Just starting new DE army advice please

Hi all
This is an intro as well as a question, Im a new Dark Eldar player I actually havent played them yet. I have a substantial space marine army and wanted something totally different so I went Dark Eldar. What mostly got me was how exquisite the models are, I think arguably the nicest in the GW 40k line. I have no idea how they play as I havent opened the codex yet, but have been busy building and modeling the start of the army.

So far I have; 1 raider, 10 witches and Leilth, 10 warriors 1 Talos and Haemonculi, 5 incubi, 5 mandrakes, 5 scourges and a Razor wing fighter oh and 3 reavers.

I know there are countless army lists but what are "must haves" to add to what I have? I haven't even counted what I have in points yet but want to have at least 2500 points.

I'd like to post pics of my army too is that easy on here?

Thanks its nice to be here

Hello,

first of all, welcome to The Dark City. I hope you enjoy your break from Space Marines. DE are truly a different (and difficult) beast to master, but once you get the hang of them they're very rewarding, thing is that you have to plan in advance. Once you make a mistake you can't rely on a 3+ armor to survive. Also you generally shouldn't footslog across the field. Termis can do that, 6+ armor wyches don't. The key to winning with dark eldar is movement and positioning - speed is your friend, learn to use that to your advantage. With an up to 30" turbo boost from our transports our army can relocate like no other and pick the opponent apart with overwhelming power while half of his army is on the opposite side of the field wondering what to do. Just don't get discouraged if you don't win often first, it takes time getting used to. Consider it a good learing experience and just have fun with the game - that's what it is after all.

Model wise it looks like you have a good start there, I'd play lelith as a reguar succubus though, as she imo eats up too many points for what she can do. You might want to invest in a ravager and some more transports... see above for the part about footslogging.

In terms of must haves there is no real cookie cutter build... well, you could go venomspam, which is considered highly competetive, but from a more relaxed point of view anything even remotely synergetic can work well if it suits your playstyle. Enfernux runs a full close combat list to great success for example and mushkilla has 21 reaver jetbikes at 1,5k - also very efficient if used right. There are almost no things useless in the dex (mandrakes being the arguable exception) if used right. Some very common troop setups include:

Blasterborn:

3-4 Trueborn with Blaster in Venom with 2nd SC (4 blasters in a single, mobile, tank busting unit, 'nuff said)

5 Warriors, one with Blaster in Venom with 2nd SC (simple, efficient, can do AI and AT)

5 Wyches with Haywire Grenades, Optional Succubus with Phantasm Grenade Launcher and Venomblade in Venom with 2nd SC (more or less suicide tank hunters)

8 Wyches with Haywire Grenades, Succubus with Venomblade or Agoniser and PGL (see above) in Raider (regular assault squad)

10 Warriors with Splinter Cannon in Raider with Splinter Racks (the Gunboat)

You can add vehicle upgrades as you wish, with pre-measuring in 6th Night Shields are very popular.

As for a painting log. There is a dedicated sub-forum for such things, you can ask painting questions, show your progress in a painting log or post pics of your finished stuff in the showcase. Oh, and you can share your marine army with us in the "Distractions" part. Easiest way to post pics is uploading them to a picture hoster such as photobucket and then use the [img] code (there's usually one below your picture for easy copying proviced by the pic-hoster).

Hope that helped a bit, this post really got longer than I expected.

Have a great time.

Cheers,

Dogmar

Posting pictures is really easy.
1. Right click on the pic, scroll down to "copy image location"
2. In your post click the button of the text box that looks like a picture(just to the left of the hyperlink button)
3. Paste the image location into the link that pops up.
4. Press "OK"
5. Done.

As to the army advice, there is a dedicated thread that should give you some direction:
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t2812-a-beginners-guide-to-starting-dark-eldar

Hope it helps, and welcome to The Dark City

Thanks for the awesome advice guys

PaulT wrote:

Thanks for the awesome advice guys

It's what we do! glad to have you here

Dogmar's run down was spot on.

Sweet Thanks Dogmar you rock...

PaulT wrote:

Sweet Thanks Dogmar you rock...

haha, thanks for the kind words. As ESE said, that's just what we do. When I started Dark Eldar I came to this forum just like you and with some time I learned a lot from the people here and I hope you share the good experience I had, now that it's me to give some advice rather than receiving it. There's still a lot to learn and especially when it comes to tournament play there are better people to ask. I play more friendly games and paint a lot.

As far as collecting the army, as with all armies I would recommend the battle force as you get alot for a (relatively) cheap price.

