Dark Eldar Relevancy

Very often when I see Dark Eldar lists there is one re-occurring theme, the troop choices are irrelevant. What I am getting down to is that the small MSU troop units are cut down to the point where they are completely inefficient on the table top. I have played most of my games with these styles of units, bare bones, minimized, with a single blaster carried by a Raider.


These are the most common units I am seeing sitting down on the troop units when seeing dark eldar. All three of these choices clock in right around 120pts each.

Warrior MSU
5 warriors with a Blaster riding on a Raider/Venom
Wrack MSU
 3-5 Wracks possibly with a liquifier or hexrilfe riding on a Raider/Venom
Wych MSU
5 Wyches with once special assault weapon of choice on a Raider/Venom

This is the problem I have been running into for quite some time. The rest of my army functions well, while the troop units are simply there to overwhelm opponents with targets, but manage very little to nothing during the game. Now I believe that if you really are going this route, that the venom is the better of the two transports, but you had best be carrying lances or something elsewhere to deal with armour.

What you run into with a list that does this, is that your opponent simply is able to take down the raiders as first priority, since the troops are not able to effectively do much. Then the opponent simply guns down grounded warriors. Raiders go down extremly quick and easy when compared to other mech style MSU lists.

Now I know that by playing well, you can win with these lists ( I generally do). Flood your opponent with waves of sleek Raiders and units, disabling where necessary, and moving around him with such speed that they cannot cope. 12 raiders/Ravagers with the appropriate forces is a fun list to play.

I am just getting to the point where it is not the most effective or efficient use for our Dark Eldar. In lists like these, I have had entire games where I won, but did not generate a single pain token. (broke a ton of vehicles, made some run, but never wiped a unit to a man with infantry units).

Now part of this issue I have been facing is becuase I generally play larger point games. 2500pts most of the time with some that dip down to 2000pts. At this level, the opponent is carrying enough units with decent range to do some serious damage. I believe that Dark Elar MSU lists work best at smaller point levels.

I am not going to answer this issue, becuase there are many ways to do so, and I am interested in hearing what others have to say. Later today I will post my list for tonights game.