What does he have that allows him to instantly kill anything? Second, if he has a sniping weapon, just have them ambushed, they are no good close in. You could also give the enemy a sniper, that or suppressing fire.

For Dark Eldar, what about Grotesques, or those Mandrakes sneaking behind Imperial lines. Wyches would give them hell too. So many choices to challenge the players with.

In fiction, I don't image that Dark Eldar need a lot of shouted orders, they have been fighting together for so long they can probably function without a lot of direction.

That and the Formation rules allow you to run multiple squads as individual entities.

My own little house rule for damaging formations is a little different. Basically, not every hit automatically kills a member of a formation. Instead, If a hit after armor and toughness does more than twice the targets toughness bonus, he's down. If not but he still take damage after defenses, He's wounded in the same manner as a comrade. 2 wounds and he's down. (Orcs also have a special ability to survive beyond even that! but that's already covered in the RAW)

Lastly, Sniping the leader of a formation is certainly possible but NOT automatic. First, there is an automatic -20 penalty to do that. Secondly, Assuming the Overseer is aware of the sniper (Which if the sniper is with the rest of the squad, He is!), He can still dodge. If this is a Dark eldar his odds of doing so are pretty good!

Sharpshooter and Deadeye Shot are must have talents for any sniper. Goodbye called shot penalty.

My favourite suggestion of those posted is to have Dark Eldar on a Raider platform lay down suppressing fire while another group closes to melee. Can't Called Shot as a half action after all.

Sharpshooter and Deadeye Shot are must have talents for any sniper. Goodbye called shot penalty.

My favourite suggestion of those posted is to have Dark Eldar on a Raider platform lay down suppressing fire while another group closes to melee. Can't Called Shot as a half action after all.

Not sure Sharpshooter/Deadeye Shot would negate the penalty for targeting the formation leader - they're mixed in with their troops, that's why its harder to specifically shoot them, not that they're a smaller target.

Targeting Overseers is a Called Shot action with the associated penalties as far as I know.

I'm at work so someone else will need to make a citation if you don't want to wait for about 8 hours.

I know it is, so what? The sniper has almost all the talents for sniping, he seldom has to roll sth better than 80 to hit and deals around 20 pts of damage

Snipers are brutal if you let them shape the engagement and control the pace of combat.

They are not, however, very good when the engagement comes to them - melee is rarely their strength. Also, Dark Eldar are superdodgy, and so are one of the things snipers despise - RAW, a basic Dodge success wipes out the hit - and snipers only get the one shot.

This all assumes they get the jump on Dark Eldar, seems unlikely, or let him succeed a bit. That's when they start hunting him specifically. Mandrakes, packs, etc. I'm sure the Dark Eldar can field their own assassins, who are much more terrifying than an IG sniper.

I have been using formation rules for my Orks - well when we have huge battles and it has worked out great. Honestly, even when it did nerf some of their offensive capabilities, there were still enough of them to be a huge threat.

When my group encountered 12 Warbikes, I did not use formation rules to emphasize the deadliness of the situation and... sure enough, it was pretty brutal.

Overall, the rules really do exactly what they are meant to: expedite combat and make less book keeping for the GM.