2k pt list, needs some advice!

Hey all dwelling in Commorragh, hope you are having a painful day!
I have just dug out my Dark Eldar army and am working on starting up some games with some mates. Grabbed the new codex the other day and have noticed a hell of a lot has changed.
I had been playing Dark Eldar for many many years not long after they where first released but as life changed I had to put my hobby into hybination, but now the dust is off and the Haemonculi are out to play!
Sadly my list is missing my Ravs but I have struggled to find them, but am keen to get the new models if they are worth having or if i am better off going for the new Razorwing Jetfighters?
A friend of mine has been playing a CSM Nurgle army and has been having alot of fun with the new Helldrake and from the new rules and stuff seems to me a lot off attention is going towards flyers and dog fights in the sky?
Also Mandrakes are they worth feilding? I am a huge fan of them and was the only gamer in my club that would use them, but I just love em and they seemed to do ok in the past, but not to sure how they will go now as every things seems to all be dakka dakka. And when i was reading about Kheradruakh The Decapitator I had a full hard on the hole time and would love to have him on the battle field, but again is it worth it due to high points compaired to an Archon that you can pimp out?
I am very much interested in seeing what you guys/gals have to say and getting a few games under way and getting used to the new Dark Eldar, if they are new and improved lol.

Anyways i think i have ranted enough and talk to you all soon!

HQ
Archon
Blast Pistol , Combat Drugs, Ghostplate Armour, Haywire Grenades, Huskblade, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Plasma Grenades, Shadow field, Soul-trap
Haemonculus
Huskblade, Liquifier Gun, Scissorhand, Stinger Pistol, Upgrade to Haemonculus Ancient

Elites
Incubi - x4/x1 Klaivex
Klavex
Bloodstone, Demiklaives, Murderous Assault (Murderous Assault), Onslaught (Onslaught)
Raider
Disintegrator, Flickerfield, Nightshield

Kabalite Trueborn x5
2x Dark Lance, 5x Haywire Grenades, 5x Plasma Grenades, 3x Shardcarbine

Kabalite Trueborn x5
5x Haywire Grenades, 5x Plasma Grenades, 3x Shardcarbine, 2x Splinter Cannon

Troops
Kabalite Warriors x10
Blaster, Dark Lance

Kabalite Warriors x10
9x Splinter Rifle
x1 Splinter Cannon
Raider
Dark Lance, Flickerfield, Nightshield, Splinter Racks

Wyches x9
Haywire grenades, Hydra Gauntlets, Plasma Grenades
Hekatrix
Agoniser, Blast Pistol, Haywire grenades, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Plasma Grenades
Raider
Dark Lance, Flickerfield, Nightshield

Wyches x8
8x Haywire grenades, 8x Plasma Grenades, 8x Splinter Pistol and Close Combat Weapon

Fast Attack
Reaver Jetbikes x9
Blaster, 2x Cluster catrops, Grav-Talon, 2x Heat Lance
Arena Champion Upgrade
Agonizer

Scourges
Ghostplate Armour, Plasma Grenades, 3x Scourge, 3x Shardcarbine
Solarithe
Shardcarbine

Heavy Support
Talos Pain Engine
Additional close combat weapon, Chain-Flails, Twin-linked heat lance

Hi Darkaos, welcome aboard!

To answer a couple of your specific questions, here are my personal opinions on each:

1) Mandrakes - Not worth the cost. 15 points is heavy for a non-shooting unit (without pain token) with very limited fighting ability.
2) Ravagers are perhaps the most efficient buy for Dark Lances. Problem is, they are also the biggest glass cannon in a store made out of glass that only sells glass cannons. At least 1 Ravager is definitely a good buy though.
3) Razorwings are definitely fun as well and both flyers are competitive choices. At this point the flyers do seem to command a lot of attention online and in person discussion. Not so prevalent on the battlefield even though the majority of armies have some sort of flyer available. Of the two I prefer a regular Razorwing because the investment in a Void Raven (points wise) can be pretty steep.
4) The Decapitator has always been an interesting unit fluff wise. In practice never "good". At best, ok in very specific circumstances. I think pre-release people would have loved to have seen him become a sarg for the Mandrakes but I guess GW felt differently.

Regarding your list, I do have some feedback as well:

- I think you're overbuying haywires for your trueborn. If they are going to sit and shoot those lances. They probably aren't going to be close enough to use those grenades.
- I would consider dropping the Talos and the Scourges. Talos is a bit too slow (faster nowadays) but still quite slow and the Scourges are generally thought of as being too points inefficient for what they do.

Suggestions:

- Use 3 squads of 3 man Trueborn squads with 2 lances each.
- Consider adding venoms (could be used as empty transports for the trueborn) with additional splinter cannons.
- Split up the blob squad of 9 Reavers into a 6 man with 2 heat lances and a 3 man squad with blaster.
- Add a transport for the second squad of Wyches.
- For the warriors Raider, drop the flickerfield and nightshield. I say drop the night shield because if you want to really get the most out of the splinter rack then you're going to have to come much closer and thus reducing the utility from the night shield. You could consider just reallocating this Raider to the second squad of wyches since they will "need" it more if you can't find the points.

