Help Building The Core of My Army

I have just begun my Dark Eldar army and am working on putting together a solid army list before buying any more models (got a pair of raiders, two ravagers, and two venoms). I have come down to two basic core troops to choose from for building the rest of my list around. My first option

One Realspace Raiders Detachment:

Trueborn x9 - 3 blasters - 2 Splinter cannons
+ Hemonculus - Webway Gate
In a Raider (Dark Lance / Night Shield / Splinter Racks)

Trueborn x9 - 3 blasters - 2 Splinter cannons
+ Hemonculus - Webway Gate
In a Raider (Dark Lance / Night Shield / Splinter Racks)

Kabilite Warriors x5 – 1 Blaster
In Venom (Splinter Cannon upgrade)

Kabilite Warriors x5 – 1 Blaster
In Venom (Splinter Cannon upgrade)

Kabilite x10 - 1 blaster - 1 Splinter cannons
In a Raider (Dark Lance / Night Shield / Splinter Racks)

My plan is too deepstrike in the Trueborn after popping transports with my Ravagers (and the Razorwings and Reaper I plan on grabbing) and generally sowing terror from behind or with ‘in there lines. The only problem is that frankly I feel like im likely to lose both the Webway Gate glass cannons (and thus hand my enemy Slay the Warlord every match).

---OR----
Two Realspace Raiders Detachments (So I can grab 3 HQ’s):

Kabilite x9 - 1 blaster
+ Hemonculus - Webway Gate
In a Raider (Dark Lance / Night Shield / Splinter Racks)

Kabilite x9 - 1 blaster
+ Hemonculus - Webway Gate
In a Raider (Dark Lance / Night Shield / Splinter Racks)

Kabilite x9 - 1 blaster
Archon (Warlord) – not sure yet
In a Raider (Dark Lance / Night Shield / Splinter Racks)

Kabilite Warriors x5 – 1 Blaster
In Venom (Splinter Cannon upgrade)

Kabilite Warriors x5 –1 Blaster
In Venom (Splinter Cannon upgrade)

Once again I really like the idea of deepstriking some raiders to sow terror, and the third HQ choice (Archon) can be kept back (also its quite a bit cheaper). On the other hand without all the heavy/special weapons of the Trueborn im worried that they won’t really deal out much punishment when they deepstrike in and the whole core strategy im trying to pull off will piddle out.

Not really having any experience yet with the Dark Eldar I figured this would be the best place to ask about how either set would perform, and which would really be best for building the rest of my army around.

Incase anything here is grievously wrong I am just coming back into the hobby after a bit and I’m still coming to grips with the new edition as well as the new army, and I welcome any help correcting mistakes or misunderstandings.

I tend to prefer WWP scourge over blasterborn. But it is a matter of preference. But, you should change the loadout of the blasterborn, if you choose to keep them. Don't mix the blaster with the splinter cannon (plus, you can only have 4 special weapon per squad, not 5). If you want a mix of AT and poison, take a squad of 4 blaster, and a squad with 4 splinter cannon, with splinter rack.

Other thing, your warlord don't have to be an HQ, if you're affraid of losing it. It can just be a sybarite or any character.

Hmm interesting I didn't notice the Hemonculus leaderspointship wasn't ten. That actually opens up some options thanks

Actually it does make allot of sense not to waste the points by mixing blasters and cannons.. More so than my Chaos Marines or Daemons I feel like I need to really be careful with my points with DE.

Hmmmm... does anyone think the splinter racks worth having on the blasterborn? I mean it won't help AT but cleaning up survivors from transports is pretty important.

Trueborn can only take 2 heavy weapon options, I'd recommend you put the blasterborn in venoms or even better, use the archon to deepstrike them behind enemy tanks. Deepstriking scourges is optional since with haywire blasters, scourges do the same damage no matter which side of the vehicle they are on, but the blasterborn perform better from behind. Unless you take heat lances of course.

Do this:
x3 10man squad of warriors armed with heavy weapon of your choice (SC or DL) in raider with upgrades of your choice , but take splinter racks or i'll strangle you.

Turn the rest of the warriors into 2 blasterborn squads. Their venoms go to fast attack.
Attach an archon with blaster and wwp with one of them.

The other blasterborn squad takes 2 heavy weapons and 3 blasters, sit it in one of the fast attack venom. Now you've got a unit with 24 poison shots and 3 str8 ap2 lance shots when in 18".
Consider starting it on the board if nothing can threaten it turn 1.

Haemonoculus are better suited to be camping behind cover on objectives (think wrack bodyguards)
, put him on an objective with a minimal wrack squad and let him fire off his rifle every turn if you want to use him. Throw them in a raider if you think you are going to charge with them later on.

