New to Dark Eldar

Hey, guys. Longtime fan of 40k but I've been out of the game since about 4E. Now that I'm up-to-date on the new rules I chose Dark Eldar for my army after I read their codex and loved everything about it. I got my hands on a lot of models for these guys, played a couple of casual practice games, but as an ex-chaos player I really have no idea what to do with these guys or what direction to take my collection in. Some of my favorite DE units are Warriors, Raiders, Mandrakes, Wracks, Grots, maybe Incubi. I really like the strike hard and fast philosophy, but I also have a strong love for Coven units (I went with Last Hatred.)

Here's what I currently own:

Urien
2 archons
1 haemonculus
30 warriors
20 wyches
5 trueborn (set up as blasterborn)
10 incubi
5 wracks
3 raiders
2 razorwing fighters
1 voidraven bomber

What do you guys think would be the best/most needed additions in general? What are the best DE units and compositions these days? Where can I go to learn all I need to about how to best play DE?

P.S. My FLGS has about 30 regulars with a big 50-man tourney coming up and literally none of them play DE, and a lot of them discount DE as being "meh", and I really, really want to table the naysayers.

Thanks in advance

Good units for DE-

Optimal Choices (If I leave these units out of a list, I feel like I'm missing out on something.)
HQ- None
Troops- Warriors in Venoms
Elites- Grotesques
Fast Attack- Reavers, Venoms, Scourges
Heavy Support- None
Formations- Scalpel Squadron, Grotesquerie

Reasonable Choices (Useful.  I'm not going to cry if I can't take them, but I might still take them.)
HQ- All
Troops- Warriors in Raiders
Elites- Trueborn, Mandrakes, Incubi
Fast Attack- Raiders, Razorwing
Heavy Support- Talos Engines, Ravagers
Formations- Raiding Party, Scarlet Epicureans, Corpsethief Claw, Dark Artisan

Sub-par choices (If I have to take these, I'm handicapping myself.)
HQ- None.
Troops- Wyches
Elites- Bloodbrides, Wracks
Fast Attack- Beast packs, Hellions
Heavy Support- Voidraven Bombers, Cronos Engines
Formations- Covenite Fleshcorps

I strongly prefer fielding units of five warriors with a blaster, riding in a venom, as my troop tax. Four to five of those is very cheap, and hard for opponents to handle with their quantity.

The Hellions and Wyches are useless. (Wyches will serve you better converted to harlies.)

On a personal note, I would definitely recommend you pick up some more Venoms, a Ravager or two, and some Reavers.

However, if you aren't averse to allies and really want to throw competitive players a curveball, I recommend the Freakshow lists. You can find links to a series of tactical articles on how to do it here. Of course, if you're looking for a purely Dark Eldar style of play, Mushkilla's articles (higher on the same page) have a wealth of tactical information for a new player. (And for the experienced veteran, if I'm honest.)

Thanks for the reply and all the good information, I think venoms will probably be the next thing for me to pick up. I was wondering, though, why do you list wracks as sub-par but scalpel squadron as optimal? Are wracks really so bad, and is there any way to make them work outside of scalpel squadron?

Also, I hear a lot of people say the best way to use grotesques is with a WWP, right?

I prefer grotesques in a night shielded Raider. Gets them into Combat faster. But if you want s really big squad you need to use a portal of course.

One might argue about Warriors in Venom or in a Raider with Splinter racks, it's basically up to you. And I don't agree that true born can be left out. In a night shield Raider they sure are hard hitters!

What I'm missing is the court of the Archon with Medusa to roast space Marines or nearly anything else. Portal in using an Archon and delete one enemy unit a turn.

Toys wrote:

Thanks for the reply and all the good information, I think venoms will probably be the next thing for me to pick up. I was wondering, though, why do you list wracks as sub-par but scalpel squadron as optimal? Are wracks really so bad, and is there any way to make them work outside of scalpel squadron?

Also, I hear a lot of people say the best way to use grotesques is with a WWP, right?

