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Hi there,

I've got a few thousand points of old school Dark Eldar models sitting around that havent been touched in 5 years or so, which coincidentally was the last time i played 40k. DE was my first army when i started in 2001, and I only dabbled in a Eldar and Chaos. I have the skeleton of what used to pass for a Speed Freakz Orc army as well as 2500 points in old school Terminators/Land Raiders/Dreads that with a bit of paint could morph into a nice Deathwing army.

What I'm getting at is I'd like to dive back in to 40k and do it with a force that is flexible in it's usage (EG: doesnt require the exact same models every time to be competitive) so as to keep me interested. I'm not sure i could do that with Deathwing, and Speed Freakz looks like it would have to be 'as many battlewagons as possible' to be even close to good. DE, on the other hand, would require me to buy a whole bunch of the new pretty models (which is fine by me), but reading through every batrep i can find on the interwebs it appears DE only work via venom/blaster spam with only a light or non existent emphasis on HTH and unit leaders (the old DE air force i ran around with always had wyches with succubi, maybe some incubi, and 1 or 2 of the 6 raider squads had a sybarite with agoniser).

So, do i kit out the Deathwing, get a new DE force off the ground and put up with what looks like a boring archetype (and i do remember a time where i just wanted to play something, anything that had an armor save), OR.....

....Buy into the new Necrons. I've always loved the Terminator/SKYNET style and fluff, and thought the army functioned pretty interestingly, what with WBB, gauss weapons, and warping around. I do like all the new model range, with the exception of flayed ones ofc.

So the question is, do i A)go with the uber cool Terminator spam and overall badassery of Deathwing Terminators, B)go back to my original love, the Dark Eldar, or C)move in to brand new territory, shuck my DE ancestry and go full on Necron?

D) ORKS!

If you want to use different models often, Deathwing probably aren't your best bet. They're awesome, don't get me wrong, but it's an army built around one type of unit and one commander. Granted, it's a good secondary army since you can build it very cheap with Black Reach Terminators and some bits shopping.

It sounds like you're reading a lot of competitive DE reports. The standard tournament build for them right now is lots of blaster trueborn and lots of venoms. The codex actually has pretty good internal balance and as long as you're not playing die-hard win at all cost tournament types, you should be okay. People don't take Hekatrix Bloodbrides or whatever often, but you can still be viable in CC with Wyches and Incubi.

Speed Freeks don't necessarily need battlewagons, even if they're not a bad idea by any means. You could build a fun and fluffy army with Wazdakka Gutzmek, a few mobs of Biker boyz, and scratchbuild/convert up some buggies with rokkits for antitank. Boyz in trukks work too.

Necrons are actually pretty cool under the new codex, but are more Egyptian than Schwarzenegger-ian at this point. You might be accused of jumping on the bandwagon since they're the new toys in town.

What would appeal to you most, painting-wise? They're all armies that would be fun to play and have their ups and downs, but if you hate painting them you'll lose interest.

Necrons look cool but I am not sure of them yet. DE is what I voted for as there are a lot of variations that work well. I run a Kalabite force heavy on raiders and it works 5 out of 7 times I ran it. A friend runs a wych list that works about 70% of the time. I think the wrack/haemonuli list looks like it will work. Beasts and bikes have their place. I ran the ravager heavy list but think the razorwing heavy choice might be just as effective.

Bottomline, I think the DE offer competitive and good choices all the way around. The only problem I have seen with them is a set of crappy dark lance shots in an early turn will sink the army but other than needing at least average luck in the first couple of turns, it is well balanced.
A glass hammer style no matter what.

The necrons look intruging but I will reserve my judgement until I get to see the codex and look it over. Deathwing is competitive but it doesn't fit your one build criteria. After all, you only have a few choices. CSM is definitely superior to assault cannons. The only thing you will play with is how many TH/SS are you going run in each squad and if you want to give up 5 termies for a landraider or 3 typhoons.

Dark Eldar are probably one of the most versatile armys there is. The only bad parts about them are mandrakes and high skill requirement. Wyches are one of the better melee troops in the game, and incubi are anti-marine lawnmowers. There is far more to them than venom spam.

As a fellow old school DE player I can say the traditional build with them has been overlooked due to the current min max building in tournaments. They are still fast and vicious if played right and due to poison shooting have the capacity to take on anything without a AV. Raiders and Ravagers take care of that issue though. I would suggest taking a blaster in each Raider Squad and have 4 of them with 2 Wyches Squads in Raiders. that leaves you points for your HQ Elites Fast and Heavy Support choices. It might not be the best in KP missions but it work well for almost everything else.

Wow i was really expecting a blowout for DE, what with most opinions being DE models are awesome, and the DE stuff was well done, where the Necron stuff is highly suspect depending on what board you are on.