1000pts My 1st List

I am 30 year old, Who lives in Burgess Hill south UK just outside from Brighton if anyone who lives near me would be cool to meet up over a pint and arrange some games would be awesome.

Please comment on the list and suggestions on expansion to build up for a 1250pts then to expand onto a 1500pts list. I Have just come back into the game after many years break. So any pointers and suggestion to build and tactics and pointers would be awesome :-)  and very much appreciated. Many Thanks


TOTAL = 999pts

HQ
Archon = Total 150pts
- Blast Pistol (15pts), Combat Drugs (10pts), Djinn Blade (20pts), Shadow Field (30pts), Ghostplate Armour (10pts), Venom Blade (5pts).
.
Baron Sathonyx = Total 105pts
.
.
TROOPS
Hellions = Total 185pts
- x9 Hellions (144pts)
- x1 Helliarch (41pts)
.
Wyches = Total 198pts
- x7 Wyches (84pts), Haywire (14pts)
- x1 Hekatrix (22pts), Haywire (2pts)
- x1 Wych with Wych Weapon - Impaler (10pts), Haywire (2pts)
- Raider (60pts), Nighshields (10pts)
.
.
ELITES
Kabalite Trueborn = Total 170pts
- x5 Trueborn (60pts), Blaster (15pts), x2 Shardcarbine (10pts), x2 Splinter Cannon (20pts)
- Venom (55pts), Splinter Cannon (10pts)
.
.
FAST ATTACK
Reaver Jetbikes = Total 81pts
- Blaster (15pts)
- x3 Jetbikes (66pts)
.
.
HEAVY SUPPORT
Cronos Parasite Engine = Total 110pts
- Sprit Probe (10pts)
- Sprit Vortex (20pts)
.

Hello and welcome!

I guess the main criticisms of your list are 1) general lack of anti-tank, and 2) slightly confused units.

To go into more detail;

Firstly, while you have a few blasters and some haywire capacity it's probably not really enough. Your haywire wyches can reliably take out a hefty vehicle, they may have trouble getting there, and may well be shot to pieces immediately afterwards. If they're paired with your Archon then it makes even less sense to throw them at a vehicle as you want him to be in melee somewhere. Other than that unit you only have two blasters and one DL, which won't average a lot of dead mech.

Secondly, your trueborn seem confused about what they want to do. The received wisdom with DE is that it's better to stick to either Anti infantry or Anti tank roles within a unit. As it is, if you want to take out a vehicle with your trueborn (which you will want to do, as you only have two blasters and one Dark lance) you'll be wasting up to 18 splinter shots. Otherwise, if you target infantry, you're on average wasting those 15 blaster ponts.

Your Archon suffers from this same problem to a degree, and to my mind is slightly over-spec. Does he really need a shadow field and ghostplate? Is the 15 point blast pistol going to make it's points back on a basically CC character?

I'd also question whether you need 255 points worth of HQ at 1000 point limit when your Heavy support is only one cronos... I'd be inclined to drop the Archon completely, consider spliting the wyches into two squads of five with haywire and venoms, get a ravager/talos into the mix (depending on your play style), and either go full blasterborn or full splinterborn (probably the former).

Thats awesome advice and poinyers many thanks for your reply . If possible could you please re copy the list and make some alterations on what you think would be a good list to run more or less based on those models please as am very much learning the army and getting back into the hobby very much so . I look forward to your reply and guidence .

You're very welcome, though I'm by no means a veteran myself. If you're looking for in depth advice I'd make a point of checking out (probably) the two best Dark Eldar Tactica on the web;
here: http://thedarkcity.wikia.com/wiki/Dark_Eldar_Tactica
and here: http://www.thedarkcity.net/t4935-dark-eldar-unit-guide-plastikente

Ok, so, revised version then.. something like:

HQ

Baron Sathonyx

ELITE

4x Trueborn
4x Blasters
Dual Cannon Venom

TROOPS

10x Hellions
one upgraded to helliarch with agoniser

5x Wyches
HWG
Dual Cannon Venom

5x Wyches
HWG
Dual Cannon Venom

FAST

3x Reavers
1x Blaster

HEAVY

Chronos
Spirit Vortex

Talos
Twin Liquifer

Totals 999

Keeps the same sort of feel, but there is a bit more defined purpose to the individual units. I'm not 100% sold on the reavers because of the unit size (9 is good, 6 is ok, 3 is sorta just dead), but if you keep them in reserve and play them fairly conservatively they should do something useful.

