The next step

Hello again, Dark Ctizens.
As you might have implied from the topic, and from my profile, yes, this is another newbie asking for general advice on Dark Eldar.

One thing that's been gnawing on my mind is what should the next step be? I have the DE Codex in my hands, have checked and thought about army lists to know what I need, have a Kabal theme in the back of my head, etc.

Keep in mind that I have pretty much no experience in WH40K gaming and painting and I've yet to invest in all those utensils.
Also note that I am not in a place where GW ships so I'm kinda stuck there.

What I want to know is what are the first things I'm going to need to start?
-Dark Eldar Battleforce: 10 Kabalites / 10 Wyches / 3 Reavers / 1 Raider is cool to have, and it's useful on any army list. So guess it's a good first option.
-Dark Vengeance: Sure it's not DE, but it would help getting started somewhere. Besides having the templates/dice/pocket rulebook. And some armies in case some friend wants to learn about the game and/or paint tryouts before the real deal (DE).
-Assembly utensils: Paints, glue, pliers, knife, brushes, green stuff, etc. Hey I really want to make a good first impression!

Which ones are good, which ones are bad... any tips on those?
Many thanks in advance!

-JuliusK

Hello Julius,

welcome to the wargaming hobby. The start can be very expensive, but you will have fun for years (I'm playing for 14 years now).
How much money do you want to spent for your first tabletop wave?

Lets take a look at your options:
Dark Vengeance - you are absolutely right. Buy it and train painting on the cultists before you start with your DE.
After that I would buy following boxes:
2 x battleforce
4 x Venoms
2 x Ravagers

This give you 20 warriors, 20 wyches, 6 Transporters for them and 2 Tank Hunter (Ravagers). Add an HQ of your choice and you have a nice 1300 points army. There are just a few useless units (looking at you Mandrakes) in the Codex. Most units are viable.

Assembly utensils: GW colors are not bad, but I've changed to Vallejo game colors. The are cheaper and they don't dry in the bottle like the GW colors.

The biggest point in starting an army is motivation. At the end of the last year I recovered 60 soldiers of the old GW steel legion in box and wanted to paint them. But seeing the big block of work in front of you can be very demotivating. I decided to break the army in parts of 5 miniatures each. The worked perfectly. Set realistic goals like painting 5 warriors until sunday evening will help you.

Welcome to the Void Julius.

I agree with everything Lay_Ayanesha has said and have some more options.

Army Painter is great for tools and their black primer is better than GW's Black. Their color primers are great as well. http://usshop.thearmypainter.com/index.php

Places like http://www.thewarstore.com/ can be a one stop shop for everything you need paint, tool an model wise.

GW paints are good, but Vallejo is better IMHO. Especially if you want to get into airbrushing down the road.

Check out the blog-o-sphere too for tutorials and tips.
Sites like these are loaded with helpful info:
http://darkfuturegaming.blogspot.com/
http://www.standardtemplateconstruct.net/
http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com/

Hm, thanks for the links from me as well, will look into those, Error.

And yes, the battleforce is probably the best to get at first, maybe two.

JuliusKabal wrote:

What I want to know is what are the first things I'm going to need to start?

Knowing what to get is easy when you know how you want your army to play. As someone just starting Dark Eldar myself, I found Plastikente's Dark Eldar Unit Guide a huge help in deciding what units I wanted to field based on my playstyle, which in turn dictated what I bought.

That said, 2 Battleforces and at least 2 Venoms seems like a good start for anyone.

I probably wouldn't recommend green stuff for someone new to the hobby, and I'm a proponent of uniqueness and customisation. You're likely better off saving your money and starting with simple kitbashes until you get a feel for it and are more confident in your abilities. Unless, of course, you learn best by diving in head first and flailing about for a bit.

Lay_Ayanesha wrote:

The biggest point in starting an army is motivation. [...] But seeing the big block of work in front of you can be very demotivating. [...] Set realistic goals like painting 5 warriors until sunday evening will help you.

I'm going to echo this point. I had an undead army in Warhammer Fantasy and started out small, adding one regiment at a time until it was a considerable force and had no problems doing so. Starting my Dark Eldar army, I decided I wanted to customise as much as possible from the start and so bought pretty much everything at once. Such a large amount of models can be daunting and difficult to know where to start.

Thanks for all of your advice! It's been quite a guide starting in this hobby.

Speaking of which, I found this really neat set from Army Painter.
The Army Painter Mega Hobby Set
It pretty much includes everything to start, or so it says. Is it a good purchase?

Also, I've decided to go for Dark Vengeance first like Lay_Ayanesha said. It'll be helpful to start on this hobby.