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So we've been throwing around different builds and playtesting them at our FLGS, but cannot ever beat guard. I'm talking full-mech, cookie-cutter IG with a crap ton of vets in chimeras, hydras, couple vendettas, artillery, reserve hq, battle psykers, and sometimes a fat infantry blob surrounding his tanks, etc. In the hands of a good player.

A BOLS article seemed to reach the same conclusion: paper vehicles don't cut it in 5th.

Its just too much shooting at uber fragile units. Hell, if your close enough to charge, then the chimera can take down ur vehicle, while the crew shreds another, or rapid fires your crew... Sit back and lance doesn't work as they have way more damaging shots. Turbo forward in their face doesn't either, they still leaf-blower you off the board and battle psyker your scariest unit. We've tried mass lance, wyches, harlies, vect/baron lists, haemonculi lists, mass heat-lances, webway, etc. So what if you pop a few vehciles? The crew still kills you, and there is splenty more spam/redundency in the army.

Any ideas from the Dakka community on how the ultimate glass cannon can hope to beat the Leaf-blower?

Welcome to Dark Eldar...

I call Dark Eldar a 2nd tier list..notably because the codex doesn't really have anything abusable.
What that means is that a Dark Eldar codex doesn't work with a specific mindset or a specific list. <- This is important, especially playing glass cannons.

So what can you do? You manipulate open-topped and your speed to combine kill things. It's HARD..against guard, so many things can go wrong, but you don't really have a choice.

Generally speaking, even Dark ELdar warriors will put guardsman to the sword. So that means you need to pop the tank and assault the contents the same turn you pop the tank. Better yet if you can pop multiple tanks and space well enough to get them into multiple combats with 1 squad.

You need to be clever and manipulate the hth so that you kill/sweeping advance the small squads on the guard's player turn.

Since the codex has very little in the way of scouts/outflanking..they are just gonna have a rough time against parking lot armies.

Here's a trick you might not have tried:
Wyches with haywire in transports. Yes, it's not as good as krak grenades. This strat works better if you go first. Tankshock the raider into position to clear guard screens, then multi charge the wyches into guardsman and tanks that havent moved. You do have some shooting before assaults, so you can use your shots to help control the board better. Mind you..you don't need to kill the tanks with the grenades to be effective. Sometimes crew shaken/stunned/weapon destroyed/immobilized are all you need. To explain this strat better, you want to be in a position where as many wyches can choose to attack either guardsman or tank. Hopefully tank hasn't moved..because it's the first turn. On your turn you place wych attacks on tanks with haywire, and hopefully stun/immobilize the tank if you don't kill them. This limits the number of attacks on guardsman themselves, and helps to keep you in hth. If you need to beat the guardsman, then place more wych attacks on guard. It's tough because it is easy to mess up or have something weird happen.

Dark eldar "hide" in hth...especially wyches. This is a key strat for getting your army to be effective while minimizing casualties..especially since as you wipe squads you get pain tokens.

However, if you try to face off, manoamano..one on one..you'll lose everytime. You don't win a shoot war against guard. Their stuff is cheaper, tougher, and puts out more shots. The chimera weakpoint is its lack of speed if it wants to shoot.

There is no simple magic answer like scout bikes here.

The thread you're looking for is probably in another sub-forum.

Ah, here it is:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/319496.page

Discussion of the new Dark Eldar tactics will begin in this sub-forum when the book is officially released.

Thanks!