Potential new dark eldar player, should I take their advice

Hey there. I am a long time fantasy player who doesnt really like the new rules and want to get into 40k. I played a few games with my friends tau and enjoyed the game mechanics.

I like the skirmishing style and the armies that involve movement.

So I looked online and immediately was drawn to the dark eldar and eldar models but mainly the dark eldar ones.

I am not interested in building a powergaming eldar army loaded with psykers. I see myself mainly using the dark eldar with a sprinkling of eldar units if i think they help the overall army. I also much prefer the lore of the dark eldar.

Anyway, I went into a GW store and the manager there told me that the dark eldar are one of the most competitive armies out there and have loads of tactical flexibility but not many people know about them.

I like the idea of playing an army that nobody else uses, but I dont want to get tabled every game. Our gaming group is fun but competitive but doesnt build the cheesy tournament lists, we frown on that.

I understand that dark eldar have a really vibrant online community and would be interested in the thoughts of everyone. Do you agree with the GW guy?

Which eldar allies might be useful to strengthen the army?
Any recommended staple inclusions in the dark eldar army that you shouldn't do without?

He called it right more or less other than fluff what do you know about the army? If you dont know much about them there are a lot of people here who can tell you anything you need to know.

The best recommendation i can make is figuring out wich units fit your playstyle, and if you want to play semi-competively there are options and unts that are sub-par. Your local meta will dictate which of your units will shine so if you can tell us about your groups playstyles we could also help you with that.

submarine wrote:

Anyway, I went into a GW store and the manager there told me that the dark eldar are one of the most competitive armies out there and have loads of tactical flexibility but not many people know about them.

I'd be fascinated to hear his thoughts on what wasn't a competitive army.

submarine wrote:

Do you agree with the GW guy?

Eh - what he said was an empty comment. What does he classify as 'competitive' and what does he classify as 'most competitive'?

In a general sense I agree that DE are competitive, though we have certainly struggled to be a solo army at top tables. That said, we have some really solid builds and are still exploring what the codex does and, natch, are battle brothers with arguably the most powerful codex - so it's not like we're in a bad position. I would tend to suggest we are an upper mid to lower high tier codex at the moment. We have a handful of very P/R/S matchups at the moment (stuff like Grey Knights v. Coven or IG vs. skimmer spam) which I think weaken our overall codex in the competitive sense. But I would be unsurprised to see DE or a combined DE army taking a top spot at a major tournament.

submarine wrote:

Which eldar allies might be useful to strengthen the army?

Fire Dragons and an Autarch are my personal value calls. I've seen good stuff with a Wraithknight also. Some people get their panties in a bundle for a Farseer, though I think that is a bit narf, if you want to go with psykers run Eldar primary and DE ally, not the other way around. The Wave Serpent is one of the best single models in the game right now, so including those is always good. I think that covers the broad strokes.

submarine wrote:

Any recommended staple inclusions in the dark eldar army that you shouldn't do without?

Warriors, Venoms, Raiders.
Show me a DE list lacking two or more of those and I'll show you a bad DE list.

submarine wrote:

Which eldar allies might be useful to strengthen the army?

War Walkers (Scatter Laser and Missile Launcher), Wave Serpents, Dark Reapers (preferably in a Venom), an Autarch (on a jetbike) and Windrider Jetbikes (as escorts) would be my suggestions. Maybe a Farseer and Warlocks (also on jetbikes), if you don't want to miss out on the psychic phase. Or Striking Scorpions, for a reliable close combat unit.

Pinning Eldar missiles are a Dark Eldar assault unit's best friend imo. But it is important to remember that Dark Eldar are all about mobility, so don't bother with anything that has no way of moving quickly (Wraithlords, Vaul's Wrath artillery).
In general, you should look to Eldar for things your Dark Eldar could use, but don't have.

The Dark Eldar's main strength is speed, cheap small units and anti infantry firepower, its main weakness is durability, whatever gets shot at, dies, its as simple as that.

