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gonna start dark eldar soon, before i do are there any auto include must haves to make it competative?

A full court for your archon, seriously.
But, no. Avoid that one. Seriously.

5 wyches with grenades in a venom take care of vehicles fast. Trueborn with blasters in venoms. Ravagers are pretty good.
Huge beastmaster packs with vect and eldrad are nasty. Those are just some.

With Dark Eldar its very rarely a case of 'you must include this to be competitive', because by the time you remove all the completely terrible unit as options then you are left with an army that almost builds itself. If you are just starting out you need:
2-3 Ravagers
4+ Venoms
The bare minimum number of Warriors, Wyches or Wracks to fill said Venoms
A Haemonculi for an HQ

That is your core, for a full 1850+ pt list you fill out the points with:
a) more Venoms (9 is your max, but you really don't need that many), usually with Trueborn mixed in there somewhere to increase the number of Lance weapons you are bringing
b) either a third Ravager or a Razorwing for your 3rd Heavy
c) a big beast pack (or two) with the Baron, possibly with additional characters as well
d) Eldar allies
or some combination thereof.

You need troops. My opinion is that kabalite warriors are a very solid investment. There are few lists that can't find somewhere to put them. Beast packs are powerful but not autotake. Haemonculi tend to be more cost effective than the archons; different builds can use harmonculi, archon or special characters. I don't think any are autotake. Most lists will use venoms or raiders, but I've seen foot lists work too.

Tl;dr the codex has a number of build options. Autotakes may exist for specific builds, but not across all builds I think.

Autotakes

Transports:
Raiders for larger Warriors squads/counterassault units
Venoms with 2 splinter cannons for everything else

HQ:
Haemonculus as a cheap HQ for pain token and unlocking Wracks as Troops

Troops:
Wracks (3-10 per unit) for semi-resilient objective camping/counter-assault
Wyches (5 in Venom) with Haywire Grenades for vehicle destruction
Warriors (5 in Venom, 5-10 in Raider) for poison volleys

Heavy Support:
Ravagers x3

Optional
Transports:
Even more Venoms than you initially thought you'd need

HQ:
Baron Sathonyx to go with beasts

Elites:
Kabalite Trueborn (with Blasters, conversion from Warriors)

Fast Attack:
Beast Packs (3-5 beastmasters, made from Hellions, 5 Khymerae, made from Chaos/Vampire hounds, 4-8 Razorwing Flock, made from whatever)

Eather you want mobilaty or you want an haemonculy court with web way portals.

After that nothing is mandatory but ravagers to tend to creep up in mobile lists. 3 is not requiered and can be a bit booring to play against.

As for the venoms I would not say mandatory. They kill on averadge 1 marine from one round of shooting. Raiders are just as fine.

Powerguy wrote:
With Dark Eldar its very rarely a case of 'you must include this to be competitive', because by the time you remove all the completely terrible unit as options then you are left with an army that almost builds itself. If you are just starting out you need:
2-3 Ravagers
4+ Venoms
The bare minimum number of Warriors, Wyches or Wracks to fill said Venoms
A Haemonculi for an HQ

That is your core, for a full 1850+ pt list you fill out the points with:
a) more Venoms (9 is your max, but you really don't need that many), usually with Trueborn mixed in there somewhere to increase the number of Lance weapons you are bringing
b) either a third Ravager or a Razorwing for your 3rd Heavy
c) a big beast pack (or two) with the Baron, possibly with additional characters as well
d) Eldar allies
or some combination thereof.

pretty much.
You are going to want as many transports as possible with DE even in 6th. Troopwise it is best to have more splinter cannons and blasters than actual bodies. The regular kit comes with 10 men, 1 blaster and 1 splinter cannon. You should aim to convert/buy more bits to get 1 blaster and 1 splinter cannon per 5 men instead.

Beastpacks are ok, but VERY expensive. most people convert them, some other pack of birds = razorwing flocks, some other cavalry = kymera, hellions = beastmasters.

If you are open to FW, a Tantalus is a good buy.

To make it competitive:

baron
duke
trueborn with dual splinter cannons (enhanced poison is fun!)
4-5 venoms
wyches (no upgrades other than haywire)
warriors
reaver jetbikes (at least 12)
razorwing jets
beastpacks

All these units will net you a pretty competitive list.

Depends on the meta, I mean, for de vs. Anything with a toughness value, you can take 6 double splinter cannon venoms for 570 points I believe (minimum squads of wrack in there, with a cheap haemy is an extra 50-60 points, then ravagers for the AT, 6 venoms put out a LOT of shots and will kill anything dead that has a toughness value. If you have spare points and want more AT and venoms, take blasterborn in venoms.

