Raiders

Sleek, baroque vessels of murder.

So I've been sick, but I'm back now! And I've been meaning to talk about these little guys. They clock in at 60 points, and 10 armor all around. Expect to get shot down by bolters seeing as you're open topped, making every god damn result +1 to the chart. Meltas will wreck your shit badly.

As with most vehicles, you can drop the Dark Lance and pick up a Disintegrator for free, giving you three S5 AP2 shots, perfect for assassinating heavy infantry if you so choose. But, sticking warriors with a blaster inside of it give you a very nice firepower platform, allowing you to target something at 36" with your DL, and something else at 18" with the Blaster. You really can put down a lot of threats with them, but they're incredibly flimsy for their downside. No options for extra armour, and once you get a gun shot off, or become immobilized, you are stuck there for the rest of your life.

The really interesting thing about Raiders are all the upgrades you can buy!

• Flickerfields for a 5+ invuln save against any attack.
• Night Shields reduce the range of any weapon shooting at them by 6", and it counts for working out melta and rapid fire bonuses. So a normal melta will have to be 3" away from you to get the extra dice.
• Torment Grande Launchers give a 6" bubble around your Raider, which reduce the leadership of an enemy unit by 1, and if a unit chooses to assault your craft, they have to make a Leadership test(not Morale!), and if they fail it, can't assault anything.
• Shock prows enable you to tank shock, and combined with the Enhanced Aethersails option, gives you a potential 36" tank shock, along with the TGL give you a pretty good chance to run a unit off the table on the first turn!
• Envenomed blades inflict a single S4 AP- hit whenever a model rolls a 1 to hit it in close combat, which may be effective for crowd control... But if you're in range for an assault by 30 boys, you've got problems that this thing won't help you with.
• Chain Flails allow you to inflict D3+1 S4 AP- hits whenever you pass over a unit, which is nice, but really is rather weak, considering the crimes against humanity you can cause with Reavers.
• Grisly Trophies allow you to re-roll any leadership checks you make within 6" of your Raider, which is a nice little thing for 5pt.
• Splinter racks allow any unit onboard firing with Splinter Rifles or Splinter Pistols(but not Cannons) to re-roll any failed to hit dice. Re-rolling 3+ shooting attacks often yield you an incredible amount of hits, making them beastly shooters.

The upgrades can really add up though, making the usual Raider I take around 90 points. Too many times the upgrades prove their worth though, disregarding 1/3rd of the penetrating hits you receive isn't something to whine about really. It's the difference between your Raider blowing up and killing all the Wyches inside, and your Raider moving up 12", the Wyches disembarking, fleeting, and tackling whatever you need them to.

It's not unusual for a list to have a Raider for every infantry unit they have, that can buy them. Though I hear they're starting to phase out a little bit for Venoms with 5 warriors and a Blaster inside of them, because people love being cheesy and playing internet lists. 

All in all, it's one of the coolest and most dynamic models released for a vehicle, and if I ever get mine finished, you can be sure I'll be posting pictures of them.

Haemonculi

The posterboy of the Dark Eldar

This nasty little guy can sport a Flesh Gauntlet. "A claw-glove crammed with syringe-like protrusions and vials, the flesh gauntlet can inject potent electrosteroids that force rapid and unnatural growth. Its victim will literally outgrow his own skin, bursting apart in a welter of steaming, heaving matter." This is just one of the ways he would enjoy killing you.

Something they'd like to turn you into.

These little guys can pack a surprising punch, scoring just one wound can turn into quite a few when these guys' touch is involved. The Haemonculous wears no fancy armor - the only save afforded to them is their grisly, mutilated flesh. So much mangled, stitched skin can be found on them they actually get a 6+ armor save. The real money though is they start with a pain token, giving them a nice save against everything that ignores that piddly 6+ armor save.