When considering Eldar allies there are really almost no bad options, the Eldar codex is that good! It mostly comes to your desicion making whilst building your list and when playing it on the table.

Basicly Dark Eldar is the most difficult army to play, and the most enjoyable army when mastered. I say this as a competitive, experienced player. Your army will consist of a wide scala of tools (units), most of those wil not see the end of your battles, so making sure each one did its part and secures your kabal victory at the end of the battle is key. Combining speed, terrain, mission goals, primairy targets and punishing each and every mistake made by your enemy is how you win your battles. Awesome is this seem when you read it, the feeling gets doubled when achieved on the table.

When it comes to playing, though still very important, your army list is less important then when playing another army. You could easily copy a net list and play it, however each unit you take, you should take with a certain role/application in mind. It's mastering this thought proces which will lead to mastering the Dark Eldar army. knowing wich tools you have and how to combine them to kill or cut of your opponants forces on the table and ensuring board and mission control wil win you your games.

However certain purchases, as mentioned before, are auto includes or just never a bad purchase

Venoms (4)
Raiders (2/4)
Reaver jetbikes (3/12)
Scourges ( Heatlance, Blaster, Haywire Blaster "in my order of choice" ) (5/15)
Razorwing Jetfighters (1/2)
Kabalite Warriors (2/4)
Ravagers ( idd always field 2, both the 3 dark lance and 3 disintegrator versions work fine for me ) (2/3)

Other options/purchases, whilst not all bad and some even "good" are not as solid as those listed above, merely giving an outline of my feel for the Dark Eldar Force's backbones.

On the sideline, whilst not fully wrong in his statement, the gw salesrep's responds sounded like something he would say regardles of the army you enquired about. However that aside, if you liked the skirmishing and fast paced feel of the 40k game, ( understandible coming from the blocky feel of fantasy ) playing with tau ( imho one of the most boring armies to play with ) you are just gonna love playing Dark Eldar

Thanks so much for all the responses first of all. When I was contemplating a space marine army, the feedback from the big forums was barren so this is a welcome pleasure.

I actually enjoyed playing with tau, and I played them as a mobile force rather than as a gunline.

I havent really committed to reading the DE codex in detail but can they participate in all the phases of the game. I know they are predominantly a movement army but I want to have access to some hand to hand troops.

I got the slight feeling from the GW staff member that they dont shift that many DE models and he was giving me the hard sell.

I have to say though, it is the models and mythology above all else that really attracts me to the army. I really think they look great as an army.

On the eldar ally front, I looked at their troops and everyone waxes lyrical about the wave serpent but I dont get what makes it so good, I know I am missing something. But that struck me as an option for getting the fragile DE troops into battle....

The wave serpent has stupid range better than decent strength ignores cover with 1-7 shots OR can make pens glances on a 2+ save Can hold 12 models i believe, has other guns and options

submarine wrote:

Thanks so much for all the responses first of all. When I was contemplating a space marine army, the feedback from the big forums was barren so this is a welcome pleasure.

Well, Space Marines are the usual go-to army for beginners, for being all around reliable. Some of the more experience players I know think they are easy to learn, but have nothing to master about them. Their only real weakness is their tendency to be outnumbered on the table, kinda like Ogres in Warhammer.

Well one should ask themselves, when committing so much to this hobby, one better makes sure he is going to enjoy all the efford invested in it. Loving the models and background of the army certainly adds greatly to the enjoy you wil get from playing it.

Whenever someone ask me, I'm new to the hobby, what should i get, I always reply, whatever you're gut tells you is the coolest, there is no point trying to understand the tournament meta as rooky with 0 games under his belt. So.... don't bother, get those cool models, and enjoy every second of assembling, painting and then fielding them for your very first time. Playing your first games should be all about throwing dice, shuffling mini's acros the board, enjoying stuff exploding and dying left and right and getting a feel for the games core rules and mechanics. There is nothing more funny then dragging a 500pts game out 18 turns until there is only one model left alive, at the end there are only 2 winners whom had a blast of a game!

