Tell me about your learning curve experiences

Well as we all know there is quite a learning curve with our DE. I just had my tail handed to me again this time against a mech IG list. As soon as I set up I said to myself and my friend, "Oops I think I should have set up a different way" Between his cover ignoring shooting and my less than optimal set up I had another drubbing. I'm getting better. I'm spotting my mistakes about a minute and a half too late.

What was it like for you guys when you had to learn the ropes?

Today I faced crons and after two months and the FAQ I forgot to focus on one unit at a time lol

You should play active, not reactive.

When you play - make a goals and make them done, that way there is no such things as mistakes, only actions and consequneces.

Dont expect that if you do everything right, make no mistake magical force will carry you away to victory.

Well, and all else - know your army, know your opponents and all the rest blah blah.

I watched the good players play and tried to analyse what was important for them,

i got my rear handed to me last game, completely my own fault.
I had him entirely on the run, his counter attack was nasty, but not nasty enough, but it spooked me and I made a string of VERY bad decisions, and lost.

My experiences were long enough ago that I don't really recall the learning curve for DE anymore.

I certainly recall a few 'learning curves' for each new edition though. Egads, my Beasts went from 'awesome' in 4th, to useless in 5th, to awesome again in the new dex and now in 6th.

I do recall there being some shock to how fragile everything was, coming in from playing Orks, I was used to having huge mobs to soak up wounds, and also toughness 4 to help me bully smaller races, and then I was a smaller race. I think for me the big shock was learning how fragile everything was, and then learning how to get over it.

Still learning. Don't think I'll stop any time soon. Deployment and movement with a fragile army like Dark Edlar take an age to learn.

My advice is play against good players, and above all know the rulebook inside out and back to front. You can't afford to get into bad habbits with Dark Eldar. Bad habbits develope when you play bad players and misread the rules.

mate ive been playing for DE for over a decade and i still make stupid mistakes.

you know that feeling when things are going well (usually turn 2 for me) and you get excited, greedy or cocky, thats usually when ill make a stupid move. ive learnt to step back, take a deep breath and re-focus on the mission.

played IG last night, got vanguard and night fight. got 2 tanks 1st turn without even being hit, 2nd turn got another 2 tanks and 2 squads again with out reply, 3rd turn got cocky and lost a ravager, 2 raiders (most of the troops inside) and a venom got immobilized.

its too easy to think its in the bag and get excited and go for it too early, thankfully i recovered and won, i find its easier to make mistakes when playing less skilled opponents as you just don't concentrate as much, so yes defiantly choose your opponents well or pay the price.

Very much still learning - played a 1000 point experimental list last night that I fully expected to get its backside kicked (no transport, no ravagers, no reavers) and it ended up tabling about 1400 points worth of Blood Ravens. Not sure what conclusions to draw from it other than it is very funny when your opponent's dice rolling sucks - plus 10 hellions totally ruled everything they ran into, 2 haemies and 5 wracks splattered by a deepstriking unit before they could flex a surgically altered muscle...

Still new to DE. Whilst I've been collecting my army for just over a year now it was a good few months before I was able to field a painted army so I've not had as many games as I would have liked. I've had some real highs, like tabling my opponents in 3 turns, and some real lows. Mistakes are punished so much more with DE than with the marines that I was used to playing. I'm used to getting a 3+ armour save but I can't recall the last time I actually rolled an armour save with DE. Everything seems to cut through our armour and, being T3, negate FNP.

I'm definitely learning and as my army expands I will have more options to experiment with to see what suits my playstyle. At the moment I'm going for a tradtiional Venom-spam type list but I'm finding it tough and I've realised I do not have enough AT or anti-flyer in my lists so I'm working on that.

Well, I was so arrogant as to think I knew all there is to know about Dark Eldar. Because I play with them since 3rd edition.

This year I seriously wanted to enter tournaments (for the 1st time in my life) and started playing against strong tournament players and found out that I've got a lot to learn.

So I guess the learning curve is starting for me all over again and is steep at the moment. From my choice of units to my descisions in-game (where I make the most mistakes by the way).

This army has a learning curve??? uh... never noticed

Seriously though I started playing DE back in 4th, so I cant remember how much. I will say each new edition changes something, and your constantly getting corrected as you mix things up from edition to edition. My thing is always keep up on the rulebook, it will save you a ton of arguements if you know where certain problem rules are.

I played DE for 6 months, still learning man. Some how I got worse in that time so I took a 3 month break. Gonna get back into it, the main thing is to know your opponents army. This is my first army and never played before and everyone tells me I chose the wrong army for a beginner but I love it very challenging because they are so soft.

Against IG, I never can beat that army especially mech. They have so many blast weapons I dont know what to do.

EDIT:

Thor665 wrote:

I think for me the big shock was learning how fragile everything was, and then learning how to get over it.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Everything seems to cut through our armour and, being T3, negate FNP.

Yeah, it really mind screws me and now I need therapy.

The tactics page on this site is golden, keep in mind though that rolls have a major factor in the game too and we are not flexable like the mon-keigh.

Im going to finish my eldar army buy a codex and start fielding them, they are more flexable and more forgiving so hopefully I will gain more knowledge on how to play tactically and critically on the spot with them.

I own 8k points in DE and 2k points in eldar. My main army will remain as my main army. The eldar will be just a tool for me to gain what I want

I feel like I haven't had too much trouble with them. I've certainly made mistakes, but I'm generally pretty good at making the most of the mistakes of my opponent and minimizing mine when I can help it.