Thats awesome and thankyou so much for your guidence its realy helped a lot and sure pointed me in the right direction . Many thanks . Building upon this list what would you advise looking on expanding on direction to head for a full 1500 pts list with this as a base .

Personally I'd be thinking of a Ravager or two if you have the HS slots available and if you are going to use the Reavers then maybe bump up the squad in multiples of 3 - 9 seems to be optimal.

But ultimately you need more troops for point scoring. Some Kabalites in a Raider or Wracks with a Haemie.

First of all, read the sticky, about how to post Army lists ;)It looks like you're using models you own, and try not to get beyond that. If it isn't a problem to proxy your models, try to go with doubles of specific units instead of single unit of everything.

In 1000 points, 150 point archon is already a bit too pumped up HQ choice for us DE. Baron AND archon on 1k is actualy way too much in HQ slot. Hell, my opponent yell "cheese" if I take specials in 1k games... but I don't care

10 wyches and 10 hellions as troops can work, but you need units that seem way mroe a threat to enemy. You can accomplish that, by pumping up reaver squad, or running double Talos. BUT: both Hellions and Wyches are somewhat close quarter units. While hellions can circle in shooty range, the wyches will want to get into CC. With this it means they will take casualities, and at some point, you will want to take objectives, and CC units on objectives are well... It will be hard for you to score objectives with this combination of troops .

While constructing DE list, you must think, of what specific unit is doing in the game, where it is going to be, while where other units will be aswell. In example: Cronos will most likely be a bit on front, and on paper, he would want to grant pain tokens to hellions / wyches asap. But in reality stince both hellions and wyches are faster, and quite juicy sized, they will not only attract fire, meaning before cronos could grant them pain token, it might be already too late, but also it will mean he actualy won't be able to catch up with them in specific in-game scenarios.

Cronos is definately one of those units, that begginers shouldn't start with.

Awesome points there ravenir . So am now thinking running 2 raiders one with say kabalite warriors in . A venom with trueborn and use for anti veh then a talos and cronos . But what suggestions for to go in the other raider? And slso thinking running another venom and 6 reavers but ehat would you guys put in the 2 raiders? . You have my mind racing now along the right path I think in getting togethet a starter list? All your guidence is awesome and amazing and bringing me deeper into understanding dark eldar . All your help is very much appreciated

Generaly Wyches in venoms > wyches in raiders, becouse Wyches are mainly Anti-tank with their haywire grenades, and 5 is satisfactory number. 10 is a bit overkill, and a bit too juicy target for your opponent. So raiders tend to prefer Warriors as passengers :)They would be also better at controlling objectives rather than wyches.

If I were you, I would skip the cronos, and go double taloi. Taloi work quite well together with venoms and raiders, becouse venoms don't like stuff that want to get close (crisis suits, scarab swarms, most Space marines, etc etc) and Taloi pose a solid wall of threat against such. Worthy tactic to remember, is to soften up some infantry with venoms / warriors, before you shoot at it with talos, so he can get that pain token for FNP, making him even more resilent. Keeping TL splinter cannon on Taloi also helps to achieve that.

Glad I could help

Was thinking of running archon with wyches and webway in raider . Keeping talos in reserve then turn 1 deploy the webway close as I can then wyches get out and get stuck in along with archon and then talos can come in through the webway and then have another raider with warriors for objextives and have venoms with trueborn and blasters . What you guys think on suggestions for running that?