On the Wave Serpent, Dark Eldar don't need them as a transport for getting troops into battle...

Think of the wave serpent as any APC, its and armored box to make sure its occupants get from point A to point B, however most APC's whilst armored, are not battletanks, however the waveserpent is armored like a tank, well fine, so you got a heavily armored tank, wel then it wil just ponder acros the battlefield and not die that quick, fine... NOPE... its fast, it does not ponder, its fast and mobile. Well, fine you say, so I have a heavily armored fast APC which will just keep my troops safe and get them where i want them, when i want them, safely, whats so bad about that? It shoots harder them most heavy Battle Tanks!!! Able to mow down all infantry, enemy flyers, though monstrous creatures and even all light and medium enemy tanks, whilst being a troop transport. This thing packs some serious firepower, carries its cargo and is just one of the thoughest vehicles to kill, ensuring that the enemy will have to suffer the damage those transports put out for most of the battle.

Just don't dispair, your gaming group sounds like guys whom just want to have a good time and enjoy their hobby, even the eldar player will probably not spam serpents, just to ensure he doesnt get bored playing with his own army.

When picking up 40k, starting with Dark Eldar, you wil play the ( personal opnion ) most enjoyable army out there, sure, you'll start with a losing streak ( playing your first real serieus games that is ), just imagine that feeling once you start killing your foes, collecting the bounty of your raids and effords and becoming that Dark Eldar guy everyone fears, tearing players apart and pulling victories out of a magic hat

submarine wrote:

Thanks so much for all the responses first of all. When I was contemplating a space marine army, the feedback from the big forums was barren so this is a welcome pleasure.

Friends don't let friends play Space Marines.

submarine wrote:

I havent really committed to reading the DE codex in detail but can they participate in all the phases of the game. I know they are predominantly a movement army but I want to have access to some hand to hand troops.

DE do fine in all phases save the psychic phase.
I would list our strengths in decreasing order as - movement.shooting...assault...........(+100)...psychic.

submarine wrote:

everyone waxes lyrical about the wave serpent but I dont get what makes it so good

Raw shooting output plus decent strength weaponry plus survivability.
I would not advocate it as a transport for DE. It is a weapon platform that happens to be able to carry some people, not a transport with weapons.

Hey man welcome to the forums... I hope you choose to build a Dark Eldar army. They are one of the most unique armies in the game and IMO the best looking bar none. As I'm sure you can tell they are fast as lightining and hit just as hard but are very very fragile (standard qualifier for all prospective DE players). There are tons of possible army builds whether it be classic Kabalite raiding parties, fleets of Venoms, Reaver Jetbike themed armies, monstrous and very tough Coven armies and even more combinations should you choose to employ Eldar allies.... as converted/counts-as Corsairs and Harlequin style armies mesh very well with both books.

They can be tough to learn but if you can learn to harness super deadly high volume of shooting power and ability to focus it almost anywhere on the battlefield with their fast vehicles and deepstriking abilities you'll have one of the toughest armies in the game... with an endless variety of directions you can take it modeling and list building wise.

My opinions, as a very friendly, very non-competitive player:

1) Ignore everything a GW salesman tells you about how great an army is if you have shown an interest in it: I have NEVER heard them discourage anyone in this position, and when I was chaperoning my son and a dozen friends aged 9-11 over a few years, I became quite angry.

One of the lads mentioned that he liked manga comics, so the salesman said he should buy Tau. This was in 5th, when they were the oldest apart from DE, and required a VERY tactical mind to play.
Another wanted a small model count so that it was easy to paint; he sold him Daemonhunters Grey Knights: at that time, they were only in metal, and very detailed.


That being said, I love my mixed DE army, I have a similar list to yours, but no fliers (we don't use fliers in our group; whole separate discussion, just take it as read for me!).