The Scalpel Squadron gives you A) a -1 Leadership debuff, B) a potential to score two extra VPs, and C) the ability to null deploy (start the game with nothing on the board). These are all good things that normal Wracks lack.

With the changes to Poison in 7th, (you now need a HIGHER strength than the target's toughness to get poison rerolls) coupled with the loss of the ability to take them as troops choices, wracks have taken a beating. The only way to take them now is in our Elites slot, where they have to compete with Blasterborn, Grotesques, and Incubi, all of whom are (either marginally or drastically, depending) better than Wracks.

Outside a Covens formation, I wouldn't take Wracks anymore. POSSIBLY to crew a Fortification such as a Fortress of Redemption (since they are cheap, and their T4 will prevent them from getting Instant Death by the S6 hits from the buiding collapse table). Other than that, they don't have a lot of utility anymore.

As for Grotesques, you can run them on foot with an HQ with a WWP. (Usually in large numbers.) You can also run them in Raiders (HQ with a webway portal optional). I like the Raider option, since it gives you more versatility, allowing you to rush the enemy first turn if you don't need to Deep Strike.

The smaller squads in a Raider have greater mobility, and can move to a broader number of threats. The larger squads are much more durable and can dish out a lot more punishment, but once they arrive, they're pretty much there.

When possible, the Grotesquerie is preferred. (At least by me!)

Warning: wall of txt..

Welcome back to the game and to dark eldar. The game has changed radically since last you played. Your in the right place but you'll need to get a handle on the current game state and your local environment to dial in what you play. Read everything you can here at TDC and I'd suggest getting familiar with the workings of other armies to gauge their capabilities.

In general allied forces can and usually do feature heavily in most lists with the standard usually being "3 sources no duplicates" sometimes with additional restrictions. The choice of what type of detachment you take depends on many factors with objective secured and rerolls on the rulebook traits being factors you must weigh against the benefits of taking another detachment, in our case RSR for extra FA slots vs objective secured (obsec) and rerolling on strategic. Mission types played locally, terrain density, common factions you face and more are all additional factors. The game is very very broad now days. DE are widely thought of as lower tier but I feel we actually sit middle tier with potential to do better if you tailor heavily against certain army/unit types.. i.e. we are a "spoiler army". We won't often do well in a take all comers environment but if in well defined metas you can abuse this information and tool to cause certain people headaches.

Specifically in this edition you will almost certainly want answers to mechanized forces (as always), bike centric forces, monstrous creatures- especially flying MCs (FMCs) and also likely gargantuan MCs (GMCs) like wraith knights, and flyer forces (less so but a consideration since they fall into the same realm as FMCs). IN addition you need to have a plan to address alpha strike armies like space marine factions are known for due to the removal of any reserve limitations ("reserve-all is a thing now and one marine formation can even assault from reserve). Threes more but some we inherently deal with like hordes and others we really have no defense against, like psych heavy armies. No the helm of spite or crucible doesn't count.

Anyway your collection is a solid start to an army and I'll second what Jim said. You need at least 3 venoms and consider reavers, scourges, ravagers as high priority also. I'd start strong and trickle in units that are subpar like wracks, wyches, hellions and so on.. if you even decide to try them.

Thanks for the advice guys, I went ahead and got some venoms to run Scalpel Squadron; what's the best way to kit out the wracks? From what I can see it looks like the ossifier and no acothyst is the way to go. Also, as to your guys' recommendations that I look into getting some Ravagers, I was given to understand they weren't so great in this edition. Should I bother with the dark lances on them or just make them disintegrator boats?

Lastly, I'm curious about how good a Cronos is for boosting FnP. It seems useful for Grots in CC or something, or are we usually too mobile to make use of the tiny bubble?

Ossifier is optional, nothing else is worth it.

Ravagers are still good, just not as great as last edition. Dark Lamces are preferred.

The Cronos is okay in a Dark Artisan, but his ability sent good enough to take him over a Talos or Ravager if you're weighing Heavy Support slots.