Help want to start a Dark Eldar army

Hello Dark City I am very interested in starting a Dark Eldar army but I am not very sure where to begin. Most of the armies I faces are: Thousand Suns, Tau, Dark Angels, Raven Guard w/ possibility of Blood Angel allies.

I would appreciate some advice on what would be good to purchase and to get a good base of 1250. I am not sure what types of armies Dark Eldar can be since I have never seem them in action. If you comment Thanks!

It really depends on what seems cool to you. If you like coven lists, they work. A cult or kabal list can work too, as do mixes of the above. Several factors come into play here...how much you want to spend, how competitive you want to be, etc. An archon is a good, flexible HQ choice that you can fit into almost any army build. Haemonculi are cheap HQs that give you wracks as a troop choice.

If you're interested in spamming as many vehicles as possible, with a large number of scoring units, a Haemonculus and wracks are good for that. At 1250 points, you could easily field quite a bit of venom spam.

Models Required:
1 Haemonculus
18 Wracks
8 Wyches(bloodbrides)
7 Venoms
3 Ravagers

Unit assignment is 6x3 Wracks, 2x4 Bloodbrides(with aggies). Because wracks are so cheap, and you can buy 3 troops, it clears up a ton of points, allowing you to field a venom for each 3 man wrack unit you have. Same with bloodbrides. They're the least expensive elite choice available, and allow you to purchase more venoms. Then, of course, the obligatory ravagers to take out enemy mech.

This would make a good, competitive army at 1250 points.

Thank you for your response. What would a Kabalites list be like? Is there some type of list that incorporates Reavers, Scourges, Kabalites, Venoms, and of course the Ravagers? Personally I am not a fan of the Wrack models. Thanks again for the response.

For a Kabalite list here's what I run :

An archon running with Incubis
Kabalite warriors in Venoms/Raiders
For a pure Kabalite list, you would run Trueborn with blasters in venoms but I find more efficient to use 5 wyches with haywire grenades in venoms or raiders.
Add some Ravagers for heavy support (I personnaly prefer Talos but they are not the most fluffy choice) and fill the rest of the list with units you like like Scourges, or Reavers.

In my experience scourges ain't worth it due to 3 blaster trueborn with a venom being less amount of points. And you can debate on the build of kabalite warriors. Usually it's 5 warriors w/ blaster in a venom or 10 warriors in a raider w/ splinter racks due to tl and in rapid fire range they can be deadly.

Also with reavers always you gotta choice what you want them to be AT or AI.
I believe the battle force is a get steal if you want to due warriors and wyches(usually haywire) trust I got 100 warriors 80 wyches 5 raiders and 5 venoms.

The biggest problem with DEldar is dedicated transports.
Every squad that can, pretty much must have a transport.

And that gets expensive (£/$) fast

We have two basic types.
DEldar, and Not Deldar.
A Deldar list would need everything in a transport. My 1200pt lists include 5 venoms and Two Ravagers
A Not Deldar List, would need lots of groteques and wracks.
Even using Ogres, Trolls, Vampire Bat Fiends, Tyranid Warriors and Ravenors as substitute grots, its still expensive.

I started with Two Battleforces. This was enough for lots of variety at 600-800pts.
Converted Two Archons and Succubi out of the Wyches, so could take two troops in Raiders, and some jet bikes as support.

I've added a third battleforce, and 5 Venoms, and some Incubi, and a Talos, and a Cronos
My Raiders have magnets to attach lance carrying Kabalites, so I can field Three Ravagers.

I can see a use for 5 or 6 battleforces, so its a decent place to start, but Venoms are WAY better than Raiders.

Thanks everybody, I think I will start with 1-2 DE battleforces and a Venom or 2.

You can probably get to 1250 with that, just about. Have fun