Some of you may be saying “no joke” but I want to talk about why they won’t do it versus why you could see a repeat at Wargames Con again this year. I don’t mean this by me, but from all Dark Eldar players.
First, if you have time, go take a look at the Wargames Con missions. They are battle point scored and also have only two mission that involve kill points as primary. There are several capture and control missions, and in general they are book standard with a few modifications, which I like. In my mind, the developers have designed the game to be played to the book missions, and everything else is just bonus.
Now, take a look at the Adepticon missions. They are much closer to nova, with the requirement that you basically get 2/3 objectives each time, or at least, more then your opponent. If you fail to do this, even once, you are probably out of the running for the second day. In addition, 3 of their missions had annihilation as one of those three missions, and the last had a modified version where you had to kill 1/2 of the enemies kill points. I’ve been playing my dark eldar with these missions, and have been getting destroyed, primarily, because the missions themselves do not play to my strengths.
Dark Eldar are a poor army at kill points, but that is generally mitigated because they are good at capture and control actually. You are able to minimize the impact of kill point missions, and take advantage of objectives. If you are out on the kill points, then that means you have to win the other two objectives pretty much every single time if you want to win, and if you don’t do it, you don’t advance to day two. Dark Eldar are a great army, and win games, but they need the ability to try and mitigate their losses, and hope for a better match up next game, and I don’t think that the one used by Adepticon last year does that. You will notice that last year there were no dark eldar in the top 16 at Adepticon, but at Wargames con there were several up there. I can think of three off top of my head. Every dark eldar list generally is ruinng 16+ kill points. It’s hard not to make an army like that, whereas other armies are having 10-11.
I’m not making any of these statement with any type of value judgment. One of the things that I do when I start getting ready for tournaments, is just use their missions as my missions. Most of winning any game is playing to the mission, and if your army has been built with those missions in mind, it certainly helps.
I find that I feel the same way about missions as I do about comp scores. If you tell me what the comp system is, people will find a way to game it, and missions are the same way. If you have a system, people will learn to work that system. By having annihilation be as much as the others in every mission, and have a “win or go home” style tournament, it means that you have to make lists that can survive in that environment.
I don’t think DE are built to win any ‘no-comp, Nova-styled’ event.
Period.
Make the top 10?
Maybe.
But win it all?
Not happening with paper airplanes and the minimal LOS blocking terrain seen on most Tournament Tables.
I’ve been saying this since the DE arrived, and despite the protests I’ve heard, no one has proved me wrong.
I love Xenos of all kinds, but they really have gotten put in the corner by GW.
‘Crons ain’t doing it either, I think.
Sad days for the Xenos.
Lately I’ve been feeling like playing marines (grey knights really) is like playing 40K with training wheels. The amount of things in that codex that are broken is just ubsurd. I’m actually thinking of making a t-shirt that a baby riding a tricycle with a grey knight helmet and a force weapon that expresses my thoughts more visually… and wearing it to adepticon.
Now, I think DE can still win a battle points tournament, but it’s not easy… but a win/loss/draw? No way, the missions are making it impossible, as the missions support the armies that are already at the top.
I agree sad day.
I’ve played against the new Necrons. They’ve got what it takes to win.
Me too, and I tend to agree. I definitely think they have what it takes to fight wolves/knights/guard… and that’s what you need to win.
I agree with your prediction. Dark eldar won WGC and coincided close to the release of the new GK codex – so at that point in time GK armies were not optimized. Now people know to take at least two psyflemen and lots of armies have three or more. Dark eldar don’t really have an answer to psyflemen – you shoot the heck out them then the pass their Fortitude check and destroy another skimmer. Only if Necrons can significantly shift the current meta could dark eldar have a chance.
I think that’s a hard match up for them, but I can beat normal grey knights (not purifyer spam) ok, but it’s the missions that are really killing me. Those dreadnoughts should have been much more expensive in that list. I sometimes wonder if they playtest everything or just copy and paste stuff over.
5 pts for fortitute is stupid, it’s FAR more powerful then that
5 pts for the psybolt ammo is also stupid. If they didn’t have those two things… how powerful would that army be… really?
I also think your analysis is correct.
Will you still be playing your Dark Eldars?
Don’t think I will be. I’m playing with a few builds, but I’m finding that combined with playing against grey knights, and compounded by the missions at adepticon, it’s like driving 180 miles an hour at a brick wall.
Now saying that, I won’t be taking marines… I’m just not sure what I will be taking. I’m helping my friend playtest necrons right now, but I’m actually playing with a few ideas. I’ll probably get far more serious about it after the new year.
I really thought that I could make the DE work against the grey knights, but the problem is the stupid dreadnoughts. That army was designed to be a short range army, then they put that dreadnought in with 3+ invulnerable, and I have no choice but to close, and GK’s with their psyco’broke’ grenades and Death Cults (15ts… really?!) and Quicksilver just are ridiculous in HTH.
I need to be able to win either in HTH or in Shooting (I always win in movement) with my dark eldar. Against that army, I can’t win in either. They outshoot me, and once I get there, they outfight me. I can’t sit at range as they also out range me.
Agreed.
Against Librarian+Dreads+deathcults there isn’t much you can do…
I have to agree. It almost makes you wish for the old GW comp system of having to take a choice from EVERY category on the force org chart. Not that Grey Knights have any bad choices, it would just make them take a fast attack and in a Purifier-spam list, some other elite choice (which will probably be an assassin)…so I don’t know if even that will work.
Or we could just put some terrain back on the tables…seems good to me.
Yea, one problem with the tournament scene is that you always start to see the same stuff over and over again. I’m a little concerned that the nova style compounds the entire thing.
The Comp systems itself can also be gamed, which is a little unfortunate. The root problem actually begins and ends with games workshop. They are the ones that are writing the codex and put things in that the community just groans about.
Look at the Necrons… a balanced book that people seem to not like because it isn’t a point and click book. I really like it, except for problems that I have with a lot of the elite choices (I’m hoping these will get fixed in 6th edition). The grey knights and space wolf codex’s however just have these OP units (GK’s more then wolves) that are so good, so powerful that for their point cost, it’s hard to imagine not taking them.
Perhaps 6th edition will put a new shift on things. I know I’m really tired of the last four years of marine hammer that we have had.
Agreed, really looking forward to some xenos love.
oh, also…
then = time
Than = comparison