Dark Eldar in 7th

I’d say the absolute worst thing to hit Dark Eldar this edition is that flamers can spray into our Open-Topped vehicles. T3/5+ Kabalites do not fare well against standard Flamers, let alone anything that torrents higher strength ones. So welcome to Dark Eldar in 7^th.

The controversy behind Jink saves is building up to become a battle of RAW vs RAI. As we quoted a few days ago, the rulebook states that only the models with the Jink special rule are impacted by the Snap shot. However, I can definitely see an argument being made to say that RAI it’s stupid. SO it comes down to RAW for tournament, and RAI between your mates. We decided to go with the RAW ruling for our tournaments (for any Aussies that read this). So you can expect a number of Raiders and Venoms to be jinking constantly. Personally, I think Raiders are much better now since Jinking with a Venom will virtually eliminate it’s 12 shots (vs a single Dark Lance). Furthermore, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a mix of Venoms and Raiders now. I’ll be running a mix of them. Wrack Venoms are still great for their points, and Kabalite Raiders can do a huge amount of damage with Splinter Racks. Up to personal preference I guess. 

The big elephant in the room is the Psychic Phase. Dark Eldar are extremely awkward during this part of the turn (alongside every other race without Psykers), meaning we are completely reliant upon Eldar Battle Brothers for psychic defence. Our system of capping the number of dice produced will run the gauntlet at the end of June, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a number of tournaments introduce their own restrictions on the psychic phase. Denying has, arguably, become much more difficult for those armies without Psykers. So if you want to cast Terrify on my Kabalite Squad, I’m going to have a hard time stopping you. Iyanden will  be my choice since I can run 1-5 Spiritseers in a single slot. Plus, Spiritseers can now hop into my Raiders and blast Psychic Shriek from any point on the raider. Torment Launchers (-1 Ld to enemies) are an insanely good upgrade to synergise with Shriekseers. Okay, the range is pretty low, but you never know when that -1 will come in handy. On the same point of upgrades, I’d roll with Grisly Trophies as well. Re-rolling your Ld8 for 5 points is cheaper than upgrading to Ld9 sarge, and your chances of failing are much slimmer in relation to taking snap shot leadership tests. Of course, once the vehicle is dead, you won’t be getting those re-rolls.

Reavers are no long rapid anti-tank (they never really were, but could be hilarious when used right), and can only really be used for forcing pinning and bladevaning. Grav Talons combined with Torment Launchers and Telepathy powers (if your Spiritseers are out of the tank) will mean you can start to pin units regularly. Again, torment launchers will be a much harder negative modifier to gain. Anyway, in Maelstrom of war, these guys rock. Take 3x3 units and just roll around the board Jinking and claiming points. 

One thing I will say is that our vehicles have become harder to destroy. Exploding now being a ‘7’ is a huge improvement for wet cardboard with motors, and again, with Jink being 4+ now, our chances of surviving are much higher. I would always still take a Flickerfield though, as there is still a considerable amount of Ignore cover.

Anyway, that was a huge jumple of thoughts for you to take in. I’ve also got the tournament tomorrow on my mind so excuse the lack of structure!