The hardest part for me has been learning the "best" way for me to use my units in different situations. Sometimes my wyches exist to tarpit elite assault units. On other occasions, they tear through the ranged and soft units my opponent brings. Depends on the situation.

Ive been feeling pretty confident with this army lately but only last night I played a game where I made a huge fundamental mistake of waiting too long to commit. It was capture the flag long board deployment.

I was deployed well, focused everything and shot his infantry off the board leaving only a few pieces of mech with everything else in reserve. Rushing his mech with 5 HWG units plus ravagers would likely of resulted in a strong tabling. Instead I waited because I didnt want to cross the field and get caught in the open.. Made sense at the time.

Then, all 5 reserves didnt arrive! He hid his mech. I waited again... none arrived!!!! I finally make my move late and all 5 come in clawing his way back and destroying my troops. Ended up winning with StW and LB only because one of his units rolled a 1 on their run move to an objective. Cheesy win.

Anyway maybe not so much learning curve as it is a fundamental of the game but its one that I humbly relearn every so often... know when to go for it.

Brom
My most recent lesson was learned on a long table deployment as well. Oddly it was I should have not attacked early but as I deployed second I should have placed my models out of range and forced him to come to me. With my movement I could have waited for the fourth turn and won with Linebreaker. I set up to be aggressive early did not steal the initiative and his cover ignoring weapons tore me up.

One of the most important skills to learn as a Dark Eldar player (at least in my opinion) is how to go second and still have a good chance of winning. Of course with the Baron I think a lot of Dark Eldar players don't get enough practice going second.

I got a little fatalistic once I learned how many cover ignoring weapons I was facing and quickly resigned myself to hoping for some bad rolls and then get behind him with my fast movers while my foot wych blobs moved forward. As soon as I had deployed the much better and optimistic option was clear to me. It would have been somewhat unsporting but a win is a win. Deploy out of range and force him to come to me or lose by linebreaker.

My very first game was against Grey Knights and I lost a single model (500 point game, last month of 5th). The followup game was a team tournament at my LGS and the unholy Ultramarine-Dark Eldar alliance won first place. I would say that I was lucky because I did huge amounts of research while working in India, did not play 40K prior to my DE army, and came in when everyone was relearning the rules for 6th. That said, no one plays anything mindbogglingly competitive or cheesy at the store. I played against a Helldrake/Blastmaster spam army with an Ork horde a few weeks ago and that was...terrifying. I still won, but it was not a pleasant experience.

I think that the key to success with the Dark Eldar is "getting into character." I've played with other armies but none of them make you feel like "If I mess up, I will lose horribly." IMO, that blend of excitement and fear makes the game more enjoyable.

I am still adjusting to the new edition as I haven't had much games in so far. They changed a lot since 3rd edition and my mind gets bogged down in older editions at times as I played a lot more games back then.

I'm either being stomped into the ground or I get sweeping victories, never seem to settle on something more neutral but I hear the same from other DE players. That said if I loose horribly it is due to some very, extremely unlucky dice rolls and not any major tactical errors. Or because I get cocky in turn 2 or 3!

Obviously I do make the occasional mistake here and there, I'm only human, but overall I'm quite happy with my performance. I just love the DE playstyle, it immediately became my 2nd army when 3rd came out and I never really looked back at others.

I once tried to outshoot a Tau army....

Ha ha... When I get the fundamentals of this army down I probably will be able to say that only once did I set up in range of cover ignoring weapons and crossed my fingers hoping for a lot big scatters!

Firstly, yay first post! 
On a more serious note I haven't really had a learning curve with dark eldar as I took them up as my 3rd army in order to get better at playing with my other armies as I believed, and have found, that playing Dark Eldar does make you better at protecting your troops without just dressing them up in power armour and throwing them at the enemy guns    (Also I got absolutely sick and tired of MAHREENS VS. MAHREENS!)

I'm proud to say that since I've started Dark Eldar I have won 10 games and only lost one (my first) though this may be due to my extreme paranoia about my units and playing very safely with last turn rushes for objectives and line breaker. I must say that Dark Eldar are my favourite army by far (possibly influenced by my success ) and since I got into them I've been playing and gaming far more than i was before going up from about 1 or 2 games and <1 unit painted to 4 or 5 games and having 3+ units done

Sorry if this was at all rambolic

EDIT: I also enjoy how much faster and shootier Dark Eldar are when compared with my other armies (CSM and Daemons)

First off welcome Supersonicbanana ! Glad your having such good luck with them. Hope it keeps up. Enjoy the site, it is truly one of the best.

Dark Eldar is one of my first armies and is also one of my most successful. I play a lot of armies... a lot. From all my playing days, I have owned almost every kind of Space Marine, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Eldar, Dark Eldar, CSM, Tyranids... man, the list goes on.

I think the reason why I do well with my Dark Eldar is because they fit my playstyle and mentality. I love inflicting massive damage (Dark Lances, Splinter Cannons) while denying damage in return (Night Shields, utilizing cover). I prefer out-thinking and out-manuvering my opponent rather than win via attrition. I love attacking and being offensive than defensive and static. I enjoy the martial factor and close combat nature of the army in addition to the shooting (vs. shooty or CC specialized). Lastly, I enjoy the fluff, the art style and the feel of the army.