An unusual thing to be found on them is this - 4 toughness. You'll have to bring anti-tank weaponry to them in order to put the lights out on a Haemonculous. There isn't a whole lot you can give them to increase their survivability outside of putting them in transports or squads, but they're cheap, and you can get three of them in one HQ slot, which is really cool. 

They have a full compliment of wargear available to them - from a simple little poisoned blade, to a blade that - as it moves through the air, completely sucks the moisture out of the surrounding area. There's a big toxin trade in Commorragh, and there are sometimes antidotes. They're difficult to locate, and they're looked upon as a refuge of the weak.

One of their guns causes "Blood vessel explosion or implosion, pharyngeal contraction, extensive haemolysis, skeletal disintegration, sclerotic corrosion, intercostal spasms, hyper-reacted thermoreceptors, subcutaneous necrolysis, Eustachian collapse, cardiac and respiratory atrophy or wide-scale exsanguination - sometimes all at once."Antidotes are for bitches!

Poison factory hard at work?

They ride into battle upon baroque, elegant craft. Jump out of them, and open up a portal into a hidden dimension full of shadow monsters, having unimaginable terrors burst into realspace, much closer than anyone would like them to be.

Try going to bed now.

Incubi

Straight up murderous instincts right here

The perfect buddies for your Archon - Incubi fill up a terribly efficient role in your Dark Eldar army, packing all power weapon attacks at Strength 4. Initiative 5 ensures they hit off before the majority of forces they go up against, while their WS5 lets them hit most melee troops on 3s. Combine them with an Archon to take care of ICs, and you have a very murderous little gank squad. Mount them in a Venom for 55pt, and it's a pretty cheap, effective unit that can give most of any units a huge ass-whooping in close combat.

22 points a piece introduces you to the idea of having a save that isn't ignored by a stiff breeze. The only unit outside of a monstrous creature to feature the much feared and coveted 3+ armour save, Incubi can roam the battlefield without much fear for their saves being ignored - but the enemy will make them a high priority target. Every game I've used them, they always get shot down and killed, but it just lets my Wyches or other units go unmolested and do their dirty work. If you can drag a Homonculous into the mix, you can have a very resilient unit with 3+ and FnP.

These guys do have upgrades! A character with an extra attack, a sword that can either grant +2 attacks, or +2 strength, your choice. A S3 AP3 template, and a few powers. One that lets you re-roll to hit against Independant Characters, and one that allows you to roll an additional attack for each 6 you roll to wound with an Incubi. Can't get infinite attacks with them though, which is a real shame. How come that Blood Angels dreadnought can do it, but they can't? Weeeeak!

I think for their cost, they're one of the most cost-effective units in the codex - paying for Klaivex is mostly just for show. A fully tooled out Klaivex costs 97 points. You can get an Archon with a Husk Blade for his cost! Which, you know, might be good if you already have two Archons or some silly shit like that, but rarely will it do you any good to have so many points invested in a one wound model, unless you're playing Grey Knights.

The Game

Super friends - assemble!

So, played a mock game last night with my 500pt army. It took like 10 minutes and we were done. Playing against daemons, my friend hate a Greater Daemon, Daemon Prince, and 8 Daemonettes. My list is an Archon(pictured above), 10 warriors with a Blaster in a raider, with Night Shields and Splinter Racks. 6 Bloodbrides, two Hydra Gauntlets, in a raider with a Shock Prow, Torment grenade launchers and a Flickerfield. So, I sit down two raiders, he gets first turn, and deepstrikes his two daemons next to me. Shoots a bolt of change to my Wych raider with the Archon, and pop. Blows it up! Luckily I rolled a 6 on my combat drugs, and didn't lose any precious Bloodbrides thanks to Feel No Pain. That was basically his turn though, so it went to me. Archon and Brides crawl out from the wreck, and position themselves for a nice assault to the Daemon Prince. Warriors raider moves up 6", and blasts the Daemon Prince with all their stuff. 18 re-rollable shots land me no misses, and I put around 11 wounds on the little dude. He goes down real quick, and I wasn't expecting that sort of outcome. Archon and his Brides are standing out in the open. Next turn - his Greater Daemon flies down, shoots his bolt of change at my last remaining Raider, and doesn't do anything. Proceeds to assault it, and since I only moved 6", hits it on 4s. Luckily, he only gets 1 hit! I think I'm doing good, but I don't make my Flickerfield save. He rolls the damage result - and guess what?