For units, everything in our Heavy support is awesome, to the point that any game 1k+ I max my heavy support. In particular the ravager is awesome, however you will need some voidravens or razorwings in order to fight enemy fighters (and they are our only reliable way to take down flyers). Also if you like assault, which I think is not the best way to build a DE army I would check out Baron with 3 beastmasters, 2 razorwings and 10 kymeraes. The unit is 186 for the beasts and 105 for baron, but they do alot of attacks and have some good resilience with the 4++ kymeraes and the stealth from baron.

For elites, trueborn (as stated above) and incubi tend to be good, and I would avoid blood brides since they really aren't worth their points (wyches now are mainly to tie up units/wreck vehicles, and the blood brides dont do those jobs any better at +3 pts)

You might want to convert your beasts though, as the ones sold by GW are horribly expensive. Hellions with a few head and arm swaps make good beast masters for example, I've seen some people use Chaos Hounds for Khymerae, it's just the razorwing flocks I can't find a good substitution for without reasonable skills with green stuff. Well, I guess I'll figure it out some day.

With the fliers, I'm not sure myself. I play them because I like the models very much, but the "standard" 3 ravagers are a more immediate threat than a flier that could possibly only come in turn 4. Besides, most enemy fliers, excluding Necrons (seriously... cheeeeeeeese) have to go into hover mode to disembark troops, which means you can hit them at full BS and destroy them. That's how I had a DE tournament player in the local store argument yesterday. Dunno how solid this advice is, I guess you should experiment yourself, either way the razorwing is a lovely model.

Other than that Naugatan is spot on.

[img][/img]

These two posts were trying to post a pic, I followed the steps above didnt seem to work

PaulT wrote:

These two posts were trying to post a pic, I followed the steps above didnt seem to work

You are probably using the wrong link, you need to make sure you use the "direct" link when using photobucket or imageshack. Just edit your post and try a different link (saves you double posting).

Hope that helps.

I would invest in another box of scourges as for some reason the kits only come with 1 of each special weapon type - meanwhile a squad of 5 can have up to 2 special weapons (haywire blaster, heat lance, etc.) So by having 10 scourges it gives you the option of having 2 squads of 5 each with a different load out. rather than having 1 squad of 5 w/ 1 haywire and 1 heatlance (or some equally lack luster combination). Also, the models kick some serious butt.

I guess the point is, think about what you already have, and how you would like to use it. What options make them better? can you maximize that unit already? or do you need something else to give it a boost? Take your current meta into account as well, thinking about what you might be up against can help with purchases.

For the most part, DE really do well with a lot of transports. More raiders will be key and venoms will help out too. I started out writing lists with 1 raider (i only had 1 at the time) and now i have 3 raiders and 1 venom. thinking about picking up some more venoms too!

As others have said, the battleforce is a great way to add some meat to your already existing forces, and for a great price!

Hi again
Are Hellions a good choice in list? do they do the same as scourges? I have both but the hellions are still in their box to be assembled. I had my first game with my DE the other night and off course got my ass kicked. I didn't remember a lot of special rules like fleet for my witches and that my raider my only raider had flicker field and shadow something that cuts ranged weapons by 6 inches. The plan was to drop off the witches and go back to get the warriors, because I only have one raider (another is order) but it got shot down real quick, but if Id used its special rules it may have survived. Practice and read the codex over and over to get the DE's quite formidable special rules into play i guess

Yep. You need to remember every single rule your units have and as you go along try to remember most of the rules of your opponents armies as well. Not to say they're all cheating, but it surely makes you plan your moves better when you know what is most dangerous to your units.

Hellions are a so-so unit. They work very good in large blobs with the baron attached (say 15-20 models total). On paper that is. If you're running such a big unit even with some pain-token shenanegans (thus FNP from the start off) it is very vulnerable. You have a cover save and a 5+ FNP at best. However try to get 20 Hellions into cover. It is impossible and the ones outside will get focusfired. If you don't have like 4-5 boxes of hellions but just one I'd advise you to slightly convert them for use as beastmasters. Beasts got a huge boost in this edition and due to the Khymeraes 4+ inv and the many wounds of the razorwing flocks make for a far more durable unit. Just my 2 cents as I don't really like hellions this edition.

Speaking of Scourges: They fulfill a completely different role than hellions. Hellions can do quite a bit with shooting, but at close range - so your aim is to get them into CC. Scourges however should never be in CC for they are very much toast if they are. Have your scourges with max haywire blasters, as they are lulz this edition. There is only 1 in a five man box and you need two, but you can convert/magnetize one if you like. I built my second HWB out of a shard carbine and a shredder. Looks quite decent.

Hope I could help. Cheers.

Is 5 Scourges a effective unit size? Or do you need 10?

5 is just fine, 10 tends to get extremely expensive very fast.

For general purpose I suggest 5 with 2 Haywire Blasters.