Making Dark Eldar Work in 6th Edition

      My first army was Dark Eldar, in 5th Edition using their 2nd Edition Book. I have start playing some other armies since, but I still have a soft spot for the things that live in the night. Unfortunately 6th edition severely hurt Dark Eldar, no psykers, paper thin, expensive transports, Overwatch, and of course the prevalence of medium-high strength weapons, and of course GW's desire to pass out cover saves like booze at a frat party and the pass out cover ignoring weapons like cops passing out underage drinking tickets at said frat party.



       Now where does that leave us? Well many other sites are touting 6th as the MCedition, I don't disagree as I haven't seen a Tau, Eldar, or Chaos list without one. Naturally our poison helps here of course, especially because most Monsterous Creatures have a 3+ save at best. With Tau and Eldar becoming the most commonly seen armies at tournament these days, many Space Marine players are now dusting off those nice shiny Land Raiders, while AV14 may protect the against Broadsides, and Wave Serpents, it won't do squat against our Dark Light. The final benefit for us Dark Eldar is allies, while we don't have a huge pool to draw from our Craftworld kin are among the strongest in the game and easy to fit into a list. What do the Craftworlders have that could be of use to us? Psykers, Lots of Strength 6-7 shots and durable transports, as well as a MC that has more than 3 wounds and decent shooting capability. The flyer is sort of hit or miss, it has more shots than ours and is better anti-air, but it is more fragile than the Void Raven and uses weaker lances, for approximately the same cost.

    The most obvious way we benefit from Eldar psykers is their control of Divination arguable the best psychic school in the game. Prescience, combined with guide from a Farseer(both are Primaris Powers and so are reliably obtained) this means that a DE player's favorite heavy support choice since well ever(the Ravager) now is twin-linked, and with 2 powers that do it it means you can twin-link 2 Ravagers a turn. A farseer on foot though can't keep up with Ravager or Mounted Kabalite Warriors/Trueborn, so a Jetbike is no doubt practically mandatory. Leaving a critical support piece alone is a very dangerous thing to do so the choice is eithe an escort of Reavers, Guardian Jetbikes, or Shining Spears. Of these Guardian Jetbikes would be Ideal as they would fulfill the mandatory allied troop choice, however they do not bring a whole lot besides scoring meat shields.

       So, if if the ideal escort won't work how does the Farseer survive being the target of every Strength 8+ weapon? Mantle of the Laughing God, I know I for damn sure am not the first to suggest this for a Farseer, but it really is the most effective way to protect him, especially in a DE army. Since we still need the mandatory troop for bringing the Farseer, Dire Avengers are my favorite choice, cheaper than guardians due to unit size, longer ranged weapons, and they have a 4+ save, since AP5 is the gold standard in this game for basic shooting weapons a 4+ instead of a 5+ usually means getting a save at all versus no save. Throw a unit of these boys in a "typical" Wave Serpent(Scatterlaser, Shuriken Cannon, Holofields and , bam, a Durable Gunboat, that has a scoring unit and a very respectable amount of antitransport shooting, that means the Ravagers can do better shooting at other targets. If one is good two is better right? and you are allowed up to two troop units in an allied detachement.

 An 1850 list I am very anxious to try out is
Archon-Huskblade, SoulTrap, Shadow Field, COmbat Drugs,Phantasm Grenade Launcher
5 Incubi-Klaivex
     Raider-Flickerfield, Aethersails
3X 10 Kabalite Warriors
    Raider-Splinter Racks, Flickerfield
2X Ravager-Flickerfield Void Raven-Flickerfield, Night Shields
 Allied Eldar
 Farseer-Jetbike, Mantle of the Laughing God(prescience, guide, and 3rd power up to the dice Gods)
2X 5 Dire Avengers
 Wave Serpent-Twinlinked Scatterlaser, Shuriken Cannon, Holofields

 Lots of Twinlinked Firepower, a decent counter-assault unit anything that can be shot will be shot, and probably wounded. Something feels kinky about depending so much on Craftworld Eldar for a Dark Eldar list, but would anyone play Dark Eldar if they didn't enjoy some kinks?