Explodes! My warriors have a pain token though, and only take one casualty thanks to Feel No Pain again. So opens my next turn. The warriors open up a big volley on the GD, and only end up putting two wounds on it since they did miserable with their hits. Archon and his Brides swoop down to the rescue, my hydra gauntlets giving me an extra 8 attacks. Wyches put 9 wounds on him, Archon deals none. Out of 9 saves, he luckily fudges two, and goes down. Second pain token for the Archon and his Brides! All that's left are some Daemonettes, who are still in reserves.

Turn three - he doesn't get his Daemonettes.

Turn four - he doesn't get his Daemonettes.

Turn five! They come in automatically. He hits with his scatter die, and lands them right next to the Archon and his Brides. He runs, a 6! Just enough to get within 3" of my objective where the Warriors are standing, and contest it. My turn. I don't shoot my warriors - there's no honor in that. The Archon and his Brides make a move down for them, opting to fleet for good positioning. 1! They really don't get anywhere better than where they were, and just lose the option to fire their pistols. The assault!

Normally, these harsh bitches go off at the same time - with a staggering initiative of 6! But, with my second pain token, my Brides are soaking in some funky daemon hurt, so they pop off at initiative 7. They lose their bonus attack for assaulting due to the Daemonettes defensive grenades, so they're at a base of 3. Hydra gauntlets! 7 extra attacks. All together, I have 23 attacks from my Brides, and I end up scoring something like 8 wounds, with the Archon contributing 3. 8 Daemonettes, with a 5+ save. I figure they'll all go crying to Slaanesh, but they end up making a nice amount of save, with 3 left to swing back. They throw their 9 attacks outs, get 6 hits, and 3 wounds from it. 3 Brides take the wounds, but have a 4+ invuln save, and a 4+ FnP save. None of them take any damage, and the Daemonettes lose by 5, and take 5 fearless wounds. This time, they all die! Third pain token for the squad, and the end of the game.

I didn't think my Warriors would do so well, managing to put around 15 wounds on two seperate MCs, and be the deciding factor in killing them both. 200 points is well spent on them! It was a short match, though. I wonder how I'll do against things that CAN suffer instant death!

The Razorwing.

Doing what it does best - delivering missiles.

The Razorwing is a unique unit - being that it can move 36" at any time, and can also move 12" and fire every one of its sickening weapons. Two dark lances, a Splinter Rifle you can upgrade to a Cannon, and four missiles. The missiles it comes with are S6 AP5 48" Large Blast murder sticks. You can fire all four of them any time you want, which means four large blasts that are wounding most troops on 2s, and insta-killing T3 models. If you get a good spot, you can get around 7-8 hits with each template, and with BS4, they really don't go too far. Combined with the dark lances and the splinter cannon, you're looking at stacking an AWFUL LOT of wounds on a single unit, effectively giving you the opportunity to point your finger at a unit and gimping it for the rest of the game.

You ofcourse don't have to take the Dark Lances, as with most things in the book, you can trade them out for Disintegrators, for free. So you get 6 S5 AP2 shots you can lay out on the unit too, and if you're going for the maximum amount of hurt, it may just be better than two Dark Lances. I haven't done it, because honestly, I can never have enough Dark Lances. Once you shoot your load with it, I don't think Disintegrators would be nearly as useful as them. 5th edition requires you to have a load of anti-tank, since everyone is mech'd up. This is why in a lot of lists, people opt for Ravagers over the Razorwing, since it packs an extra Dark Lance, and is 35 points cheaper, leaving the massed anti-infantry fire for Warriors, or simply relying on a strong core of Wyches for dealing with enemy hordes. The codex gives you so many options, and it's a blast thinking of all of the things you can do in it. None of the armies I've been able to think of, no matter how min-maxed they are, seem like they aren't something the Dark Eldar would do.

