New DE Player

I've been playing Warhammer 40,000 since 2010, when I received Assault on Black Reach as a high school graduation gift. However, my interest in the universe sparked in 2005 when I received Dawn of War for Christmas. For five years, all I knew about the Warhammer universe was the Dawn of War games.

In 2013, I received Dark Vengeance, a Space Marine Scout Squad and Dark Angel Veterans Squad, as well as paint, glue and brushes, from my Landlord's wife because I helped fix up the house. Needless to say, since most of my collection was Space Marines, my first real army was Dark Angels. I eventually sold both my Dark Angel Army and my Chaos Space Marines before moving to Pueblo, Colorado in March of last year. I prioritized playing Orks for awhile, then I played Space Wolves, then Dark Angels again before playing Blood Angels. Back in January I stopped playing 40k and sold my Blood Angels.

I didn't get back into 40k until May, when I purchased the Start Collecting: Astra Militarum set. Been playing that army since, but now I'm jumping over to Dark Eldar. It'll be my first non-Ork Xenos Army. When deciding Astra Militarum wasn't for me, I had made a list of armies I wanted to play (Tau, Necrons and Dark Eldar) and showed the list to my girlfriend, giving a brief description of each army. Yes, I allowed my girlfriend to pick my new army and she picked Dark Eldar.

I am aware that the Dark Eldar codex isn't in the best of places right now, I've had one friend try to talk me out of playing them and keeping my Astra Militarum instead because he said I'll lose even more frequently with DE. However, I have decided that when I get my paycheck on the 1st of next month, I am buying Start Collecting: Dark Eldar. I've been researching the faction non-stop since then and even got out my Soulstorm CD and started playing as Dark Eldar exclusively. I am aware that the video games don't translate at all into the tabletop, but this is just what I do when I seriously find something that interests me. My forum name here is even the name I gave my Dark Eldar Incubus in roleplays I do with my girlfriend.

A few other things about me:
My favorite colors are black and blue.
My favorite food is anything with cheese on it.
I hate coffee and love tea.
I'm currently trying to quit Sodas 'cold turkey' because I realized that they're not good for me.
I participate in the Reddit Secret Santa every Christmas.
Besides War40k, I also play Magic: The Gathering (Dimir Decks mostly), Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder, Shadowrun and Battletech (GO HOUSE STEINER!).
I am also making my own video game I'm hoping to get off the ground, been working on it since 2012.


And now to end this long winded introduction, I give you guys this. Yes, it is me in the video:

Äm...welcome. I can't remember that I've ever seen such a detailed introduction.
Anyway: you've come to the right place if you want to learn about the true Eldar.
However (there is always an "however"): you will encounter plenty of "the sky is falling" and "we are doomed!" comments. While it is correct that our codex isn't be competitive, it can't get quite discouraging to hear that all the time.
If your gaming circle isn't doing all the super competitive stuff (like wraith knight spam or super friends death star) you're good. If you still struggle, ally in some Craftworld Eldar (lame!).

May your raids always be successful!

What he said basically.

Welcome to the Fourm.

We are not the weakest codex if you add in the Haemonculus Supplement but we are near the bottom. If you don't have the Supplement I recommend getting one, some of the Coven formations help make a pure True Kin list work in a non-completely competitive environment.

One important thing to remember with Dark Eldar is play to the objectives.

Note that there are some differences in the portrayal of the current Dark Eldar and those in Soulstorm as the Soulstorm Dark Eldar us the 3rd edition version and the 5th/7th edition were a rework of the concept.

The start collecting box isn't a bad start. Kabalites are our best troop choice, raiders will come in handy not so much for gunboats if your gaming group uses the first draft of the FAQ where jinking effects passengers but instead as a transport to move Grotesques around and their heavy weapon (disintegrators are good verse MEQ and of course an extra Dark Lance is good if you are facing more vehicles).

Do not buy grotesques, it is better to convert them, you can find many guides and images of conversions people have done.

The Archon isn't in a very good place so I would recommend getting a Succubus (more cost efficient) or get/convert a Lhamaen from the Court of the Archon. It has been confirmed in the first draft of our FAQ that the Court can be used as your HQ choice. If you do go Archon just don't over spend on gear for him, he isn't really worth it in my opinion

I would recommend picking up some Venoms to run your Kabalites in. They are one of our best anti-infantry tools and do to the way they butchered our codex in 7th the only vehicle we have with a flicker field to try and keep us from being shot down by ignores cover.

