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I want to enter a tournament in a few months with my dark eldar. It is a 1000pts. I would like any suggestions of army lists or strategies (or both), that can table most armies. Any suggestions are welcome and thank you for taking the time to comment or read.
PS. I don`t really want to do a venom spam but perhaps someone could persuade me otherwise.

Would you be willing to do eldar allies? The harliestar plus haywyches is awesome

No, want pure DE.

1000 points is always going to be a little bit of rock-paper-scissors. From playing against DE quite a lot, look to the following:

Ravagers are cheap ranged anti-tanks.
5 Warriors + Venom is a great 36" anti-infantry army.
As are 10 Warriors + Raider with Splinter racks.
3-5 True-born w/t blasters + Venom is brilliant anti-most things.
Reavers are ***king brilliant now. They can (and should) cover 48" a turn, hit people as they go, get +1 to their jink save, never take difficult terrain and can take heat lances/blasters. Also very pretty models. Try 6 with two blasters and maybe cluster caltrops, you won't be disappointed. Just keep them away from flamers and assault range.

My friend and DE player is experimenting with an Archon with a Blaster with 3 Truborn with Blaster and Retrofire jets for deep-strike blaster pain.

Don't underestimate nightshields - at low points levels it can royally ruin the day of armies that revolve around 24" or lower (GK, Necrons, Nids, Orks).

There are no easy tablings - dark eldar are about speed, evasion and the application of brutal firepower at key points.

Venomspam is by far the most effective list DE has for WAAC purpose, the venoms are cheap, so they fit perfectly with the MSU tactic, we can field a lot of them, thus solving the survival problem of DE, and they're packed with a decent amount of AI shooting from a long distance.

... But you said you don't want that, so how about you put together a list and we'll work from there?

Al-right, here goes


HQ

Archon 145

husk blade

shadow field

soul trap

combat drugs


TROOPS


9 wyches 180

Hekatrix

Agoniser

Raider


10 wyches X2 380

hekatrix X2

Agoniser X2

Raider X2


Elites


5 incubi 175

venom

splinter cannon


Heavy support


ravager 115


Automatically Appended Next Post:
or i suppose i could the popular blaster born in venom if it meant winning....

HQ

archon

husk blade


Troops

9 wyches 180

hekatrix

agoniser

raider


10 wyches 190

hekatrix

agoniser

raider


Elites

4 blaster born X3 519

venom X3

splinter cannon X3

Hmm.. what kinda tournament are you looking at? One where everyone is playing a WAAC list? Or just a friendly tournament at your FLGS? Because I'm looking at 2 wych assault lists when you're saying you want a tabling list for tournament... It's fine and all if you want to use wyches, despite all the reasons not to, but I'd probably count that as a casual list rather than a serious tournament list.

The problem with raiderspam, as opposed to venomspam is the amount of unit on the table, you're still running with a lot of weak fragile units, because DE, but your enemy doesn't have a lot of targets to fire at, so it won't be hard for them to take all the raiders down, because DE. You'd have to make use of terrains and covers if you want to survive with your wych assault raider spam.

The problem with assault wyches is, well, covered many times by now: overwatch, random charge distance, lack of sweeping advance on most enemies, lack of power weapon on the main unit(hekatrix can be challenged), nerf of FNP, etc.

Problem with your 1st list is, well, wych assault, even if they do managed to get into combat, they're gonna be tied down by 1 unit, if enemy has proper counter assault units, I don't think the wyches would even stand a chance. And well, there is a severe lack of AT, I'm not talking about land raiders here, even if you face your own list, you'd struggle: wyches are S3, incubi are too expensive to be wasted on AT duty, and raiders just aren't reliable as a weapon platform.

Second list is a slight better, but I wouldn't use a vanilla archon with only a husk blade, how's he gonna survive? He's worth 1 VP, you know. If you want a cheap CC HQ, haemy or succubus, I'd go with haemy because wyches do really need that FNP, you'd still be giving VP away, but that PT may save your life. As for blasterborns, they're great, but personally, I'd go with DL ravagers instead, because of range advantage: You can shoot earlier, blasterborns have to move within 18", and because you're further away, you're unlikely to be under mass of fire.

But really, the strength of an unit or a list are all dependant of the table you play on(the size, terrains, etc), what army you play against, and the synergy between other units on your list, blasterborns is a much loved unit, so is venom, but neither of those will bring DE automatic victories just because they're there, we aren't talking necron flyerspam afterall.

