1500 pts Beginner need advise

Hello Dark Kin! First time poster, long time lurker.

So I've been following the game since at least 4th edition but never actualy played for lack of other players to play with. Now that changed and I'm working on my first real Army list.

I am limited in the models I can use, what I do own is : The old 3rd Ed. Battleforce containing a Raider, 20x Warriors and 5x Reaver Jetbikes. I also have 1x Heamonculus, 5x Wracks, 1x Venom and 1x Cronos/Talos and finaly 15x old Catachan guard and around 10x other model from a game I dont know that I'm planning to ''wrackify'' and use as proxy until I get what I need.

So here's what I think of doing with those :

Scarlet Epicureans

Heamonculus w/ Liquifier Gun, Scissorhand, Sindriq's sump

9x Wracks w/ 2x Ossefactor
Acothyst w/ Hexrifle, Venom Blade

9x Wracks w/ 2x Liquifier Gun
Acothyst w/ Liquifier gun, Venom Blade

Cronos w/ Spitit Probe


CAD
HQ

Archon w/ Agoniser, Blast Pistol, Haywire Grenades, Shadowfield, Armour of Misery

Succubus w/ Archite Glaive, Haywire Grenades, Parasite's Kiss

Elite

4x Kabalite True Born w/ 4x Blaster
Dracon w/ Blast Pistol, Haywire Grenades
Venom w/ Splinter Cannon, Chain-snares, Grisly Trophies

Troops

10x Kabalite Warrior w/ Splinter Cannon
Raider w/ Dark Lance, Enhanced Aethersail, Grisly Trophies, Nightshield, Splinter Racks

10x Kabalite Warrior w/ Dark Lance

Fast Attack

4x Reaver Jetbikes w/ Cluster Caltrop, Heat lance
Arena Champion w/ Agoniser

So that it. Battlescribe put it at 1501 pts. I realise that I need more Anti tank and the lack of transport is disturbing. Also a lot of gear i dont really need/want but had to fill the point. It's not competitive but I think it will enable me to test many unit and get a better feeling on how they work and if i do/don't like them.

I welcome any input, suggestion, critisism. Thank a lot guys!

Wel you already mentioned lacking transports, you've already touched this the next pointer in your description, overpriced units and wargear.

My main point of advice would be to always consider the following, Dark Eldar are a "razorsharp" glascannon army, meaning that we can make every point we invest able to hurt the enemy, however al our units tend to die real fast when shot or assaulted.

Our way of dealing with both of these isseus is twofold,

1 Speed
2 a lot of smal cheap targets

being prob the most mobile army in 40k, our main weapon is speed, ensuring that our units are always there on the battlefield where we want or need them is the Dark Eldar's "nail in the coffin" most of the time you wil look to deploy your forces and firepower on a certain point of the table and just ensure that there just isnt enough of the enemie's forces left to return damage to your forces.

however this would be to ideal a thing, we would just never lose a single model, and though certianly a goal worth persueing, this is impossible and would also make ofr rather boring games, a lot of your army wont live to see the end of the battle, being the archon that you are ( or should be ) you dont care that much about your lesser kin, personal victory is all that matters. Oh how I love to get so dramatical in my posts...

basicly every unit you have that gets shot at, dies, its simple as that, all our units are fragile. So how do we deal with that.... you simply need cost efficient trades. as an example, a 300 pts unit of space marine centurions puts the hurt on whatever it shoots at, 2 dark eldar units with a combined worth of 300 pts are able to kill the 300pts centurion unit with combined firepower, we have a lot of those units avialable. making sure the 300 pts centurion unit only has a 150 pts target to shoot at, and then die to the remainder of our forces on the table, is what wins you games, you just got yourself a 150 pts lead on the table, now combine that with speed and you can make sure that you always got 80% of your forces trading with only 40% of his forces, leaving the surviving port of that 40% ( if any ) only able to return fire, and giving him only small cheap and expandable targets on the field.

basicly you are always looking to kill the enemies

Long range firepower & speed.

next you can use your own speed, firepower and terrain on the table to pick his army apart and only leave smal portions of his forces able to deal return damage. losing 40/50% of your army in the first turns to achieve this point would still mean you would end the game with 40% of your army on the table and almost none of his, again using speed to achieve mission objectives and domination on the table during the later turns.

My personal preferences

Scourges ( heatlances or blasters )
Reavers ( 3/6 cluster heatlance no champion)
multiple venoms and raiders with minimal warrior units
Razorwing jetfighters ( 2x disintegrator splintercannon 4 monoscythes )
2/3 Ravagers ( both disintegrators and dark lances work fine for me )

a Heamonculos with grots and wwp is "great" way of forcing attention on the table on a certain point ( considering you really like the heamonculos models/army/theme ) however do keep in mind that this unit wil always die, its just there to draw fire and force attention for the rest of your forces to achieve goals 1 and 2

good luck

Thanks a lot Intoxico that was really helpful! I'm already pilling my money for more Venoms and Raiders so I can slpit all those squads. I do really like the coven stuff so grotesque are on my ''to buy'' list along with Scourges, Ravager and a Talos to make a Dark Artisan instead of the Scarlet Epicurean but I think I really need more transport first.

My big question is 'why do you need to pad your army'?
You don't have a 1500 point collection, so why are you building a 1500 point list. I would simply make a request for, say, some 1000 point games - your opponent should be easily able to come down to accommodate you. It will also give you a more real and legit read on what units you do or don't like.

Good question Thor Well at first i wanted to know how much point total I had wich was a little bit over 1000 point. Then I realised that with the spare part I had and the Catachan slave I could do between 5 and 10 more wracks so I added them to the list. I then decided to use the 5 catachan left to replace some of the kabalite warrior so I could make them into a blasterborn squad instead. By then I was a litte bit under 1400 so I added the Succubus and some gear to round up the point and try more thing.

That being said I do agree with you that I dont need that much points. That just me wanting to play with all the toys I have