Dark Eldar - players advise please

[Escalation Painting]

Default Dark Eldar - players advise please
Hi guys
I have recently started painting up a dark eldar army.

I am looking for so,even advise on how to play these guys!?
What's good to use, war gear, relics etc. Also how to use certain units?

I lived the look and story so thought I'd give them ago. I have a lot of marines and chaos that I use normally so these are a whole new ball game.

This is what I have so far, but will be adding another more!

1 archon
30 Kabalite warriors
3 raiders
6 readers
5 Hellions
10 Scourges
2 venom
5 wracks
1 talos

Maybe we can start a littletactics feed!?

[ShadowcatX]

The basic thing to know about Dark Eldar is that with T3 and 5+ save a dark eldar out of a transport is a dead dark eldar. Also, you will lose in the beginning. That's pretty much unavoidable, you've went from a very durable army to probably the least durable army in the game. You're going to have to change a lot of your play style (which isn't a bad thing).

With that list I would probably go:

Archon (however you have him equipped) in a venom

3x 10 kabalite warriors in raiders with splinter racks (and possibly night shields)

Empty venom

6 reaver jetbikes w/ 2 cluster caltrops

2x 5 man scourge squads (with haywire blasters if you have them / can convert them from talos parts and warrior knives, there's tutorials online)

Probably my next purchase recommendation for you would be a talos box (build as a chronos) and a haemonculous so you can run the dark artisian formation from the haemonculous book.

Wracks and Hellions are pretty bad ATM. Wracks can benefit from the scalpel squadron in the haemonculous book, but there's pretty much no helping Hellions.

[Drew da Destroya]

Hellions have one or two excellent uses:

Conversion bits. You can use the dudes to make decent Beastmasters, and the other parts are neat looking. I used one of the Hellglaives to give my Incubus Klaivex a cooler weapon, they'd be great for making Archite Glaives if you're building your own Succubus. There are also some neat unique heads in there.

Also, like ShadowcatX (hell yeah Kitty Pryde!) mentioned, your DE will be super duper fragile (except the Talos, who will attract every anti-tank shot the army has, and will be reduced to a steaming pile of goo as a result). You're going to want to be fast and mounted. Warriors in a Raider or a Venom with a blaster are pretty nice, and don't forget that even if you jink the transport (and you're gonna want to jink, because Night Shields make your jink into a 3+ cover save), your dudes inside can still fire at full ballistic skill.

[Djbz]

Definitely need either a second Talos or the Cronos+haemonculus for the formation.
I have a Cronos.
It generally dies turn 1.
One of the monstrous creatures is a joke, you need 2 or more for them to have any real chance of doing anything.

I also wouldn't normally run so many warriors as I find they don't have enough shots at range to do any damage, but if they get close they get assaulted and die. I use Wyches as my troops and they always do Ok (pretty much the entire internet will tell you they suck-I disagree). They come into their own against anything packing a power weapon.

[Dave Mcturk]

the newdedex is still getting 'play tested' by most users - the 'shift' still catching out players who dont play de all the time .

for my 2 cents. the best unit in the new book is the reaver jetbike with its kind of crazy D6 attacks and they still have free hit and run. tempting as it is to charge them straight in - if you can 'save' some of them until t3 you get the full benefit of fnp. ; the drug roll makes a huge difference here as well - extra st or t - very useful.

i still like blaster-born and twin gun venom - they are better than scourges imo.

the 'new' archons court gives an awesome close combat unit that can take on virtually anything - not everyone likes running cc units as they might not be effective - but for distraction and threat i still think one unit can be useful and the de court option is effective.

not sure that the m/c options are ever going to be any good against 'decent' armies or even 'decent' opponents - but they can be useful for clearing weak units.

again imo only - but for the points the warriors in troop ships with racks are a bit risky - yes against high t elite armies they come into their own [GK / iyanden / centurions etc] - but the glass ship of death syndrome is still a weakness.

even though they lost their hw grenades - i still think wyches in venoms can fill the 'troop minimums' just as well.

[Escalation Painting]

So do we all think the haemonculus covens book is a must? I hear a lot about it but don't have it.

I like the Warriors in raider, it's like 20 twinlinked poisoned shots just barebones, then you could also upgrade with some pretty decent special weapons!

No one has mentioned wracks?

I have 5 in a venom with liquifier, venom blade and stinger pistol? Any good?
I have only played one game so far but ran them alongside my archon who has his own venom.

[ShadowcatX]

Is it a must? No. But if you want to make use of grotesques or your talos, that is the best way to do it by far, hence my suggestion of the chronos and the haemonculous. With what you have, it wouldn't help.

And wracks have been mentioned, I mentioned that they simply aren't very good.

[Drew da Destroya]

I'm a big fan of the Grotesques right now. 4 in a Raider with your favorite HQ killer (I like the Succubus with a Glaive) will munch most things to death, assuming you can get them across the board and into combat (Raider needs Night Shields and should Jink as soon as your opponent looks at it. 3+ cover is nice... unless you're facing Wave Serpents). Plus, the small unit size helps their Rampage rule, since they generally want to be outnumbered.

[Escalation Painting]

Yeh I love the look of the grotesques!
Do they play well?!

[ShadowcatX]

Yeh I love the look of the grotesques!
Do they play well?!

Grotesques, out of the grotesquerie, are one of the best things available to the dark Eldar. Maybe the best. But you pay more than a dollar a point for grotesques.