If your group runs lots of Super Heavies you will have problem with the Dark Eldar, we just don't have the tools to deal with them efficiently.

I was informed by someone in my play group that Wracks and Venoms are very good. He suggested I get 4 to 6 of them. Most of those who play are not competitive and those who are wont bring tournament armies to games done for fun. I normally don't play in the tournaments, last time I got my ass handed to me.

The person I play against the most runs Tau, Eldar or Taudar. I also play against a Nids player every now and then. I actually haven't had the chance to play against absolutely everyone in the group.

Wracks aren't considered that great by the DE community, actually most people just forget about them. Maybe he got Wracks and Grotesques mixed up. Nevertheless welcome and I hope that our members are able to give you some good advice and feed back as you need it.

Edit: I forgot to mention, make sure you use lots of terrain as Dark Eldar, if you don't have much it is worth the time and investment to make some more for you to play with.

I only play at the local shop which has a massive amount of terrain. I utilize it often when fighting my Tau friend.

I will repeat what others have already said. The Get Started set is a good place to start, and will give you the core of your army. After you purchase that, I would recommend a few Venoms to act as a taxi to your warriors (ObSec troops). After that, you are pretty much on your own.

I did a thread a while back analyzing our various assault units (http://www.thedarkcity.net/t13836-assault-troop-analysis). Basically the conclusion was Grotesques, Incubi and the Lhameans in the Court are our best assault units. I would recomend including a few of them in your list.

Other than that, welcome to the Dark City fellow Archon!

I do like the look of the new Incubi models compared to what is in Soulstorm. I do have two questions though.

1. What happened to the Dias of Destruction? I've seen pictures of an official model for it but there are no options for it in Battlescribe, in fact it seems we have a complete lack of LOWs. All of the other Super Units for the armies from Soulstorm either appear in Forge World or are from Games Workshop, so this kinda bothers me as the Dias of Destruction seems to be the only Super Unit from the games that you can't use in the tabletop.

2. When did the Mandrake models change? When I saw the new ones, I originally thought they were entirely different units. Is it possible to kitbash some Mandrakes to make them look more like their Soulstorm counterparts?



EDIT:
Side note, no one plays less than 500pts games at the shop I go to. So I have to play this list until I get more Dark Eldar.

Spoiler:

The Dias of Destruction is specific to Vect, there  is no mention of any other Archon having one. The original one was part of the 3rd edition line and when they reworked the Dark Eldar in 5th edition they never got around to creating a new model for it and Vect. When they created our "7th" edition codex they dropped every special character we had that didn't have a currently supported model in addition to cutting out just about every unique aspect of our codex. Forgeworld created 2 unique units for us but never created the Dias of Destruction. They recently discontinued the 3rd edition fighter that we had and were still producing.

All miniatures got some fluff changes and new models in 5th edition when they reworked the Dark Eldar. Soulstorm uses the Old 3rd edition concepts and designs. You should be able to find some of the old 3rd edition miniatures on ebay. As for kitbashing the Mandrakes, I'm not sure I never tried to, I wasn't much of a fan of the old 3rd edition line to be honest.

Edit: Okay, I thought on kitbashing an Old Mandrake and I would say it would slightly depend on your skills with greenstuff/greenstuff equivalent. Bald heads can be found with the wyches and venoms. Wych arms would match them pretty well as they wear gloves but have the arms exposed and muscular, Kabalite legs with the spikes removed would work for the lower body, I just don't know what to do for the torso.

So we're going to be short one flier? We currently have two right now. Not that I play fliers, then again I might have to. Haven't found any skyfire weapons while flipping through the codex.

GW produces the two flyers that are in the codex, the Voidraven and Razorwing. Forgeworld produced the Raven Fighter which I believe was depicted in the the Soulstorm game. Was a cheap flyer (pointwise) but not really something most people would buy.

We have no skyfire on any ground unit. I didn't buy the Death from the Skies Supplement so I'm not familiar enough with the changes to our flyers to say if we lost skyfire on the Razorwing Jetfighter or not. The Voidraven, being a bomber, I believe lost skyfire. Of course those changes only matter if you are using the supplement with your games.

At the local store, the new flier rules MUST be used.

Personally, I've never used fliers. Only brought Skyfire weaponry like the Hydra when I was playing Astra Militarum.