Looking to help a friend

[scottyde]

Myself as well.

My friends birthday is coming up and he is looking to start a DE army, what can I get him as a present that will be used almost universally in any type of list?

Also, what types of lists are DE capable of feilding and how do they work?

Examples, I play ork and tau so I will show you what I explained to my friend when he asked about what styles of armies I had available.

Ork
- Green tide: Overwhelm the opponent with numbers, a foot slogging army.
- Kan Wall : A variation of the green tide but with protection from a wall of walkers and often the addition of a kustom force feild. Still foot slogging.
- Mech Orks : Objective is to get into combat as fast as you can, pile boys into as many trucks and battle wagons as you can afford, usually assisted with kustom force feild
- Shooty: An unusual variation of orks, it is reliant on volume of shots rather than accuracy and can be made in 2 variations green tide type and mech type.
-Biker list: Usually focused on a very hard to kill unit of Nob bikers, it is an elite deathstar list with a high risk high reward style of play. Very fast and can be deadly.
-Speed freaks: A mix of mech/bike lists with nothing foot slogging and relies on getting into combat fast. Has trucks/buggies/bikes composing most of the force.

Tau
-The one list: Maximized heavy support, you can choose between 2 hammer heads and 1 broad side unit or 2 broadside units and 1 hammer head. Minimum 1 Firewarrior squad with a devilfish of their own or borrowed from a pathfinder. Kroot wall, 1-2 units of sacrificial kroot. As many suits as you can fit for the rest of your points.


Something to this effect would be awesome!

[Necrontyr]

Well, a similar list can naturally be made for DE as well. I'm not all that experienced or knowledgeable about them quite yet. But this is what my list would look like:

Warrior Kabal: Lots of warriors, raiders, ravagers, archon and Incubi, a lot of mobile shooting from raiders and its crew and some very heavy hitters in CC with incubi and the archon.
Haemonculus Coven: A larger focus on haemonculus and their pets. Grotesques, wracks as troop, scourges, talos etc. A bit more sturdy than the kabal list and with more of a CC punch and survivability. Urien is nice in a list like this. generally not as mobile or shooty as the kabal list.
Wych Cult: The wych cult features loads of wyches and their likes. reavers, hellions, beastmasters, succubus etc. This is very much of an alpha strike army, most of their units are amazingly fast, and with most or everything in raiders heading for CC. The wych cult generally has lots and lots of nasty CC units, but may be a bit lacking in the AT department.

Now, those are the main fluff themes. A mix of them is probably the most efficient, if that's what he's looking for. But going for a cool fluff army could be more interesting for a lot of players. There's also the WWP lists, they can be combined with any of the above themes, but probably work best with the cult and coven lists. If you friend wants to go for a WWP list, he won't be needing as many raiders, though I would still probably recommend a minimum of 2 raiders to keep the WWP carriers in, but that's up to everyone's preference. Whichever list I played though, I would likely always get a couple of ravagers for that amazing AT ability. It's very much needed in all our lists.

If I would recommend you to get him something for his birthday, it would be wyches or warriors. they will be very usable in almost any kind of list. Especially warriors.

I hope that helps!

[GodsWitness]

I play a Hybrid list of sorts. It's a mix of Kabalite and a Wyche cult. It has warriors and Trueborn in raiders with an Archon and he drops my WWP for my Wyches and Incubi to run out of.

I've heard the Hybrid list is the most competetive but having fun is the most important thing, So pick the one you think would be the most fun for your buddy, good luck.

[jboweruk]

Mine's a small army but has 1 squad of Kabalites and 2 Wyches for troops, elites are 9 of each Trueborn and Bloodbrides and HQ is either 2 Archons or 1 Archon and Lelith Hesperax. For transport 2 Raiders and Heavy supplied by a single Ravager, with a dis cannon and 2 Dark lances. It's not a competitive army especially having lost 2/3 battles, but it's fun to play as it's all female so very themed.

[Attemptedm]

If you're looking to get him something, almost every DE list has 2 or more raiders and at least 1 ravager. Also warriors are nice because he can assemble them as standard warriors or as trueborn, but as mentioned some themed lists will use only one type of troops choice warriors, wyches, or wracks)

[scottyde]

Thanks everyone. This has been really helpful.+rep to all.

[mrvegas]

Here is a good thread that talks alot about the various units in general.

After looking at each of the slots here's the general thoughts on what seems to be the most competitive in each slot without going to much in each category:

HQ: Go with Archon and/or Haemonculus
Elite: Incubi & Trueborn (No models) are clear winners with Grotesques being close avoid everything else
Troops: Warriors, Wyches, and Wracks (No models yet)
Fast: Reaver Jebikes Squads of 6
Heavy: Ravagers with DLs

Remember you probably want quite a few raiders (ie 5+) as transport. Also don't forget you can build a webway portal list.

[Redant]

There is some good basic advice in this thread. However, your original question was a bit vague to give any real sound purchase choices. First off, what level 40k player is your friend? If your friend is new to the game, then DE may not be a good choice for him. Its a very unforgiving army. I've seen people new to the hobby try and take advanced armies only to get completely beaten and eventually drift away out of frustration.

When my sons started to play, I had them all start out with 3+ armies. One started Ultra marines, another Chaos and a third the new blood angels. These armies tend to be a lot more forgiving. DE can be devastating but they can be easily broken as a typical glass hammer army.

If he/she is an experienced 40k player, have you played any proxy lists with them? Best advice I can ever give is to try before you buy. Nothing worse than to plop a lot of money down on units that look cool but don't fit in well with your list.

But as a general idea, I would first get them the codex if they don't have it yet. Followed by a box of wyches or warriors or either a raider or a ravager kit. Lots of basic troop types are generally is what wins games in the objective heavy 5th edition.

Take it for what its worth and as always, YMMV

[scottyde]

Well, he has played my orks, my tau (I would argue just as unforgiving), my friends necrons, and while only having played 4 games, he's watched 5 or 6. Another of our friends has a dark eldar army, and lent him the codex which he was excitedly reading through.

I explained to him the nature of the DE saying that they are competetive, but hard to play. He asked "harder than necrons?" to which I had to honestly say no as making necrons work is harder than making DE work. My friend who owns the DE army is willing to help him with tactics and list building, but is writing finals at the moment so I couldn't be like, "TAKE TIME FROM YOUR FINALS TO HELP ROSS CHOOSE AN ARMY TYPE!!!!"

If my friend who owns the DE army comes over again soon I'll ask him to bring his army so I can proxy a game with Ross and show him what's what.

Lastly there are a few of us pitching in to get him stuff, for his b-day he will be getting: Codex, raider, kabalite warriors x2, archon, ravager.

[Kabbala]

Basically, the items you mentioned pooling together to purchase for you friend is a good start. In future games he can always borrow some models of yours and proxy them to try out different things. Like any army, it's about him finding the army composition that best suits his play style.