Dumpeal. They have only taken 3 special weapons in any of their trueborn squads. Splinter cannons aren't special weapons.

Trueborn are pretty expensive for what they can do, their efficiency (toughness + damage / cost) is poor. Gunboat Kabalites are very effective for dealing with infantry (10 warriors, splinter racks and possibly a splinter canon if you wish). Scourges are very effective for dealing with armour. Trueborn in Venoms with max splinter canons can pump out a stupid number of shots vs infantry but the points cost makes them very inefficient. You'd be better off with gunboats for dealing with infantry. Blasterborn are an interesting idea but they're competing with Scourges for the same role. A minimum Blasterborn squad (5 men) in a basic transport (Venom with extra splinter canon, because they can't NOT have a transport and you can't NOT take the upgrade) is coming in at a significant cost. A 5 man scourge squad with blasters is about a hundred points cheaper and does the same job just as well.

I think if you just want to be able to take down general units (whatever infantry comes your way, whatever armour comes your way) then Kabalites and Scourges are just way more efficient. This pushes Trueborn (and Blasterborn specifically) into a niche use. What would their use be? I think they'd be good for monstrous creature hunting, blasters are good for that and with a Venom to taxi them around (and add a ton of poison shots too) they'd be very good for that, much better than scourges who'd have to one shot the thing or die. They'd be a useful sweeper / reserve unit to keep in your back line to react to drop pods and other deep striking units. For this they'd be able to deal with all comers - light and heavy infantry, vehicles, monsters, anything. Take one unit of Blasterborn in a Venom if you expect a strong deep striking element from you foe.

TL:DR Just take 10 man Kabalites in raiders supported by scourges for your core. Way more points efficient and allows you to field much more firepower (and importantly spread it around the battlefield). Trueborn are expensive, inefficient and niche.

Carcearion- First welcome to dark eldar.

As it stands I think both lists have a few minor issues so i'll try to point those out and go from there. Working from the second list since its the better of the two IMO.

In general its a good core although a little troop heavy for my tastes. Splinter racks and night shields are both quite good when the contents are right. The blaster not so much. In a 5 man squad in a venom taken in multiples it becomes a semi valid build but wasting 9 TL splinter rifles to fire one blaster shot pretty much never is IMO.

Our HQs are not the heavy lifters of other armies so I would avoid investing any more than is absolutely necessary. For example the WWP is great for pinpoint accurate delivery of something nasty.. say a court full of sslyth with a few medusae to drop multiple ap 3 templates right where you want, then open fire triple shot twin linked carbines. Probably a good use of the WWP. Eldar allies gets into stupid good levels of portal abuse.

On the other hand increasing a troops cost by 100 pts probably isn't worth it just to drop in 10 warriors who can already DS anyway. I would keep the warriors cheap and focused.. 10, raider- dc, ns, racks = 165. Thats a reasonable cost for what they do. Close to 300 will disappoint.
Spend the pts saved (and possibly the WWP) on something better.. court, grots etc. something with more damage output on arrival and more staying power and assault potential.

Hmmm and if for some strange reason you live in a world mostly devoid of marines or fearless opponents then you could also consider loading up on soulfrights and leadership debuffs to make those warrior boats a little more frightening.

I agree on trueborn and scourges. TB in particular really don't fill any roll very well now, I'd write them off.

Thats what I got for now. Let us know what pts level your shooting for and what else your looking to include.

Wow thanks for all the advice everyone.

I'll definitely start rebuilding the list, what I was really looking for was could the TB hit hard enough to be worth investing in the WWP HQ's for the deep strike and what I'm hearing is mostly "not really". I don't really see a better special weapons option and while they look like great units my Chaos Marines already make extensive use of tank hunting jump infantry (to great success I might add despite how poor many people claim Raptor are), and while Scourge look like hands down the best unit i've ever seen for that roll I'd really like to do something different.

I'm still really attached to the idea if using two WWP's, I'm thinking I might want to think more about these being anti-infantry. as far as massacering infantry can I pull that off with Warriors in Raiders? and yes I do game with a small group of guys who play mostly Guard / Orks / Tyranids / Grey Knights (that's most to least played). I was thinking the phantasm grenades would serve me well.

If you're reeaally into multiple WWP, I suggest 1 dark artisan, and maybe something nasty like a medusa bomb. (3-4 medusae in a venom, with a HQ with only the WWP. You drop them near a blob of space marines and you toast them). It's a one-hit unit. Don't really expect it to survive the incoming fire next turn. You may try to wall it with reaver for cover saves, but.....