Surprise!

The Dark Eldar army is well known for being both extremely vicious and extremely fragile. While any Dark Eldar army will have those traits, the addition of a webway portal can vastly improve the damage dealt and limit what is received. The ability to have a chunk of your forces appear exactly where you want and fight the battle how you want is a vastly underrated thing. To illustrate this point, let me tell you a story...

When Chaos Mike and I were playing regularly at Ludicrous Games, we had a group of people that played with us. Mostly there was a fairly decent turnout, but now and then we'd end up with just 3 players. Eventually this resulted in us creating the scenario called Carpe Ranam, but that's another story. We decided on a 1000pt game. I was playing Dark Eldar and Chaos Mike was playing um...Chaos! Kyle was playing his Guppy Marines. I was experimenting with an all-portal list, meaning that I started with one model on the board (Haemonculus with webway portal) and everything else was supposed to come in through the portal.

The other two were so freaked out by this possibility that they decided they'd have a truce and only attack me. (Great fluff, Loyal and traitor Marines side by side! :) )

So, though they did their best to wipe out my lone character before he could open the portal, they failed.

In turn three, everything showed up, as it is wont to do in a portal army. Since they weren't attacking each other and had pretty much agreed only to attack me, I split my forces and went after both of them. My Raiders screamed out of the portal and assaulted everything in sight, backed up by Reavers and maybe a Ravager. In that turn and the next, I did about 600pts of damage to Kyle's Marines and about 500pts of damage to Mike's Chaos forces.

By turn 5, there were no longer any Dark Eldar on the board and the two other forces were almost completely gutted. Of the approximately 24 Loyal marines and their Landraider, there were 8 left scattered about. The Chaos forces fared only slightly better, with 14 Chaos Marines (out of 20) and 4 Daemons (unknown number to start, this was a while ago) and there was no sign of the 6 Possessed or the Daemon Prince or the Dreadnaught. Woof!

Even though I had lost every single model, I had succeeded in shredding forces twice my size! This gave me some idea of the power of the webway portal, but I kept trying to go too far with it, by doing things like starting only a single model on the board. I also experimented with giving it to a Scourge Sybarite, who could then deepstrike. It was an interesting idea, but they just couldn't handle the firepower of the entire enemy army thrown at them, particularly when they deviated out of cover. Eventually I gave up on the portal and went on to a more conventional Dark Eldar Air Force.

As time went by, I took notice of other people using the webway portal in more limited ways and having good success with it. I have compiled a number of useful tips about using the portal here, and I also have some suggestions for how to tailor your force around it's use.

The biggest temptation with a webway portal is to put everything in it. It seems like such a good idea. If protecting part of your forces from exposure to the enemy until you strike is a good thing, protecting all of them must be even better! Uh, no. The less you have on the board at the beginning, the easier it is for the enemy to just wipe out your portal-carrier (my Haemonculus, above) which means your army will NEVER show up. Wow, a 5 minute game of 40k, who'd have thunk it? Want to play again? Okay, so you'll put part of your army on the board and part of it in the portal, good. The reason the portal works so well is that you may put units into Reserve, even if the scenario normally wouldn't use Reserves, and if you succeed on a Reserve roll before the portal is opened, you may choose to wait for the portal. That means that about half of your force will be available on turn 2, and 2/3 of the rest will show up on turn 3 when the portal is open! That's a lot of units to just pop up out of nowhere! It effectively gives you the first turn advantage, no matter who actually took the first turn. Remember, however, you must protect your investment (the army inside your portal) with something to keep it from being that 5 minute game!

Now, you need to decide what and how much of your force to put in the portal and what you'll have out. I'd recommend having no more than 60% of your forces in the portal at the most. The units that should be in the portal will be things that benefit from being closer to the enemy (short range shooting, assault) while the units outside the portal should be the ones with range to reach out and touch the enemy and the units that protect the portal.