One of the biggest surprised with the Razorwing is this - Closed top! That's right, it doesn't go down like SUCH a cheap whore to bolter fire. They stay at -2 to the chart, so it can't be wrecked nearly as easily as a normal Raider or Ravager(Though they'll need to shoot the back of it) can. With the addition of Night Shields, you really don't have to worry too much about getting rapid fired by many guns, which lets you worry about getting shot by lascannons more and getting auto-glanced. Flicker fields can only go so far, but for 10pt, they can really save your bacon. I shrugged off 6 penetrating hits with them once, and went on to bugger the hell out of armor since I still had my gunboat alive, instead of blown up 4 times. They're a must-have.

Ofcourse if you don't think four S6 missiles are enough, you can exchange some of them for a Necrotoxin missile, a poisoned 2+ pinning missile, or if you're a true weirdo, you can take the Shatterfield. A really strange S7 AP- missile that re-rolls to wound. Not quite as practical as the Necrotoxin, I think. To be honest though, you can leave them all as the stock Monoscythe and do just fine. It's 5pt for any replacement and you're looking at 20pt for a rack of custom missiles, when you come with four great ones anyway. Its cousin, the Voidraven, can take some truly horrifying missiles though, which I might go into some other time. It's not nearly as good as the Razorwing in my opinion though.

I'm making a 500pt list for the next tournament I'm going to. That's the next one up! If you've started to develop a fledgling interest in 40k, check out Lexicanum, and you can pop in words you don't understand. It's a community maintained 40k wiki, and they really keep it up to snuff. Great place to learn about it.

Warriors.

Can we get some more spikes on this guy?

              Ladies and gentlemen - say hello to the bread and butter of any Dark Eldar force.
                                                                   Warriors!

They broke the mold of 5th edition by being the only troops to exclusively have poisoned shooting attacks. That Greater Daemon of Nurgle? Wounds it on a 4+. They wreck monstrous creatures big time, and are really just the same as Bolters against any other troop. The only downside is that shooting against low toughness models, like Gretchin or normal Eldar, it's the same chance to wound a puny Grot as it is to wound a Carnifex.With a normal bolter you get to lay out low-toughness hordes like Hormagaunts, but with splinter rifles - you have a little more trouble. That's what balances them though, they can assassinate high-toughness models, but they have trouble with big hordes of low toughness models. And they're completely ineffective against vehicles, which limits your tactical options once your Raiders get popped(Oh and they will!).

They can footslog it with two Dark Lances, or get nice and snug in a Raider with a Blaster and Splinter Cannon, and sit back on your table edge and spit hate. The only thing they suck at is assaults, but if you manage to make it to pain token number two, WS4 S4 will start scaring people. Six initiative with Furious Charge ensures they go off before loads of other things, which makes getting hit back a much more lucrative prospect than you'd first think, having a look at your target to assault. Options for plasma grenades, or a Phantasm, you can actually assault with these guys. But, thinking of it as anything else than a desperate measure, and I'll start to wonder what's wrong with you. These guys have some of the best guns in the game.

Coming in at 9 points, they're a solid investment for a core of troops. Their models are superb, and you can really get some interesting poses from the little guys. The sets were made so that you could nab an arm off a Warrior, and put it on a Wych, or Reaver, and have them all be backwards compatible like that. A really smart move, and a great use for whatever little bits you'll have left over after you get done making them. Mostly just a sprue full of spikes after you make 10 of them.

