To Make an Dark Eldar Army...?

Alright. So. I'm a complete noob when it comes to Dark Eldar (Or for that matter, 40K in general...)

Anyway, if I'm going to play, I'll need an Army. I was told Dark Eldar armies "Strike hard, strike fast, and strike first.". This is exactly how I would love to play. I've been looking over some of the units, and ones that caught my eye were Warp Spiders, Reavers, Incubi, Scourges, and Talos Pain Engines.

So, yeah. Help, suggestions, tutorial?

Well first get the codex for dark eldar and the 6th rulebook. The rulebook will show you all the rules to play and the codex for dark eldar will in the back of it show you the points. Then after you read through it just start getting models. The best buy is the starter set for them. Comes with 3 reaver bikes, 1 raider, 10 wyches, and 10 warriors. From there buy another raider and a HQ and have fun. Eventually buy more above 2000 points. Average games are betwreen 1500 to 2000 from what I seen.

Also you'll have to get dice, a scatter dice, tape measure, and templates separate from the rest of what I said above.

You can pick up the pocket rulebook from the Dark Vengeance set complete with templates, dice and inch rulers (poor man's measuring tape) for very cheap on ebay. Getting the super expensive 60EUR book is nice if you're into the background and have a lot of spare money, but for gaming the pocket one is better simply because it's not so big and not so heavy.

DE are a very unforgiving army. You need tactical finesse to win, so expect to lose your first few games just like we all did. Don't get discouraged, if you master the Dark Kin they're extremely fun to play.

In terms of models I'd second The Cunning One. Battle Force an additional Raider and HQ of your choice is your best bet. Generally try to always have a transport for each of your units that isn't beast or jump infantry (or Monstrous Creature if you're taking a Talos). Provides you with fast movement and a lot of similar looking targets for your opponent to worry about. Should keep your Ravagers (very efficient Heavy Support) just a tiny bit safer. Also upgrade Night Shields... you want them, I know it!

I would have to say Dogmar and The Cunning One are spot on. Start with the Battle force, and even the try EBAY first. Once you have just a battle force you can make both non-coven HQs, Trueborn (find a post about making extra blasters), Bloodbrides, etc... One thing I will point out, as my Warriors are never CC units, take the Warrior sprue's PGL and slap it on the Hekatrix for the wych squad.

You will have to pick up additional rides though, as the BF only comes with the one.

Anyway, Welcome to the Dark Eldar!

My one friend has a great personal quote about Playing Dark Eldar... "Expect to loose often, but win Gloriously when you do."

All too true in my experience. They are a very fun army, and one of the best 40k armies fluff/model wise. You might win easier and quicker with Chaos Marines or Grey Knights...but it's just not as "cool"

LuckyNo.5 wrote:

My one friend has a great personal quote about Playing Dark Eldar... "Expect to loose often, but win Gloriously when you do."

All too true in my experience. They are a very fun army, and one of the best 40k armies fluff/model wise. You might win easier and quicker with Chaos Marines or Grey Knights...but it's just not as "cool"

In short don't expect to be gifted or aWARDed any free wins.

Also I've heard from many that Dark Eldar is the veterans army of choice due to that fact. When we win we crush them. When we lose we are really crushed.

I dont think DE are as hard to play as many make it out to be. The main problem is that building of lists. You need to know what you want each unit to do. Its not like many other races where you can have multipurpose units. We need to save each point. And also even tho it looks like we got alot of AT, it really really unreliable. So we need to pump as much as possible in to the lists.

There are many good units to choose from but they might not work in a competitive list. For fun lists well, then you do what you want. But if you are going to play competitive its pritty stright forward, its MSU, its 5x Warriors with blasters in venom as troop, its trueborns with blastes as elite and Ravangers as Heavy and maby a group of haywire granade wyches in raider aswell... (have not played any wyches cult games in 6th ed yet, going to play some this weekend, but won every game so far with my kabal list)

Incubis for example, have no place in a competitive list. I love them to death and play them alot in fun lists. But what are their purpose? to kill termies, well we got alot of other stuff that are better to do that job.

We need stuff to take down veichles and that fast as possible as we will struggle if we dont shoot down that hard hitting stuff in our alpha strike.

Even though I'm not a competetive player I think your analysis about competetive DE is a bit one-dimensional. Yep, there is the venomspam monobuild, and for that matter you should consider 2x5 wyches with haywire nades in venoms (or raiders), but you can have a lot of success if you don't max out on the shooty part of the DE.