I can't advise on tournament capability (the above posters are much better qualified for that), but I have a HUGE amount of fun with my Nine Pirate Girls, my game average is slightly more wins than losses, and my opponents all enjoy seeing a less popular codex facing them.

I hope that either the serious Archons above, or the dilettantes like me, encourage you to swell our ranks; either way, good luck!


(Editted) Ooops, confused two threads, the "similar list to yours" I referred to was from this thread:
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t11350-2000-pts-dark-eldar-combined-arms

Having re-read your original post, I would warn you that the current edition of 40K is not very melee-friendly, and that shooting is king; I run an assault orientated army (Grots and Succubus, Incubi, Reavers), and getting across the board and not dying to flamers is a real challenge.

DE are very squishy, so be prepared to lose a lot of units, but we can do Multiple Small Units very well, so write big lists, and sacrifice many models, and you'll be fine.

Thanks, thats all great advice. I need to study the codex in more detail. One of the things I really enjoy about this game (and others think I am mad), is theorising and getting under the skin of army selection.

Thinking through what I will think works and what doesn't, playing battles and then revising my list design. In others words I like strategising and hypothesising. I also enjoy the challenge of using units that people say don't work. Someone said to me, no one uses DE, they always lose, and that made me want to use them even more!

My regular opponent is a necron player so a lot of my battles will be against him, so it would be helpful to know how DE fare against them. But either way I will enjoy the challenge of getting the most out of the list, using models I love, and finding new ways to make them work.

Whoever said DE 'always lose' has played low quality DE players.

That said, I look forward to your all Wych and Mandrake army.

haha!! I love those models..!

commandersasha wrote:

My opinions, as a very friendly, very non-competitive player:

1) Ignore everything a GW salesman tells you about how great an army is if you have shown an interest in it: I have NEVER heard them discourage anyone in this position, and when I was chaperoning my son and a dozen friends aged 9-11 over a few years, I became quite angry.

One of the lads mentioned that he liked manga comics, so the salesman said he should buy Tau. This was in 5th, when they were the oldest apart from DE, and required a VERY tactical mind to play.
Another wanted a small model count so that it was easy to paint; he sold him Daemonhunters Grey Knights: at that time, they were only in metal, and very detailed.

I remember when my 12-years old self first entered a GW store. I knew exactly what I wanted: The new Chaos Space Marines I had seen in the White Dwarf and their codex. And the salesman expressed his surprise that I wasn't also interested in Daemonettes. I felt very awkward. In hindsight though, I wish I had bought some Daemonettes back then...

commandersasha wrote:

Having re-read your original post, I would warn you that the current edition of 40K is not very melee-friendly, and that shooting is king; I run an assault orientated army (Grots and Succubus, Incubi, Reavers), and getting across the board and not dying to flamers is a real challenge.

DE are very squishy, so be prepared to lose a lot of units, but we can do Multiple Small Units very well, so write big lists, and sacrifice many models, and you'll be fine.

Definitely this. If you want to be successful in this edition, you need to build your army around a solid shooting core. Also: Transports for additional protection and mobility.

submarine wrote:

Thanks, thats all great advice. I need to study the codex in more detail. One of the things I really enjoy about this game (and others think I am mad), is theorising and getting under the skin of army selection.

Thinking through what I will think works and what doesn't, playing battles and then revising my list design. In others words I like strategising and hypothesising. I also enjoy the challenge of using units that people say don't work. Someone said to me, no one uses DE, they always lose, and that made me want to use them even more!

My regular opponent is a necron player so a lot of my battles will be against him, so it would be helpful to know how DE fare against them. But either way I will enjoy the challenge of getting the most out of the list, using models I love, and finding new ways to make them work.

