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Okay, I'm not a DE player myself, (when it comes to evil I prefer IMPLACABLE SILENT DEATH over LOLWHIPSNCHAINS) but I was wondering how many people out there actually play DE. GW's website has precious little fluff/tactica articles about them (even less so than the Necrons ) and I wanted to know what to expect from them should I ever face them in combat (if I ever face them in combat). Also, if there are any DE players out there with a well-painted army, then post some pics. So far the only color scheme I have ever seen with DE has been GRIMDARK BLACK, and I want to see some other looks for them.

tl;dr DARK ELDAR PLAYERS REPORT IN

Thanks!

I actually considered playing Necrons too, OP. The silent march of death was appealing to me. However, after playing through enough of DoW: Soulstorm and really seeing how brutal DE were, I had to jump in.

The fluff and looks is what sold me. The idea of a force of nihilistic hedonist pirates sounded so appealing to me. Commorragh is amazing too, I really hope they flesh it out more in the new dex.

As for what to expect? If the player is actually making a competitive list, lots of Dark Lances/Blasters and Raiders. The parking lot of doom. Raiders can be included with any Warrior or Wych/Grot squad, so theoretically there can be 11 Raiders on the board, (HQ's can be mounted too)and that's not including Ravagers. The raiders themselves are basically coffins though. 10 Armor, open topped skimmer... won't take much to blow them to pieces. However, they can move all out 24 inches and get a 4+ cover save. If the DE player feels bold he might just throw all his Raiders to your face and get lucky rolls and have his army assaulting you by turn 2.

Warriors can equip Dark Lances, 2 per squad if they foot slog or just 1 if they go on a raider. Blasters are like mini DL's in that they only have 12 inches but are assault 1. Archon+Incubi *will* wreck your day, these are melee monsters. Wyches are basically there to tar pit shooty units and they can get random buffs per game based on what drugs they inject. (One buff lets them assault 12 inches - beware!)

DE is a very finesse army. They have to use their wyches to tarpit shooty threats and have the Ravager/Warriors/Incubi pick off targets. I consider them a mid-range target priority army. The downside to all this firepower and mobility is that we are squishy. Warriors only have a 5+ armor save and 3 Toughness. Wyches have 6+ armor save and 3 toughness but get a 4+ invulnerable in melee, which is why they are good at tarpitting.

We have no psykers despite being Eldar, and have a wargear that can flat out KILL any psyker on the board, but it's rarely used.

There are other troops but they are so outdated players rarely use them anymore. You'll be lucky to see someone field Scourges or Hellions.

As for painting I've just begun painting my army. Grimdark works just fine for DE. Besides, Necrons are always brass or silver in some form

What I plan to do is paint each squad differently to help me discern them on the table. So one squad will be brass+black+bonewhite, another will be light/dark purple, another will be red+black, etc.

Dark eldar player here. i have been playing Dark Eldar for my entire warhammer career. i have enjoy play with them. If you were to play ageist my dark eldar I'm sorry to say but Necro is an easy win for me. you monoliths i can touch so i ignore them and go for your faces out instead. what Dark Eldar bring to the tabe in fast and deadly assaults so but the time you are in rage with you guass weapons I'm already in assault with you troop and Dark Eldar excell in combat. and bout the models i have won pest painted army three times in a row with my Dark Eldar at regionals but i have't had time to post some of my Dark Eldar but when i do i will let you know

Greetings.

The DE players you want to get in touch with are Clthomps and Thor665. Thor is Dakka's lord of the Dark Eldar.

I started DE a couple months ago. In 1850 points, I can get 15 dark lances and 20 blasters and 9 disintegrator cannons. Looking at the tournament statistics, tournaments are averaging 40-80% MEQ armies. In my book, that means that 35-75% of my DE games are pretty much auto-wins (Black Templars who use Blessed Hull and bring land raiders are meanies) 15 Lances at BS4 are enough to bring down your typical space marine mechanization, and bad shooting should still bring you enough to disembark some and shake/stun most of the rest at a minimum.

Ultimately, that's what I care about - that I'm not getting shot at. Shaken is good enough for me. Once I get those marines and terminator equivalents out on foot, I've got plethoras of STR7 AP2 and STR8 AP2 weaponry to give them a bad day.

With such a proliferation of SM players (and even against other races) every one of my game starts with "What weaponry do you have that is 36 inches+?" Following that exploration, the game starts with me trying to concentrate firepower on those missile launchers, lascannons, dark reapers...a wych raider or two doing a 24" flat out to get a 4+ cover and stage for a turn2 assault does wonders, and raider spam provides such target saturation, that it doesn't matter what they kill, the rest is going to do very bad things in return.

Thanks guys, if there are any DE players at my FLGS, I'll know what to expect now. I honestly have very little experience with 40K, the last place I was stationed was in the middle of nowhere with no FLGS, so in the next few weeks I will finally be breaking in my Necrons. Thanks for the advice!

Two things that i can remember off the top of my head that really screwed me over while playing them is Dark lances and combat drugs. Dark lances out the yin yang i thought meltas were bad at how inexpensive and how many could be fielded but DLs take the cake. The glaring problem with meltas is they need to be close while DLs can reach out across the table and are pretty good at AT. Also combat drugs are devastating they roll at the beginning of the game to see what they get the ones i have went up against halved my WS.

@OP: Got to Dakka Polls.:
- the "first army" poll has DE at 2%.
- the "collected" poll has DE slightly higher at 3%.