New starter. Help with setting up a 500 pt army/tactic advice?

Hey Everyone,

So I'm new to 40k and looking to start out with a 500pt army. Looking at the armies dark elder appeals to me, they look awesome, ooze evilness and have some nice varied units. That said, my friends who play a lot said recommended I shouldn't play DE as they are brutally hard to play with/they never got on with their playstyle.

I've looked about on the net and it does seem DE are one of the harder races but i'm still interested. Therefore, I thought I would ask you guys here for some tips and advice.

I'll be joining a 500pt tourne with some of my friends and so was wondering if you had any tips or advice for building up a small army of that size? I'll be facing space marines, eldar, chaos marines, orcs, tyrranids and necrons so a pretty large selection. If you can offer any advice against different races, that would also be great. Lots of sources state that a venom rush is effective and that we can no longer use a DE offensive melee spam?


Thanks for any help you can offer

I just picked up DE relatively recent and play most of my games right now at 500pts since I'd like to finish painting up my force.

My usual opponent is Tau, which is a pretty tough matchup I find (at least at 500pts). I run a Nightshielded Ravager, two gangs of 5 Kabalites in Venoms, and 4 Wracks and a Haemonculus in a Raider. It's fairly versatile with some AT, a cc unit, and good AI (plus 3 scoring units is nice).

In general I'd just say even at this point size, use your speed to overwhelm one part of your opponent's army at a time....you'll realize once you get some games in that we really can't win in a head to head firefight, just gets super ugly. Don't get pinned down in one area, certainly not in your deployment zone, go out and take the fight to your opponent.

I've never thought of dark eldar as hard to play, probably because they were the army I started with. Now if you've played with other armies, I bet they're certainly hard to get used to.

I was going to give you some terrible advice and say, "You can't afford to play defensively." But then I figured out a better way to put it.

You cannot trade blows with your opponent. It's so fundamental to our army wyches have a special rule for it.

That being said, understanding Dark Eldar defense is pretty important, and until you get it down, opponents will obliterate your army.

Range: If you can shoot at your opponent and stay out of his/her range. This.

Line of Sight: If you have something you don't want to be shot, try to get it out of sight.

Cover: This is about the only way you'll save wounds from enemy fire. If you have units not in cover, they will die. You may as well write them off and come up with a new gameplan. I often leave my kabalite warriors in their own wrecked raider just for that cover save.

I know this sounds like common sense, but when you see other armies just strolling down the board because they have high AV or a low armor save, you might be tempted to try it. It won't end well.

That being said, and someone might disagree with me, you have to be aggressive. There's a reason you can't trade blows with your enemy. Because you're made of glass. If you get hit first you will break. This is why our army has such high initiative. But the same applies to shooting. You need to shoot first to weaken you're opponents shooting.

I'm limiting my advice to that. I have a hangover and am going back to sleep.

I'm relatively new to DE as well, but from what I've found in my 500 point games, here's a few pointers.

In general, stick to cover, stay out of sight of big guns where possible, and remember that your units are armoured in thin cardboard at best. On the flip side, when you get a chance you can hit like a train with no brakes.

Venoms
These things are worth their weight in gold. With the second splinter cannon upgrade they fire a mighty 12poisoned shots per turn, which makes Tyranids cower in fear. Put Incubi, Wyches, or small Warrior squads in them. I like to run 5 Incubi in one to slice up enemy infantry, but that's just my personal taste.

Blasters
You want a couple of these at least. They utterly wreck any sort of vehicle if you get a decent roll with them. Warriors with these are your answer to enemy armour at this points level. Trueborn can take a hilarious 4 in one squad.

Archons
Very powerful in close combat and surprisingly tough with a Shadow Field. Venom Blade is a steal at 5pts. On the other hand, can be a touch pricey at 500 points so maybe.....

Haemys
Cheap HQ awesomeness. A free pain token gives a squad of your choice Feel No Pain (which is incredibly useful) and the Liquefier is made of win.

Welcome! the first thing you should do is read Thor's PAGES OF PAIN - Strategies & Tactics on the strategy homepage. Memorize that and learn what all the other codex can do and you'll do alright.

If you are looking for specific strategies angainst particular opponents then you should read battle reports. We have a huge library of battle reports, though I would give preference to video and illustrated reports if you want to learn how to defeat a particular enemy, movement is very important and you don't get enough information about it in a regular written report. I'm particularly fond of Mushkilla's reports for illustrated reports and Skarr's for videos since the both do tactical analysis afterwards. Both of them have links to all of their battle reports in their signatures so they are easy to find.

Good luck!

If you're playing at low point values, Reaver Jetbikes are truly nasty units. So much so that a lot of low-point and escalation leagues do not allow them. Check the rules with your tourney, if they are allowed I strongly recommend a box or three. Insane speed and the ability to engage a wide variety of targets.

How have Reavers been holding up against Tau? I've never fielded them at all because they just seem so squishy (and my regular opponent is a Tau player who enjoys marker lights and homing missiles)

That's definitely an army against which some of their advantages dull a bit. At the 500 point level at least some of their nastier combos will be less numerous, and holding the reavers back initially while you attempt to deal with the cover removers can work. Or if you are playing a reduced board size (common in low pt matches) just hug BLOS turn one and use the Reaver's speed to get into rapid HtH, negating their shooting