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So I've almost "completed" my SM army. Vanilla SMs with ~3k points total.

So I'm looking at where I might go next.

I've been considering 3 options (in no particular order):

1)Eldar
2)Dark Eldar
3)Necrons

Those are the armies that have attracted me based on their look and fluff. I don't want to do humans anymore - done Brets in WHFB as a kid an now marines.

For my play style, I started about 6 months ago with largely footslogging SMs, but now its almost 100% mechanized. I seem to prefer to have mobility over sheer brute force.

Which of those do you dakkaites recommend given my playstyle?

-Which is the most competitive?
-Which is the funnest to paint?
-What should I know about each one before choosing?

If you want mech, that cuts Necrons out right away.

Competitive wise, I'd say Eldar, but Dark Eldar are getting a rewrite soon, so my guess is that they'll become more competitive. So it's all about look and feel between these two.

They're both very fast if you go mech, so that won't really change. Take a look at the models/artwork and decide whether you want good clean eldar or spiky evil eldar.
Don't worry too much about specific dark eldar models that suck, they'll be getting new ones before too long.