Psh. DE always lose. If it makes you feel better my local Necron player got so frustrated losing to Dark Eldar he threw his dice so hard it richoted off the wall and hit a player in the next room. That was back when we had haywire wyches though. If he's running a lot of flyers you'll have some problems but for the most part you outrange your opponent and can use that to your advantage. Also, make sure you wipe units out. Necrons have a nasty habit of coming back to life

I will say though prepare yourself for a steep learning curve, you may or may not have one, but be prepared for it. I started with DE and it just clicked right away for some reason. When people said they are hard to use I scoffed. After about a year of using DE I played my first game using Space Marines and I understood. My need for tactics dropped to about a third of what I needed for Dark Eldar.

Don't take that as Space Marines are a better army because they require less tactics though. Space marines don't have the mobility to apply pressure on every teeny little mistake their opponent makes. With Space Marines my thought process was "Is that in range? No. Okay what's in range. I'll shoot that." With Dark Eldar it's more like. "What do I want to kill? Okay, now how do I kill it without getting killed?"

Dark Eldar can be competitive by themselves, but to be competitive you lose the fun aspect for your opponent (it becomes lets shoot everything and piss them off from the number of different squads shooting). Doing a pure DE army will allow Eldar to almost always beat Dark Eldar (it is what it is) but against any other army DE can be competitive.

I started playing the game about a year ago.
Picked DE purely for the models, Reaver Jet Bikes to be exact.
I love reading stroies, and therefore fluff is key, and the Dark Eldar fluff is great.
Even as poor a painter as I am, my army looks great on the table top as i try to only field painted models.
The group I play in is a mix, one player is a little bit Win at all costs, one is a good, tactical player, and the other two like a smash up. I play to have fun first an foremost, but if i want to beat the first two i am taking the effort to learn how to play more competitivley. Taht said, it has taken me a year of practicing and having fun, and playing daft all CC list and all raider lists, and 21 Bike lists, to learn the ins and outs of the army.

The only units i havent used are Wracks (I only have 5) and any form of Beast pack (i have 15 Kyhmera waiting to be built)

DE are a great army, and when you win, it will be big, and when you lose, it will be suitably frustrating and just as big.

As a final point, get good at rolling 4's to wound!!!

If I were giving you advice, I'd say the most important thing is to learn how the game works, and how the units you like fit within that. By that I don't mean just sit and read the rules until you know them, you need to play games on the tabletop to truly understand (as an example) what being able to move your skimmers 18" in the shooting phase really means.

DE are a very capable army in the hands of capable players - I'd agree with Thor's assessment of us being high-mid to low-high tier. It's important though that when you write your list, you write it understanding precisely what each unit you take is there to achieve, and you need to be ruthless in not taking something that doesn't have a specific purpose.

In explaining that - my first dark eldar lists that I used in a game (back under the last codex) tried to take account of all possible situations, I upgraded the warrior squads to have sybarites and gave those sybarites agonisers (after all, they came in the kit and looked cool). the games were only 1000pts and in my first three matches, i got tabled twice and only avoided it in the third by having a pair of warriors cowering behind a wall.

You'll see lots of posts on the boards here discussing upgrades and alternatives - they're not usually definitive and as others have said, what works well will depend on your meta, but if nothing else they'll be helpful to you in understanding why you might look to take a particular unit or upgrade.

Once you know why you've taken a unit, it becomes easier to use it correctly in games, because you have a clear picture of what you're trying to achieve.

Let's look at an example.

You take 6 reavers, give two of them cluster caltrops for enhanced Hammer of Wrath hits, and another two you give blasters for anti tank shooting. Finally you decide that as you'll be using hammer of wrath in combat, you upgrade to an arena champion and give them an agoniser.

You now have a unit that is confused about its role - the blasters are a significant investment so you don't want to waste them by jinking when they're shot at (and believe me if your opponent knows what they do they will shoot them) but by not jinking you're likely to lose models. If you were smart and put the caltrops on the models with blasters then you've got 3 other guys you can lose first to retain your specialists, but you're still reducing their punch in close combat and depending on what is shooting at them they may not survive. You also forego the turbo boost move in the shooting phase because you want to fire those guns at something. Conversely if you jink then you're pretty much wasting the blaster upgrade. By focusing the unit's purpose (let's say close combat) you can drop the 20pts on blasters and concentrate on turbo boosting in the shooting phase, jinking to avoid damage and targetting a rear armour charge in the next turn.

