Dark Eldar 500 point army

in this edition the norm seems to be 1750+ point armies which is perfectly fine, however me and my firends have decided to plwy sqller gqmes just to enjoy the little things in life. IMO, it has enough anti infantry, antitank and mc awesomeness. Heres the list.

Hq Archon with shadowfield and cenom blade in a raider with darklance to put the pressure on my opponent
Troops 5 kabalite warriors in venoms for anti infantry and to claim objectives possibly line breaker
Heavy support talos pain engine with twin linked heat lance and chainflails for middle to late game support

What do yiu think? I am playing against spacemarines, tyranids, imperial gaurd, tau asbd eldar? :-)

I have a feeling you're fairly new tot he game, and to this army.

First off, there's no norm, never has been, all edition always have several different types of pts battles, you have 500 pts battles in all editions, like you also have 1750+, however the bigger types are more enjoyable.
If you were a veteran you would see that playing 500 pts battles gets boring fast, because you have very limited resources. Most players have big enough armies, they're willing to use, If you can barely manage to have 500 pts, you're probably new.

A 500 pts list , the best Dark Eldar one looks like this :

2-3 Ravagers, no upgrades Talos are acceptable at this point, no upgrades or very few.

2 troops + heamonculus (warriors or maybe wracks are the best troop choices, don't got for wyches in 500 pts)

Anything else is bound to fail, but even this list has potential for failure, but it still is the best. Dark Eldar are not forgiving, neither are they easy to play.

To win against anyone you need a good list, no offense, but yours isn't.

Where does this list come from?
Simple, read the codex, if you're smart, you'll see the particular units have a cost, you'll notice, some units look like another, except only more expensive and less good. I'll give you a good bunch of examples:
-The ravager, vehicle, 3 Dark Lances, cheap
-A troop choice, 10 warriors, 1 blaster, 1 dark lance, raider. 3 dark matter shots, also vehicles, some infranry, less mobility than raider, 1 dakr matter shot has less range, but this unit has some anti infantry potential. More importantly, it's more expensive than the cheap ravager.
-same principle, raider, some trueborn, 2 dark lances. Same range, less mobility, but very closely ressembles to a ravager, but again more expensive and unlike troops, can't take objectives.

These 2 units work as anti tank, first you take the cheapest ones, wouldn't you agree? Why go for the more expensive ones, that are less good anyway.
First you go for the ravager, troops are obligatory, you take them to, but they still cheaper than the trueborn, trueborn are taken last, in case you have the ravagers and the troops.

Why take an expensive unit, when you have a cheaper better version? BTW the trueborn and the troop choice desbribed cost nearly double the amount of the ravager.
______________________________________________________________________________________

So, archon + shadowfield + venom blade, first off, this is never recommended, nor used, unless you ignore forum and just started playing 40k. An archon should only have either an aogniser or a huskblade, some have, very few actually got for jinn blade or a power blade, but it's not as good at the first 2 choices.
Next upgrades are shadowfield for certain, combat drugs, soulcage if a huskblade is taken. Optional are grenades and extra armor in case the shadow field fails.
An archon is expensive, but he has excellent stats, with correct wargear, and a good escort, he's to be feared.
Shadowfield + poison blade, to put it shortly, these options suck, he'll do very bad.

5 kabalites in a venom for objectives? There is a reason why you have obligatory Force Organisation Charts:
2 troops + 1 HQ. With one troop,s they get focussed, boum you lose any chance of taking an objective and any chance of winning, once this happens, only chance to win, is to destroy your enemy completely off the table. 2 troops minimum, frankly the raiders are always the better choice, Dark Lances are awesome+ the different in points is minor between the raider and venom.
Warrios should always have a special weapon, as many as they can take. 5 warruiors should always have a blaster, always.

The talos is nothing majorly wrong, except that they work better in pairs and this low pts, I would take 0 upgrades.

BTW ignoring the illegal raider, this list is roughly a little above 300 pts.

Khain mor makes some good points, but I'd like to express a few opinions:

First, there is no "best" list. Ever. Anywhere. There just isn't.
Second, there are no hard and fast rules to list building. I've personally had a lot of success with a venom blade archon. Saying that no one uses them is incorrect. Further, there is nothing wrong with ignoring the "wisdom" of the internet at times. Take nothing as gospel. Experiment and see what works for you.

Sham, there is nothing inherently wrong with your list, but I feel like you could better spend your points elsewhere in a few cases. As previously mentioned, the raider is illegal and the Archon really needs a unit to ride with if he is going to be in this list. Wyches would be a good choice.

To keep (mostly) with what you wanted, I would try this:

Archon, Shadow Field, Venom Blade - 95
5 Kabalite Warriors, Blaster, Venom, Splinter Cannon, Night Shields - 135
5 Wyches, Hekatrix, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Venom Blade, Raider, Night Shields - 145
Talos Pain Engine, Chain Flails, Twin-Linked Heat Lance - 120

It keep with the spirit of what you wanted and gives the Archon a unit to ride with to keep that raider legal. Personally, I would likely drop the Talos in favor of a ravager as I think it might have a hard time keeping up with the rest of the force, but it's a cool model and can do some pretty interesting things on the table.

Build your army, get some games in, and let us know how it goes.

also it depends on the size of the board. Most 500 pts games are played on a 4x4 table, add in most armies arent loaded with AT or AP3 or lower at that point value, and the talos can actually be pretty nasty indeed.

My 500pt list looked something like this.

55- Haemie w/ venom blade
146- 3x blasterborn w/ dual cannon venom
95- 3 wracks w/ dual cannon venom
95- 3 wracks w/ dual cannon venom
105- Ravager

36 poison shots, 3 dark lances, and 3 blasters. And in the open, 6 wracks + haemie can actually do some nasty damage against MEQ (1.77 from the haemie's squad, and .749 from the other, equaling 2.519 dead marines, not bad for 7 models)