I still think that the 1000 point Wrack/Grotesque list is by far the best. You can put a number of wounds on the table your enemy cant deal with. Yes, you have no saves and arent as fast as normal DE, but between 5+ cover and 5+ fnp and 3W each you can really take a lot of fire. At S6 on the charge (2 pain tokens with haem) it will pulverize vehicles and push enough wounds on marines to deal with anything outside of terminators, which are rare at 1k points and will still go down to enough wounds. Plus, no one expects that army when facing DE.

The tournament is a big one where everyone playing WAAC lists as you get your name on wall of fame and a trophy and framed certificate. Terrain is placed fairly equally at both sides with it in plentiful supply. I really do want to be a top competitor and so would appreciate it if you could give me some kind of army template. Zephoid, I dont really want to play a list like that as i dont have any of the kind of models needed and i think it would be killed easily by other competitive armies, but thats just my opinion, if i could just have models for free i would try it but seen as i cant, i cant play lists like that,

Footslogging grotesques blob is apparently very tough, but you do need a large number of them, so they'll eat up a good amount of your points. (Source: Coven veteran players(not myself))

A good competitive WAAC list will have nothing that you want, but everything that you need, hence why you see many people not liking WAAC list in general as they're rather bland and boring. Effective, yes, but just spammy, not fun for you or your opponent. But we're talking a WAAC tourny here, so I'd say consideration is thrown out of the window. So here's a list that I hastily put together:

HQ
Haemy w/ hexrifle

Elites
4 Trueborns w/ 4 blasters
Venom w/ SC

Troops
9 warriors(haemy boat)
Raider w/ rack

5 HWG wyches
Venom w/ SC
x2

Heavy
Ravager DL
x2

Razorwing jet

Already a bit of a venomspam, I know, but this list you have ravagers and HWG wyches for AT, while warriors, venoms and razorwing can cover the AI side, if need be, you could even use razorwing for AT by leaving the DL on.

Another list that is a bit less venomspammy is...

HQ
Duke

Troops
9 warriors(Duke's boat)
Raider w/ rack

5 HWG wyches
Venom w/ SC
x2

Fast Attack
5 Scourges w/ 2 HWB

Heavy
Ravager DL
x3

No flyer defence, but less venomspammy(only 2 venoms!), Duke will make that gunboat very deadly, but the problem with gunboat, as compared with venom is the range, you need to get in 12"(ideally) to do best damage, but at 12", you'd be subjected to every kind of abuse, hence why I didn't give the boat any extra defence.

But in general, as DE is shooting >>> assault this edition, if you want to play WAAC, you want to have a good amount of AT and AI, and you want shooty units. It's important to remember that we need specialised AT weapons to deal with any vehicles, as our guns are poisoned and our CC are usually S3.

Is the idea with these lists to table opponent or capture objectives. Either way a win is a win, but could you tell me what i should be doing with each unit?

Annihilation, personally, I'd never consider holding objective with DE, we're way too frail for that, so I'd rather have every guns and units killing. That doesn't mean I'd ignore objective altogether, but they're put on secondary or tertiary, I'd try to kill as many as I could, then move remaining scoring/denial units to nearby objectives at the end.

So... yep, both of them are meant for annihilation, with whatever left go for objectives.

As for what each unit would do... Well, usual DE tactic really? I don't know how the table will be set up, or who you'll fight, so it's hard to say what they'd do, and you need the flexibility to adapt rather than just doing as I said. But basically, you want to focus your DLs on the highest threat vehicle at start, venoms will focus on the highest threat infantry, always aim for a kill rather than spread out and weaken everything, as 2-3 bolters is still plenty enough to take down our paper boats, but 1 dead unit is 1 less unit to fire at you. If you lost 1st turn but is nightfighting, I'd consider deploying furthest away so you won't be shot up too quickly. If fighting a particularly meched up list, move wyches venoms up, but staying within cruising speed, I'd say, unless there is literally nothing our splinter cannons can hurt, then you flat out, BUT remember not to get in range of assault units as a WS1 AV10 vehicle is terribly easy to take down.

You may want to move haemy to the blasterborns for list A, and if you want, you could drop the razorwing, buy a 3rd ravager, and give that gunboat another warrior and possibly a SC. Haemy can also drop his hexrifle for a liquifier depending on what you want, remember liquifier is 8" template(IIRC) however, so unless you plan to move your vehicle close, a hexrifle might see more use.

ill give the list a try and see how it goes, thanks for all the help