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Under my Thumb Please note that these are not my Dark Eldar. I saw them at an RTT that was held at Discordia last year.
The reason this combination is so effective is that the pinning test is rolled against Leadership, and the Leadership is penalized as well. In addition, there's a decent chance to get an extra penalty to their leadership if they aren't widely spaced. (It's even worse if they are tightly packed in, like a unit that just Deep Struck or disembarked from a vehicle. Or a unit that is preparing to charge or be charged.) If the enemy spreads out to increase their resistance to your terrorfexes, they are making it easier for you to assault only part of a unit and thus increase your chances of doing damage while reducing the chances that they'll do damage back to you. What does pinning a unit get you? Well, one thing that it gets you is it keeps an enemy unit from responding to your army. With Dark Eldar, having one unit less to shoot at you or to support another unit in assault against you is a huge deal, due to the fragility of the army as a whole. Having the potential to do that to multiple units can cripple an enemy army very quickly. My original list was something along these lines... While I was creating my standard Webway Portal list, I started thinking about their experiments and realized that it would fit well with my current armylist. All it requires are some Sybarites with Terrorfexes (I already had a number of Sybarites in the list, it just makes them cost a little bit more) and a number of Raiders with Horrorfexes and Trohpy Racks. Again, I already had the Raiders, I just had to give them a little more kit. A few tweaks to the army list, and I was able to add it in.
The modified version of the list looks like this... Here's the cost of including the pinning effects in my army: The Reaver Jetbike for the Dracon, the Hellion Skyboard for the second Haemonculus and 13 Dark Eldar Warriors. The two pieces of wargear offer great mobility, and the Warriors add resilience in combat. On the other hand, the pinning effects should make both the extra mobility and the added resilience in close combat unnecessary. I didn't include the pinning equipment on the lead squads (the two Raider squads that start out on the board) because those squads are there to make sure that a portal opens, and I don't expect them to be useful beyond that point in the game.
Here's how the army works: The Webway Portal army starts out as usual. The difference is once the units start coming out of the Webway Portal. Units will start by having the Raider Horrorfex fire at a unit _next to_ the unit they plan on charging. (This will give you a little less firepower, but it should be more than made up for by the effect of the pinning. Between pinned units and ones hit by combat squads, most of the enemy army should be effectively paralyzed, which will vastly limit their options for damaging your units or hindering your plans. Next turn, as more units come out, you have the option of shooting/assaulting the pinned units or simply re-pinning them and reinforcing your units that are already in assault. The terrorfexes on the Sybarites are there to help ensure that a unit is pinned, but use the Raider Horrorfexes first to keep your options open for what the squad can shoot or assault. Note that Fearless troops and vehicles cannot be pinned. Against these, the army has a slight disadvantage, but it still has Dark Lances and Blasters and combat squads and Talos' and is still a Webway Portal army. Few armies are entirely Fearless (or entirely vehicles) so I would have to concentrate the pinning effects on the rest of the army and hit the Fearless parts first. Against entire armies of Fearless Troops or vehicles, I would have to rely on their relative lack of numbers (both are expensive) and the damage that Dark Lances and Agonizers can do to them. If you enjoyed this, email me and let me know |
