Through The Looking Glass: Webway Portal Experiment And Tactics

The webway list seems to be an elusive animal for Dark Eldar players. In fact finding a good tournament list has been proving difficult. I think this has to do with the way people are playing and the lists that are being used. To a lesser extent the “traditional” Dark Eldar list is geared towards killing mech lists. Infantry heavy lists seem to be making a comeback. Foot lists are the backlash against the Mech game meta that has dominated 5^th edition.

That said I have been concentrating on being able to fight mech, but at the same time being able to deal with green tides and guard foot lists. Maybe its just my local meta kicking in, but after what I saw at Adepticon this should be the direction list development should go. With the exception of Forgeworld I have put the Craftworlders on the back burner so I can concentrate on the Dark Eldar and a tournament list to beat all comers.

So back to my initial statement. The Webway list. This is one of the best deployment options for a mostly all foot list. Dark Eldar have good deployment options for 3 dimensional board control. You have lots if deep strike and normal deployment options. You can also outflank with one unit , mandrakes. The webway portal adds that 4^th dimension. It also allows you to deploy just about everything in the army list with the exception of vehicles. You can deploy it in your opponents deployment zone as a deployment option. Granted once placed you can't move it so you have to be careful where you place it.

I don't want to post the list I have, as I normally don't, but I will say the key is having 2 webway portals in the lost. This redundancy helps with getting optimal deployment position and makes sure at least one of them is going to make it on the table. The real trick is getting good position on the first turn so the portal is available for reserve rolls starting in turn 2.

You can get pretty deep on the table with a squad once it arrives on turn two. Assuming a pitched deployment. You are 12 inches in. Turn one you move the unit equipped with the portal on a raider, it should already be embarked, 12 inches. This puts you 24 inches in. You then disembark form the transport going 2 inches from the hull of the raider. So we are up to 26 inches in on the table. Once you deploy the webway portal it should give you another 3 inches forward. So we are up to 29 inches. When a squad comes in they can move 6 inches coming out of the portal. This brings us to 35 inches. Assuming a 3 inch run we get up to 38. Add in the 6 inch assault and we are up to 44 inches. SO basically placed correctly you can assault just about anything on the table that is not 4 inches from the board edge. Not to shabby. This pretty much guarantees and assault on a tank line with haywire grenades, as long as you are deployed and move properly. This also means your wych squads and anything else will be engaged with any heavy weapon squads and shooty units in the back. The only real hitch is getting past any screening units.

An intelligent player will usually have his heavy weapon teams and valuable rear guard units screened by expendable troops. You have to make an attempt to get these units out of the way. The unit deploying the webway portal must attempt to draw screening units away. Shooting or better yet assaulting them so they are stuck gets them out of the way so your shock troops and wyches can hit the harder targets.

I will be testing the Web Way list on Wednesday so look for the report on how it did Thursday. Also I will be continuing the Foundations of Vengeance. We will see if the Third Foundation of Vengeance is applicable to this battle.

Until then....................

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!