I really love the little dudes, but the 5+ save on them is just plain hurtful - everything outside of lasguns and shootas are going to be stretching your ass open like you've never had it done before. You'll be pulling handfuls of these guys if you get hit by Bolters out in the open! Don't let them out of the protective womb of that Raider, otherwise Bad Things(tm) will start happening, and very quickly at that.

All in all, they compete very well for being picked as a troop. Against Wyches and Wracks, they offer something that neither of the two can dish out - sweet, sweet firepower. 10 in a Raider with a blaster give you a great tank hunting unit, letting you use the 18" range of the blaster for more immediate threats, and allowing you to target a seperate vehicle that might be camping with its 36" range. You won't be getting pain tokens by tank hunting though, so if you lose your Raider, say goodbye to the squad. They won't have any staying power at all.

A lot of people use 9 of them in a Raider with an Archon, to deliver him with a Webway Portal. The Warriors really add nothing to his combat capability, and also it puts your Warriors sometimes wayyy too close to the front lines, since an Archon is most comfortable in the thick of it. I think it makes more sense to stick him in a Venom with a few Incubi, personally. Or take Trueborn with blasters, for a little gank posse to bugger whatever is threatening your Archon.

They're a real multi-purpose unit, but they excel the most at shooting. Set them up in a Raider with Splinter Racks, and go to town.

Wracks.

Beautiful! Just beautiful.

After a good one over on these guys, you can see why they're four toughness. Take a Homonculous, and you'll quickly see that 10pt troops at a minimum size of 3, is min-max heaven. Even if you aren't taking them for cheap troops, their 4 initiative and 4WS - coupled with two attacks base from their two poisoned close combat weapons, make them pretty slick. You might take a look at that 6+ armor save and throw up, but don't worry. These little boys come with a pain token, giving them a 4+ to everything but S8, or AP2 weapons. So unless the enemy wants to bring their anti-tank fire to the little fellas, sit them in cover and enjoy your 4+/4+.

You can make the squad bigger, take a few liquifiers, sure! But mainly you want to nab an Acothyst, and take a Mindphase gauntlet. Throw them into a monstrous creature! Don't worry about wounding it, all you have to do is hit that bad sucker. With four attacks on the charge, at WS4, you'll get two or maybe 3 hits. Then that MC has to take a strength, and a leadership test for each hit. Fails any of those - can't attack! Not to mention, you still get to roll to wound with it, if worse comes to worse. But the rest of your Wracks will pile up so much hate on it, unless it has an amazing save, they'll tackle it, before it even gets the chance to hit back.

These guys make a great accompaniment to your Homonculous with their T4 and FnP, they can suck up some hatred intended for your little menace. They can take a flamestorm cannon and still get a FnP save. Think about it! In a lot of ways, FnP is almost better than a normal armor save, though it rarely goes below 4. The fact that these guys come standard with it is really great, and even in lists without Homonculous', you can join an Archon to them to grab a quick, cheap pain token without any fuss.

Not only do they make good troops - but they can take the usual Venom or Raider to ride into battle with. So you can get an accompanying 12 poisoned shots, or a dark lance to pop vehicles with. Raiders are real nice, but I fancy some dakka venoms too sometimes. The sheer amount of hate you can lay out with it sometimes is staggering. The shock prow, and the torment launchers are incredibly useful too; but I'll get into that on the entry for Raiders later on.

Back to Wracks, they really fill a nice niche in the codex, cheap high toughness troops that fair well in combat. A lovely addition to any force, and their models are coming out soon too! Most likely pewter, but I can deal with it. They're cool little guys. Mainly I think people are gonna use them to camp on objectives - and that's a fine use for them, but I think they'd do well offensively too. Poisoned 4+ can really give people headaches, and with 4 initiative, 5 with your second pain token, some terrible things can begin to happen. If you throw them against models with the same toughness as their strength, you gain a re-roll to wound too! It's the same thing as Hormagaunts with toxin sacs and adrenal glands at that point - something you don't want to run into in a dark alley. AT ALL.