Outside the Portal The portal carrier itself must be a character of some sort, since the portal is wargear. Some people give these to Sybarites in Raider or Wych squads. Personally, I prefer an Independent character, for reasons I'll explain in a moment. I would recommend placing the carrier with a unit of some kind that can move with it and protect it a bit. An example would be joining a Haemonculus with the Portal to a squad of Grotesques in a Raider. (As a note, I prefer to use the Haemonculus for this, instead of an Archon because I want my Archon to be laying into the enemy as swiftly as possible and it would make the portal even more of a target if you gave it to the most-feared character in your army.) You can move the Raider forward during your turn, then disembark near or behind the Raider. At this point, separate the Haemonculus from the Grotesques. Now, when the enemy shoots at them (and they certainly will!) they will have to kill off all the Grotesques before they get to fire on the Haemonculus. Depending on your placement, they may also be forced to take a Targeting Priority test to shoot past the Raider.

Depending on the size of game you are playing and the amount of risk you are willing to take, this may be all the protection you need for your carrier. If you need more, there are several options to consider. 1) Get 2 or 3 Raiders with nasty things on board, possibly including an Archon or Drachon, and throw them toward the enemy line. This may distract them from the carrier, or cause them to split their fire. Warp Beasts, being as fast as Hormogaunts, are also a good distraction, as are Turbo-Boosting Reavers. Sniper squads (Warrior squads with 2 Dark Lances) are also good candidates for leaving out of the portal. They are not assault units and they already have enough range for just about anything, so they don't need to start closer to the enemy. These are good for popping some enemy vehicles before your portal opens, limiting enemy mobility and firepower options. An option some very successful DE generals use is to have an additional portal carrier. Typically, they will send one up one side of the board, and one up the other. This gives the enemy two targets and gives you the possibility of more options for where to bring in your Reserves.

Inside the Portal In general, this is where you put the units that are best when they are close to the enemy. Wych squads, in or out of Raiders, Incubi, and the Talos are all excellent things to have in the portal either because they need the protection, or because they need to get close to the enemy before they can be effective. Surprisingly, a Ravager might also be a good option for inclusion in the portal. Outside the portal, the AV11 of the Ravager and it's heavy weaponry ensure it a short lifespan. Inside the portal, however, it is protected until it gets to take the first shot, and it will be taking it's shots while most of your army is slamming into the enemy. That distraction should buy it a round or two of survival. Precisely what you include in the portal depends on how you plan to use it.

Slow UnitsThe standard usage of the portal is for slower units. The Talos, Wyches or Warriors on foot. These units will typically take several turns to reach enemy lines and can't necessarily take the firepower they would normally encounter on the way in. In addition, since you are already spending points on transportation for them (the portal and carrier and any protection for the carrier) it can seem a bit wasteful to also buy them a Raider. Squads of Warriors with 2 Blasters and 2 Splinter Cannons and a Sybarite with an Agonizer are pretty effective here, as they have a lot of firepower and can cause damage in assault as well. Similarly, small Wych squads with Blasters and a Succubus with an Agonizer are quite efficient. The Talos also benefits a great deal by starting closer to the enemy. You might even consider placing an Archon and a squad of Incubi on foot inside a short-range portal. The slower the speed of your in-portal army, however, the closer you'll need to place the portal, so you'll need a stronger presence outside the portal to protect the carrier. A variation on this theme only places a small number of units (often just a few Talos models) inside the portal, and runs the rest of the army as a standard army, just using the portal for a little extra punch at close range.

Mixed Units This theme uses some of the slow units in the portal, but also adds some faster ones, such as Warpbeasts or Raider squads of Warriors or Wyches. This allows a deeper penetration of the enemy lines and can make up for poor portal placement, since at least some of your units will make it into contact with the enemy on the turn the portal opens.

Fast Units If you use primarily fast units in your portal, you can reduce the protection for your carrier, since you can place the portal behind scenery and leave your carrier just protected enough to survive the few units that will be able to target you without line of sight or may be able to move to see you. If you look at the placement of my Haemonculus in the pictures above, you can see this is how I did it during that game. (I still should have had a little more protection for him, but that's experience talking.) Raider squads of Wyches and Warriors, Warp Beasts, Reavers, Assaulty Scourge squads, even a lord and Incubi-just so long as they are in a Raider. Hellions may even stand a chance here. The Ravager, with it's long range weaponry, would be a good fit here, but the Talos would not. It's slow advance won't be able to keep up with this army and the likely longer placement of the portal would hamstring it's effectiveness.

So, go forth and get the jump on your enemies. You can use a small force inside the portal, like an ace up your sleeve, or you can place most of your army there and unleash hell when you please. Remember, take only prisoners, leave only corpses!

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