I'm not saying venom spam isn't effective, and from the builds that work competetively it's probably the easiest to play, but there are other things that work as well.

To have incubi work for example you need to play at a reasonable points size of game (they're expensive after all) and you need to build your list around it. You need the PGL and you need Wyches and possibly reavers to tie units up in CC. Wyches function also as anti-tank as you'll obviously be packing fewer warriors. Incubi don't want to go toe to toe with hammernators of course, that's not what they are for. If you face hammernators shoot the crap out of them and avoid them if possible. What incubi do though is munch MEQ and non StormShield TEQ - and they do that good! I'd say if you play accordingly and choose your targets your incubi will eat a lot of things.

Enfernux for example has used such an army in a competetive environment to good effect. Maybe he'll chime in to enlighten you a bit more.

I couldn't agree with dogmar more on this. Shooting spam lists are the new be all end all in sixth edition, but charging the other guy with incubi and a huskblade archon then stealing their commander's soul to go super sayen is far more satisfactory.
I can't think of any unit in any army that wants to take on hammernaters in cc, maybe a blobs of wraiths?

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But if you are going to play competitive its pritty stright forward, its MSU, its 5x Warriors with blasters in venom as troop, its trueborns with blastes as elite and Ravangers as Heavy and maby a group of haywire granade wyches in raider aswell...

And one will fail miserabely against any semi-competiteve IG if he will go this route.

Vendettas say hello, as do most of Barrages - Large Blasts which have a huuuge boost in 6th.

Problem is - this is an archetype already, and is expected when other players make their lists.
And i can tell many army can play and win it *easily*. Alhtough this can be hell for some others.

lol although IG are pretty much built to beat us. So against any basic semi-competitive IG list out there except Guard Blob... any of our lists needs a hope and a good day to win

Nope. =) 2 Big Units of Beasts became is a premiere choice against them. Dont give a damn about overwatch, can eat those 10 AV easily.

After latest FAQ it is so damn funny to charge chimeras - and the squad who disembarks after it cant fire at all cause they are stunned.

It is actually pretty obvious for me that cover saves and wounds became a lot better protection then armor value.
Therefore pure mech is a no no.

Griffons are a threat, but a threat managable. This said 3 Linked Lascanoon vendetta (which we realistically dont have answers, without screwing majorly firepower and elfpower of our lists) is deadly threat to any Vehicle and by now far more to any Infantry unit inside, but is a moderate one to a unit in cover. And it is a no threat to unit fighting in close combat. So i think - competiteve paradigm changing.

Wyches defently have their place, and I myself use a group of wyches with haywire granades, but that is one group not much more. Maby two but taking more isnt competitive.

Our main problem is AT an AA. And taking Incubis doesnt solve that problem. Taking down Termies? Well should they come in our faces we got lances, blasters, poisen even, with X shoots we can take down a group without that much problem. But the problem we got is veichle spam.

IG is going to be a terrible matchup for us anyway. There really isnt much we can do about that, its just getting the first round and play the games of our lifes. Yes I use beast myself, and that is much to play against IG. (and also can take down veichles)

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But what are their purpose? to kill termies, well we got alot of other stuff that are better to do that job.

Well, Incubus do kill in a slightly different manner then all other marine wrecking things we have - they do it in a very fast way, whether posion and blasters will kill marines just as reliably, they will do it for more amount of turns. There is cover in the equation and you do atacks in one phase per turn, not two.

With Incubi usually in one full game turn it will be over.

So - question is, how exactly this is an advantage and how to use it.

One thing that came to mind is to keep em in reserve and arrive where they are needed to wreck chaos on later turns. They can afford that, cause they are very fast killers.

As you can tell by al the responses, we all have our likes and dislikes about our beloved dark kin. Me, I like to run Baron Sathynox and hellions. It is very difficult to run a list like that but I just love fielding them. Don't win alot but do have fun. Wyches have a different roll now since 6th ed is out as do warriors. The DE do have some of the best troop choices IMHO. The fact that Eldar are battle brothers with DE is also a great thing, taking reavers with a Saim Hann army is going to be great, trying that out this weekend. I like playing a cult over a kabal or coven but that is what makes this army so versitile. Read the book and see what catches your eye, start there and the rest should fall into place. Above all just remember it is a game and have fun.