Building a Dark Eldar Army List; Part 1: The Warrior Squad

Hello and welcome to The Dark Eldar Kabal’s exploration into the Dark Eldar codex. This will be the first instalment in a series of articles breaking down every unit in the current army book helping you build a force fit for even the most resilient of victims. Where better to begin, than with the bread and butter of every Kabal, the humble Dark Eldar Warrior.

In the current codex the Dark Eldar have two different troop choices; The Warrior squad and the Raider squad. For the first article let’s take a look at the former.

Consisting of ten to twenty Dark Eldar grunts armed with not much more than a stapler and a wetsuit these guys don’t look like much, but let’s see how we can bulk them out a bit.

The Anti-light Infantry Squad
10-14 Warriors (2x Splinter Cannons, 2 x Shredders)
Cost: 120pts-152pts (Depending on the size of the squad)

This squad is fairly mobile (for a foot slog unit anyway) being able to fire on the move but with a maximum range of 24” it’ll be getting up close and personal and therefore needs to be sitting in cover to improve its chance of survival. Nevertheless at rapid fire range these guys will be pumping out eight str4 ap5 hits, between twelve and twenty str3 ap5 hits and two str6 small blast shots. With BS4 this unit is a decent way to eradicate lightly armoured infantry such as Guardsmen, Ork Boyz, ‘gaunts etc. They need support though or they won’t survive long.

The ‘Sniper’ Squad
10 Warriors (2 x Dark Lances, 2 x Blasters)
Cost: 110pts

This is the cheapest and arguably most effective build. Plant them high up in ruins if possible and use the Dark Lances to take pot shots at vehicles, monstrous creatures, heavy-infantry or whatever else they can see. If they need to be on the move the Blasters will come in very handy.

Reader 'Robin de Tolens' advises keeping the unit cheap by dropping the blasters and spending the points elsewhere. This is a valid argument seeing as they will likely be sitting at the back for most of the game.

The Adaptable Squad
9 Warriors (2 x Splinter Cannons, 2 x Blaster)
Syrabite (Terrorfex)
Cost: 123pts

This unit is a good all round mix of anti-tank and anti-infantry a good unit to send chasing objectives in the later turns of the game. The Terrorfex wielding Syrabite will greatly improve the survivability of the squad and should buy you more time to whittle away at targets with the Splinter Cannons and Blasters.


How many squads should you take?
With 2/3 games being objective based I shouldn’t need to tell you that your warriors are absolutely essential for winning games. I would recommend taking a minimum of 4 troop choices in any games over 1000pts. With warriors on foot it’s a case of balancing squad size and points. I would personally rather take six 10 man squads than four 14-16 man squads but seeing how vulnerable a T3 5+ save model is, I could see a case for the latter. I wouldn’t bother taking the squad size beyond the 16 man mark though as the points could be better spent elsewhere.

Which of the squad options is best?
The ‘Sniper’ Squad is the most commonly employed. For a measly 660 points you could have 60 bodies with a whopping twenty-four str8 ap2 Lance weapons (twelve with 36” range). The others are not without their merit though, it all depends on how you want to run your list.

How can you help keep them safe?
‘Sniper’ squads should be deployed in cover at the back of the board. More than likely they will be left alone long enough to get a good few rounds of shooting in. A good tactic for Splinter Cannon squads is to use them in synergy with Wyches. The squad can get close enough to unleash its full firepower if the Wyches are assaulting the enemy in the same turn. Try to stay in cover at all times though unless it’s for a last minute dash to an objective.

'But you haven't mentioned...'
Have I missed something? Post below how you run your Warrior Squads. If it's good I'll edit it into the article and credit you for it.


Happy raiding!