That being said, if you've got 20pts to spare in a list you can always come back and add the blasters, but it's important to know why you took the reavers in the first place. This also helps with deployment and movement in the early turns, and your overall army balance - if you're writing an army list then you can pigeonhole units into roles to make sure you have all the bases covered.

When I got back into playing 40k and I realised all my collections were extremely archaic and poorly chosen, I sat down with my codices, and wrote out a list of what roles each unit was able to fulfill, then looked at filling those slots to build a balanced list making sure I'd got options for anti-tank, anti infantry, anti elite infantry and anti flier.

My final point is redundancy - others have touched on it by mentioning that DE are fragile. I extend this point into the list building part of the game, understanding that if you take 1 awesome anti tank weapon, there's no guarantee your opponent will let it survive for you to use it (as an example, my last DE game my opponent took a quad gun - his only anti air capacity beyond snap shooting. I focused my fire on it on turn 1 to the exclusion of other targets, knowing that by doing so I would ensure my razorwing had free reign when it arrived. Had he brought either a flyer of his own or a hydra flak tank for example, I'd have had much more difficulty in silencing his anti air capabilities.) That's why I like Ravagers - they may not guarantee you that tank kill, but they're good enough value to take more than 1 of them!

Thanks for the advice. Fantastic responses, thanks guys. Interesting you mention the bikes because I posted a list and did exactly the same thing you described. Although I looked at one of your precious batreps and you did the same!

I realise that the DE have little room for error and therefore points efficiency is everything. Also one big part of choosing this army is because I love the models. So although I do sometimes choose hardcore tactical lists, it is also true that I am a sucker for fielding units where I just love looking at the model on the table. Although from the sounds of things, if I do that , they won't be on the table for very long!

I do love the succubus and Archon models and the scourges and reapers too. So all or most of those are going to get into my list!
I am intrigued by the talos and cronos units because on the surface they look like a counter-intuitive option. They are immobile and a bit more resilient but have low wounds. I wonder if anyone has got any joy out of them.

What I love about this army is that there is very little that seems useless so I am looking forward to trying different things out.

Please keep the advice coming and I look forward to refining and posting more lists. Any anti necron advice would be most welcome.

I did indeed, though it was partly to see if I would use them (I'm currently refining the list for a tournament - they didn't fire at all in the game) and partly because I couldn't think what else to spend 20pts on.

Talos and Cronos are great fun - a lot of people have in their mind when facing Dark Eldar that they're going to be up against a fast, fragile army and begin to plan accordingly. Then you plonk down some monstrous creatures with T7, a 3+ save and feel no pain boosted to a 4+ - it's safe to say they don't like it, and often don't know what to do against them. The relatively low wound count (compared to say carnifexes and tervigons) is countered by their Feel no Pain, even with the basic 5+ it effectively adds a wound onto their profile, and with the boosted version from the spirit probe you can easily have to cause 5-6-7 wounds on them before they actually die. I actually passed 6 out of 8 5+ Feel no Pain saves on one of my Talos once - not saying you should rely on that but that's what dice can do for you.

Thanks for that. Problem is that they depose other good heavy support choices but I am intrigued by them. I'm not even sure if I like the models that much. They are just odd. Sometimes I do and sometimes I dont!

Any anti necron thoughts? I was thinking a more assault type army. What are DE bad matchups? I thought necrons would be pretty ok. Am I wrong?

Necrons (haven't seen the new codex) tend to be fairly short-ranged, so keeping your distance as much as possible tends to be a sensible idea. I'm afraid I've never played them, no-one in my club brings them any more (one guy had an army but sold them off to fund a new one)