Why are the 2 formations -not designed for close assault - used as bulk of the core formations? The Coterie is a CC formation, however it is limited to 1. The Flotillas, and the warriors are pretty much designed for either moving around and shooting with mid range weapons, or moving around unloading, and providing a small amount of FF support before reloading onto their transports and getting out of there.
If Dark Eldar are a fast moving close combat army, then their close combat units should make up the core of their force, with the support forces being the shooting formations. Otherwise it does not seem logical. Why hamper what many say are a dedicated assault based list by making the list have to take units that are not specifically designed for close combat?
I would swap the Wyches for the Ravageres, and make the venom and raider transports so you can shoot from, to make the troops more durable in engagements. You get your dedicated assault army, and can then add in the ranged support formations to provide some support. That seems logical.
It is as though you are trying force the dark Eldar player to either min/max on warrior formations to restrict their assault tactics, and further weaken their force by making the assault units support choices rather than core choices (for what you say is a close assault army). The lack of ranged TK (D3), and longer weapon ranges has been done to force the dark Eldar player to design their list around close assault. Enemy Titans can overwhelm a DE list with the few formations that can get TK (1) being very expensive with comparatively shorter ranges than their enemies weapons dedicated anti-War Engine weapons.
I know why you have limited the weapons. They would just become super fast speed daemons that move-shoot-move and shoot from long range, and could take out both Titan legions, Knights and guard artillery armies easily. But why have you stopped them from becoming a close assault army? So many people on this thread have argued that Dark Eldar are a close assault army, but refuse to allow Wyches into the core choices.
If you did this to other army lists restricting them to the bare minimum then - Imperial Guard tank and artillery companies would become support choices with Infantry platoons as their only core choice. Similarly Space Marines should only have Tacticals and Scouts as their core choices with all the other Marine choices being support and any non marines allocated to the 1/3 slot.
Most of the other armies I have seen seem to limit the core to just basic infantry and their transports, Necrons, Tyranids, the current legal Tau, and Squats. The Marines, Imperial Guard and Chaos Marines all seem to have armoured vehicles or even artillery companies as core choices in addition to their non-specialised troops.
Marines are supposed to be flexible, as are the basic black legion chaos marines - to a lesser degree - who strangely do not get their thematic hordes of cultists as core choices. Guard are supposed to have large armies of tanks infantry and artillery only in certain armies such as Baron Siege Masters, and Dedicated Tank Regiments while Dark Eldar are supposed to have super fast formations of wyches, and raider mounted warriors zooming around shooting from their transports, and close assaulting the enemy, with some support against tanks from their Talos and Ravagers support and other support close combat from the Reavers and Hellions. Again it does not make sense to me why the Wyches are relegated to the support forces, and the warriors can not shoot from their open-topped flimsy raiders and venoms.
An alternately and probably a better more thematic change and hopefully one that most will agree is still balanced but still orientated to an assault based army:
Do as stated just before - to keep the warriors as part of the core, then an alternative change to keep it close to what GW have had in every 40K codex made for Dark Eldar move the Wyches to the core as well. Both warriors and Wyches who should be able to shoot from their flimsy fast easily shot down venoms and raiders.
However replace the main weapon of the raider to the weapon it comes with as basic in the codex - the Disruption cannon. Its range would still be 30cm, but it would be AP5+/AT6+ making it more versatile. Raiders and Scourges would be the dedicated non WE anti-vehicle units. The range of the standard Splinter cannon which is range 36" in 40K should be increased from 15cm to 30cm to be more realistic, and promote the use of basic warriors more.
Moving Flotillas to the support choices should make the shooty army idea less likely as currently you are forced to choose between flotillas and warriors. This way you can still have a balanced list designed more for close combat. Warriors would then be used to soften up the enemy, or move in closer to also provide FF support for the Wyches before they attack. Other dedicated support forces designed for assault such as reavers, hellions and Talos would join the assault, and be a common sight. Fearless formations of Wracks Haemonculi and grotesques would be dropped in to hold objectives via slavebringers or through the portable wraithgate.
If these changes were made, I personally would take as many warriors as I would Wyches, and some of the heavier WE like VoP, along with Aircraft and either the Tormentor or Executioner along with slavebringers and Ravagers. In each battle you would see people mixing support forces like Scourges, Perditors, Wracks/Grotesques and Haemonculi, Talos, Barges of Pleasure, and warp beasts trying out different combinations.
I would not mind adding Beast handlers and their varied beasts like warp beasts, and razor wings, however this may be difficult to add in a mix of beasts and still provide a fast strike formation. You might even reword the special rule to state that support formations get the +1 to engage actions to make it less likely that core formations automatically get to engage if they have blast markers.
I agree remove the 6+ save to kalabite warriors, increase the barges of pleasure cost to 125 points, but only if you make the changes I suggested in swapping the Flotillas and the Wyches and increasing kalabite warriors weapons range to 30cm, and allowing raiders and venom the be shooting platforms to provide support and make the troops less vulnerable to being cut to pieces in CC/FF engagements.
Make the list designed so that it becomes a dedicated assault list, not a list where you must take ranged forces. before you can purchase the assault forces.
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