Read through the codex, decided to work on my first list, hows this look?

Duke Sliscus joining a unit of 9 Kab trueborn, one is a Dracon with a Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Venom blade. 6 of them are normal, and two have splinter cannons. The 10 are riding in a raider with flickerfield and splinter racks. 401 points?

Lelith joining a unit of 9 Hekatrix. One syren, with an agoniser. 5 of them are normal, 3 have razorflails. All are riding in a raider with flickerfield and TGL. 427 points?

Two matching units of 5 kabalite warriors. a syb with pgl and venomblade in each, and a shredder in each squad. Each riding in venoms with an extra splinter cannon. 150x2 points?

Finally, a unit of 3 reavers. one has a blaster. one is an arena champ with an agoniser. 111 points?

I am pretty sure I messed up points at one spot, because my original total was 1244, but a second calculation is 1239. The second calculation was done with the numbers wrote down here(stupid with numbers) and I think I forgot to add something off my list since I am going off of a calculator tape.

Five point difference aside(Who's line is it anyway build, build is kinda made up and the points don't matter.[much])- How does this look? I'm still kinda learning about the reaver wargear, but I have a decent understanding of most of the others.

Any suggestions/feedback?

(I put question marks by the point totals because I'm unsure. This thread is more about the makeup of the list than the points, but if you would like to double check, please post results.)

Edit: I was a bit tired when I wrote this, and seemed to mistake what I was doing.

So shouldn't the duke be in a unit with a bunch of splinter weapons? Because of his poison 3+ buff?

I probably shoulda looked more carefully into the troops and whatnot. I wasn't thinking too much about them, mostly focused on the buffs for the Hekatrix unit and Trueborn unit. I'm pretty sure I misunderstood the weapons themselves and whatnot.

Lelith didn't seem to get much feedback, so I'm assuming she is alright, just a bit expensive.

I seemed to misunderstand glass cannon, and went for pure power with a lot, didn't really optimize, and should have focused more on overwhelming.

Hehe, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be, definitely going to spend a bit more time with the books.

Edit2: I'm sure experience will help quite a bit too, learning what the other armies can and will do to me.

For a casual game the list should be fine, but if your going for something more competitive, then I would make some changes.

Firstly, you have two very expensive squads at a very low points costs game. One of DE's biggest strengths is the ability to take multiple targets to overwhelm the foe, and this can be done even easier sometimes at low points. For what you are paying for 2 squads, you could take 5 squads of 5 man warriors w/ blaster in venoms that pump out 60+ poison shots at 36" and 5 Blaster shots. That is much harder to deal with for an opponent, even though it doesn't hit as hard.

It seem in many of your units, you are trying to be assault oriented with squads that have no business in assault. The venom blade on the warriors and agoniser on the reaver will often be a waste.

I love the duke squad. I have used it myself, but find it hard to use because you want Duke in assault , but not the squad. The squad has not business in assault. Ya, they got 2 attacks, but that doesn't cut it these days and Duke only has 4 attacks so can't really make up for there suckyness. Also, think about putting Shardcarbines on the "normal guys" in the squad, though note that the splinter rack with be useless and would be dropped.

The Lelith squad is fine, but you may think about just taking normal wyches. The downside to bloodbrides is that they don't score, as wyches do. Also, often times you do not want a "Death star" squad in a DE army. Your oppenent will likely plan on shooting your bloodbrides instead of attacking in CC. If you assault and disentagrate a squad, then you will just get blasted in return. You should design CC units to dissentagrate HALF of a squad. Basically leaving you in assault, mopping up in his turn, then hitting another unit in yours.

Suggestions:

I would take either the Trueborn and Duke, or Lielth and Wyches. One is fine, both are two much in such a low point list.

Buy 2 Ravangers. Every DE list should start with at least 2 Ravangers with Dark Lances. At 105 pts. base they are some of the cheapest, best anti tank in the game.

The immediate thought I have is you're missing the focus of a couple of the units. (also, you're not using enough Troop slots...but I always think that)

Case in point; assault builds on 5 man Warrior squads?
Yeah, they have decent WS and excellent initiative, but their toughness, armor, and strength are all sub par for an assault unit. Anything they could beat up in assault, they could probably just shoot to death, and anything they can't shoot to death they probably shouldn't be assaulting anyway.

Each of the IC units is basically okay, though I think either one is expensive enough that the other shouldn't really be in the list.

I'm not sure how interested you are in long winded babble, but you might want to check out this article I wrote on DE, their playstyle, and basic unit comp;
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Dark_Eldar_Tactica_Part_1
It's a lot of info dump to absorb at once, but it also has a ton of my opinions and thoughts about how DE play best in a competitive mindset (though, come to think of it, it probably does need some tweaks and updates).

Back to your list - it's a little hard to say more than I already have without seeing the rest of the list. A lot of units in our Codex are situationally good, and it depends what they're being fielded with.

I'd probably drop the Warrior Sybs, and the arena champ though - it seems highly unlikely either of those will really pay off for you.

As Thor has pointed out you have missed the idea of Dark Eldar, but he covered that already.

Let me begin by saying no, this list will never work. Your problem is That you have too few targets, and while this can be ok in other armies, DE is just too overall a "glass cannon" to hold up. You need to refocus your list and figure out how to use DE's strengths to your advantage.

Lets take a look at what you have, and what would be better.

Dukes squad: Ok, this unit is built for shooting, so lets compare shooting. Ok, as you have it, you have 8~12 3+ poison shots, 6 twin-linked 3+ poison shots at 24", and 12 in 12", 1 more twin-linked 3+ poison pistol shot, a blast pistol, and a dark lance. the most shots you would get out of this set-up is 12 3+, then 13 twin-linked 3+, and two dark matter shots, all for heap load of points.

Now compare to my set-up

Duke-XX pts
4 Trueborn- 2 with Cannons, 2 with Carbines- 78
Venom with Dual Cannons- 65

Total: 293

for 1/3 the price, this gives you 12 4+ poison shots, 8~12 3+ posion shots, and 6 3+ poison with an 18" range, and 1 darklight shot. Almost the same output, and way cheaper.

This is what we call optimizing, making something the best we can, for as little points as possible. Sure, not everything can be optimized (say your Lelith squad, if you want that much killy... thats what you have to pay to get it) but a DE list is made off of getting as much optimization into it as you can.

Not to be picky but could you list up the armylist so its easier to overlook.

Do it like this.


Archon: blablabla 85

trueborns: blablabla 146

etc