher and the other wargear to compliment it. Punisher is a 2 hand power weapon that adds +1 str, when paired with a tormentor helm you can use that 2h power weapon and also get +1 attack for close combat weapons. Another good addition to a Archon/Archite is combat drugs and a shadow field. Combat drugs allow you to beef up your lord even more in every assault phase. Granted the more drug options you take the more likely you are to be taking wounds or even insta killing yourself. Shadow field is a 2+ inv save, but the one time you fail it, its gone. So basicly it pans out to one failed 2+inv usually equals death for your lord. One last piece of wargear I throw on my troop killer is the Arcane wargear item called the AnimusVitae. This nifty piece of gear bumps your archon's WS and Str by 1 after they successfully run the enemy down. So now your lord after afew rounds of combat is running around with a stat line similar to this:WS7 BS6 STR5 T3 W3 I7 A3(4) LD9, which can be further enhanced by the use of combat drugs.


The next HQ wargear setup would be the monsterous creature killer. Most of the same wargear applies, but there are a few changes. Instead ofthe Punisher/Tormentor helm combo you would replace that with a splinter pistol and an agonizer. As stated above a agonizer is a power weapon that always wounds on a 4+. You would also drop the Animus Vitae because seeing as your not using your str as a factor with an agonizer. I've ran Archons like this before and have had no fear when charging them into a Carnafex, Wraithlord, or even a nightbringer. It always makes someone mad when you kill their 250+pt HQ with a tiny 135pt toughness 3 hq.
This is the first installment of my Dark Eldar unit breakdowns. In later posts I will go over what HQs to run with what squads and when and when NOT to run HQs solo.

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