Darkaos wrote:

HQ
Archon
Blast Pistol , Combat Drugs, Ghostplate Armour, Haywire Grenades, Huskblade, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Plasma Grenades, Shadow field, Soul-trap

Dont need the blast pistol, not worth the points for a 6" range, if you wanted to shave points i'd say cut the ghostplate too.

Haemonculus
Huskblade, Liquifier Gun, Scissorhand, Stinger Pistol, Upgrade to Haemonculus Ancient

haemonculi arn't the best at melee, they're heads and tails over mandrakes though! It would be more points effecient to just have the liquifier on this guy and maybe a Venom blade.

Elites
Incubi - x4/x1 Klaivex
Klavex
Bloodstone, Demiklaives, Murderous Assault (Murderous Assault), Onslaught (Onslaught)

Save the points on the bloodstone

Raider
Disintegrator, Flickerfield, Nightshield

Kabalite Trueborn x5
2x Dark Lance, 5x Haywire Grenades, 5x Plasma Grenades, 3x Shardcarbine

Good ole sniper squad, if you want to run the trueborn like this i'd say ditch the grenades as a whole, usually when i see these guys they're mounted in a venom with blasters and haywire grenades.

Kabalite Trueborn x5
5x Haywire Grenades, 5x Plasma Grenades, 3x Shardcarbine, 2x Splinter Cannon



Troops
Kabalite Warriors x10
Blaster, Dark Lance

Kabalite Warriors x10
9x Splinter Rifle
x1 Splinter Cannon
Raider
Dark Lance, Flickerfield, Nightshield, Splinter Racks

Wyches x9
Haywire grenades, Hydra Gauntlets, Plasma Grenades
Hekatrix
Agoniser, Blast Pistol, Haywire grenades, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Plasma Grenades
Raider
Dark Lance, Flickerfield, Nightshield

once again i'd recommend to ditch the blast pistol

Wyches x8
8x Haywire grenades, 8x Plasma Grenades, 8x Splinter Pistol and Close Combat Weapon

Fast Attack
Reaver Jetbikes x9
Blaster, 2x Cluster catrops, Grav-Talon, 2x Heat Lance
Arena Champion Upgrade
Agonizer

Scourges
Ghostplate Armour, Plasma Grenades, 3x Scourge, 3x Shardcarbine
Solarithe
Shardcarbine

Heavy Support
Talos Pain Engine
Additional close combat weapon, Chain-Flails, Twin-linked heat lance

Overall i think this list is fine, seems like you have a little bit of column A and column B going on. Will definitely give you an experience on what and how you want to run things from both columns. Mandrakes and Decapitator.... hopefully will be better in the next codex....12 years from now : / Ravagers i think are AMAZING! The thing that fliers have is all their newness and everyone having a lack of ability to hurt them. They're cool, They're new, They're fliers! its my experience that our fliers need to be run in multiples to have any real effect on the field.

Dark Eldar have not really changed as far as the feel of them, fast as hell, fragile.

I will agree with huymix on the arguments on the mandrakes, razorwing jet, venoms, reavers (though equal size squads instead of big small) and transport for the wyches. But will disagree on the NS hateraid, because it screws up so many opponents that i play against because they forget about them, and the 3 man trueborm unit, i know that a squad on the ground that stays 3 man strong is just going to get coughed to death.

wow... this is my longest post....ever!

Thx heaps guys for all the info, has gave me a big help on my list making. I can see what yas are saying about a fair bit of points being wasted on upgrades that arnt needed.
Looks like I'm gunna have to hit the shops and load up on venom's, to be honest at first I thought of them being a waste as I would have never ran a 5 man squad in the past unless it was Incubi lol
And I totally appreciate your longest post ever Psycheer

Hey, if you're local area forgets about Nightshields then by all means go and buy the upgrades. I just know my local area are fully aware of that trick and will not be taken in by it.

One thing about building a Dark Eldar army is that you really have to find a style you like beyond what is the most effective and that can definitely take some time and some reversing of past decisions. I mean, I built and painted a full 20 man Hellion squad which now sits with my other models collecting dust.

What I'm saying is, tweak and change whatever you like. In 2k, there is enough room to try a lot of different builds which may suit you, and the local meta, differently than it would me.

huymix wrote:

Hey, if you're local area forgets about Nightshields then by all means go and buy the upgrades. I just know my local area are fully aware of that trick and will not be taken in by it.

One thing about building a Dark Eldar army is that you really have to find a style you like beyond what is the most effective and that can definitely take some time and some reversing of past decisions. I mean, I built and painted a full 20 man Hellion squad which now sits with my other models collecting dust.

What I'm saying is, tweak and change whatever you like. In 2k, there is enough room to try a lot of different builds which may suit you, and the local meta, differently than it would me.

Yeah very true, I used to always love playing with lots of Wytches, Hellions and Reavers and just have a handfull of sniper teams sitting around in buildings, but now I have noticed the change in the rules that seem to make me think that I will get a lot further in wins with lots of dakkadakka and just a few foot cc troops running around as a distraction and hold ups while i shot down what i can.