So my revised list what you guys thinks. any comments and suggestions and pointers all is very much appreciated

TOTAL = 1000pts

HQ
Archon = Total 160pts
-Combat Drugs, Djinn Blade, Shadow Field , Venom Blade


TROOPS
Kabalite Warriors = 185pts
- x9 Warrior
- x1 Warrior with heavy weapon Dark Lance
- Raider Nightshields

Wyches = Total 198pts
- x7 Wyches, Haywire
- x1 Hekatrix , Haywire
- x1 Wych with Wych Weapon - Impaler , Haywire
- Raider , Nighshields


ELITES
Kabalite Trueborn = Total 173pts
- x4 Trueborn, x4 Blaster
- Venom , Splinter Cannon


FAST ATTACK
Hellions = Total 169pts
- x8 Hellion
- x1 Helliarch , +Agoniser


HEAVY SUPPORT
Talos Pain Engine = Total 115pts
- Chain-Flais
- Stinger Pods

The Idea is to keep the Talos in Reserve deploy the Webway + get the Archon and Wychs in CC as soon as then Talos should be in range for support.

any suggestions and feedback for the revised list? very much appreciated

Do you have any other units to work with? I would like to suggest a Ravager, unless you are playing on a 4X4 board. I like moving 12" and firing 3 lance shots with no penalties. I haven't worked with hellions or coven units yet. I also do not like the Djinn blade, you can end up killing yourself, clone field only works for CC unless I have read it wrong. Try this for the Archon :

Archon
Shadowfield
Venom Blade
Combat Drugs
HWG

Think that is like 110 if I am not mistaken (doing it with no book) You could even throw in a PGL or huskblade and still be cheaper than your archon setup and more effective in my personal opinion.

I also dislike the idea of running a warrior gunboat with a DL in the squad. The DL can only be snapfired if you move and it wastes everyone elses shots if you fire at a vehicle, plus, 25 points for one lance. You already have a Blasterborn squad, wychs with haywires, and 2 raiders. If you can field a Ravager with NS for exactly the same pts as the talos. I think with that much AT you should be fine at 1k pts even without the ravager if need be.

When I run taloi, I don't run single, but always at least 2 of them. Single Talos gets outmanouvered a bit too easily. Especialy, if you equip talos with Chain-flails, which means you want him in CC. Remember, that Talos has BS 3. His shooting is realy medicore for stinger pod. What's more, with 6" movement, you want to run with talos as much as possible, so any weapon improvements are forcing him, to be slower than he already is. Liquifier on the other hand, is reaaaly nice on Him .

Hellions without baron are ugh. They can't safely land on forests / ruins, will charge through DT on Initiative 1, and are less resilent, don't have that awsome H&R reroll , they are NOT scoring! Baron makes them this much better.

About other equipments, I'd say there could be minor improvements (like different archon setup, nightshields off from Raiders with wyches, removing dark lance from warriors in raider). But there are alot of such improvements. Those are generaly learned with every game you play, so don't be maniac on perfecting your list right away .

Generaly Talos work well with two tactics. Either you want to stall the combat with wyches untill talos catches up to charge, or you go with venom / kabalite route, and stay in the back while talos are threating enemy front.

Well djin blade 2up for wound then venom blade for 4up plus djin gives you 2 extra attacks this not to shabby having both . Well havnt run the list going to on friday . But upon expanding this list to a 1250 any suggestions for next upgrade or look at adding? Which you suggest f9r way forward?

So for expansion drop the hellions and run double talos plus more venoms with say incubi in and wychs?

For expansion you could place 4 incubi into a venom with double cannons -153
Also tweak a few upgrades and such to get enough points to add a ravager with NS and maybe get a TL haywire blaster onto your talos

What suggestions can you guys suggest for tweaking on the list above . So next stapes get another venom and some incubi and a ravager plus maybe to include the baron with the hellions . Am I right in saying hellions with hellgaive get a plus 1 to strebgth then they have stunclwaw which also adda a plus 1 to strength . Does that stack so they become strength 5 ?

No to the 5 strength. Stunclaw replaces Helliarch's hellglaive, so he cannot benefit from the bonuses for one. As for any suggestions other than those given, all I can say is learn what fits your personal taste. You could copy tourney winning lists and still get facerolled. Try some of our suggestions and see how you like it. I would post a list, but annoying to type on this phone.

Lol fair dos same here am using phone at the mo so hellions with hellgaive go to strength 4 . But worth taking them with the baron but dont they become troop choice then and can take obejectives?