| A 1250 point RTT army
- Concept to reality |
Return
to RTT Overview |
For the past few weeks I have been thinking about an army list for a 1250 point Rogue Trader Tournament that will take place on May 17. Originally, I had planned on an all-raider army that consisted of 5 raider squads, HQ raider with Dracon/incubi, and a Wyche raider. As I considered my army list it occurred to me that any other DE players that showed up at the tournament would be fielding a similar army. After all, most successful Dark Eldar armies are built around their strengths of mobility and firepower, which usually means lots of skimmers.
I decided to deviate from the Dark Eldar norm for this tournament and take an army that was ground-based with few, if any skimmers. As a starting point I considered what models I wanted to showcase, since I have been in the process of revising my army's paint scheme for the past few months. Other models, like my Wyches, have never been seen in tournaments, as I tend to use mandrakes and/or grotesques as my Elite unit choices.
The models that immediately came to mind for the tournament were Wyches, Incubi, Warriors, and jetbikes. I also considered adding in my "long" raider, which I call the Despoiler. This transport can actually hold 10 models and it features some neat trophy racks and weaponry.
Any successful Dark Eldar army is built around lots of troops, which are versatile and inexpensive. I decided to use two large warrior squads to form the core of my army. Each squad would take full weapon upgrades and feature a sybarite leader with agonizer and pistol. These large squads would be able to unleash a considerable amount of firepower and still be a decent Hand To Hand unit if needed. The large size of the squads (16-18 models) makes them more durable as they can take more casualties before requiring a leadership check.
I also added a smaller warrior squad with 2 dark lances as an anti-tank sniper squad. Their role would be to deal with enemy tanks or monstrous creatures.
The total points costs for the squads including upgrades is 514 points or a little over 41% of my army total
For a Headquarters I chose a Dracon so that I could take an Incubi retinue. I also considered adding some warriors with splinter cannons to the retinue so that the unit would have some firepower. My initial inclination was to make this a ground unit, and the splinter cannons would allow it to shoot at enemy units while slowly advancing for HTH.
I posted this idea on the Commorragh discussion group and it was noted that Incubi are too slow in a ground-based army since they cannot fleet-of-foot. The HQ will get killed by enemy shooting long before they can march across the battlefield at 6" per turn to engage the enemy. Incubi definitely need to be in a transport if they are to rapidly engage enemy units in HTH combat to be effective. Consequently, I added gave the Dracon/Incubi a raider transport.
As for weaponry and upgrades, I opted to give the Dracon the classic Agonizer/splinter pistol combination as well as plasma grenades. The Incubi retinue was also given plasma grenades to deal with enemy units in cover.
Total cost for the HQ is over 250 points! This is considerably more than I like to allocate to a HQ, especially for small battles. Unfortunately, if I want to include my newly painted Incubi AND have them be effective, then I need to go with a more expensive HQ option. On a positive note, Incubi are deadly against space marines, which form the bulk of most tournament armies.
I decided to take a squad of Wyches as my lone elites choice. Initially, I planned to take a small foot squad with Succubus as well as a pack of warp beasts. After some consideration, I concluded that Wyches on foot would have the same problems as Incubi with being shot to death before they could engage enemy units in HTH. For this reason, I decided to drop the warp beast pack and put the Wyches in a raider instead. I opted for a full squad of ten with plasma grenades, and wyche weapon as well as a Succubus with Agonizer and pistol. This squad would get to ride in my "long" raider/Despoiler that could hold all ten models.
The cost for this unit including transport was 238 points. Once again, this is more than I wanted to spend for a squad of HTH specialists, but it is a compromise of sorts to field an effective Wyche unit.
I decided to include a squad of jetbikes in my army so that I could showcase their new paint schemes. The tough decision here was on the size of the squad and its upgrades. Originally I considered using 6 models including a Reaver Succubus. Unfortunately, the points cost was too high, so I instead opted for a squad of 5 that was geared more for a tank hunting role. Two of the jetbikes were upgraded to blasters.
Total cost for the unit was 145 points
Initially, I considered using a squad of scourges with splinter cannons as my Heavy Suppprt choice. Unfortunately, because of the added cost of transports for my HQ and Wyches, I did not have enough points for a full scourge squad. Since the bulk of the army was ground-based, I decide to use a Talos as my heavy support choice. While not having nearly the firepower of the scourges, the Talos is still tough, durable, and draws considerable enemy fire. It seemed like the ideal choice to support my large warrior squads as they advanced toward the enemy lines. If the squads are assaulted, the Talos is excellent for counter-assault.
My 1250 point RTT army