You know what I like about DE? The fact that it is easier to make a list of auto-excludes than auto-includes, as there is a lot that is useful but, my auto includes are:

1. Any filled-up BeastPack + Baron

2. a Venom with extra Splinter Cannon with any of the following passengers:

A. 5 wyches only upgrade is Haywire Grenades
B. 5 Trueborn with some combination of Blasters or Shuriken Cannons to equal 5.
C. 5 Incubi

3. 10 Kabalites w/ SpCannon in a Raider w/ Splinter Racks and NightShields.

Auto-excludes? IMO

1. Kheradruakh (Kadookera the Decrapitator)

2. Mandrakes (need a Ham to start with their BaleBlast but, Hams cannot Infiltrate)

3. Bloodbrides (overpriced, non-scoring Wyches. They hit harder and more but, die just as easily)

Farseer.

-Matt

RancidHate wrote:
You know what I like about DE? The fact that it is easier to make a list of auto-excludes than auto-includes, as there is a lot that is useful but, my auto includes are:


Auto-excludes? IMO

1. Kheradruakh (Kadookera the Decrapitator)
2. Mandrakes (need a Ham to start with their BaleBlast but, Hams cannot Infiltrate)
3. Bloodbrides (overpriced, non-scoring Wyches. They hit harder and more but, die just as easily)

4. Hellions
5. Blast pistols anywhere
6. Lady Malys
7. Wyche weapons and shredders.
8. Clawed fiends.
9. Haemi ancients
10. Harlequins(the CWE are just better)

That said there are so many units that are really hard to use or situation:
Incubi
Grotesques
Talos / Cronos(almost auto excludes)
The duke(far too many people use him than actually know how to get the most out of him)
Vect(other than beast pack of doom why take him)
Wyches for combat
scourges(def not TAC choice)

 CaptKaruthors wrote:
If you are open to FW, a Tantalus is a good buy.

Disagreed. It costs as much as 2 Ravagers, has less firepower, and is easier to kill.

Everyone needs to be in something that flies, but beyond that it's pretty open.

Try to avoid mandrakes, the decapitator, and wyches on foot. Everything else is pretty balanced, and in my opinion there are no auto-includes other than a codex, hq, and 2 troop choices.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 CaptKaruthors wrote:
If you are open to FW, a Tantalus is a good buy.

Disagreed. It costs as much as 2 Ravagers, has less firepower, and is easier to kill.

You might be thinking about another vehicle... The tantalus has effectively 4 disintegrators, better AV and transport capacity

 Massaen wrote:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 CaptKaruthors wrote:
If you are open to FW, a Tantalus is a good buy.

Disagreed. It costs as much as 2 Ravagers, has less firepower, and is easier to kill.

You might be thinking about another vehicle... The tantalus has effectively 4 disintegrators, better AV and transport capacity

it can be taken by an archon court as a dedicated transport if memory serves. I think it costs$$ more than 4 ravagers, so dont go jumping for it.

The tantalus is one of the coolest FW models.

If it costs as much as 2 ravgers it needs to be at least 6 disintegrators or else taco bll diahrhea.

Bouncing off this post why are taulos and cronos auto- excludes?

Edit*
In addition why is everyone reommending Haemonculi and not so much Archons?

Edit2 **
How are scourges they seem like they'd be a good unit with assault 3 guns and 2 heat lances per squad of 5 or 6 and 4 for a full squad of 10?

 Dezstiny wrote:
Bouncing off this post why are taulos and cronos auto- excludes?

They don't keep up with the rest of your Skimmer force. They might not be auto-excludes if you run a footslogger or coven army, but they have no place in your "standard" Dark Eldar army.

 Dezstiny wrote:
In addition why is everyone reommending Haemonculi and not so much Archons?

Standard Dark Eldar assault is no longer viable when compared to shooting. The Archon is also too easily countered by either cheap challenges or uber HQs that render him useless. Getting him a proper escort that is not too expensive on the one hand (Incubi) or too useless on the other (Wyches) is another problem. Again, in specific instances, he might be useful.

 Dezstiny wrote:
How are scourges they seem like they'd be a good unit with assault 3 guns and 2 heat lances per squad of 5 or 6 and 4 for a full squad of 10?

They suffer from effectiveness vs point cost syndrome. Other units either do their job better, whether it's anti-infantry (MSU troop Venoms) or anti-vehicle (Trueborn), or they are more effective pointwise in their fast attack slot (Reaver Jetbikes, Beastmasters). Also, if you equip them for anti-vehicle, you waste a lot of poison shots.

 Mandor wrote:

 Dezstiny wrote:
Bouncing off this post why are taulos and cronos auto- excludes?

They don't keep up with the rest of your Skimmer force. They might not be auto-excludes if you run a footslogger or coven army, but they have no place in your "standard" Dark Eldar army.

 Dezstiny wrote:
In addition why is everyone reommending Haemonculi and not so much Archons?

Standard Dark Eldar assault is no longer viable when compared to shooting. The Archon is also too easily countered by either cheap challenges or uber HQs that render him useless. Getting him a proper escort that is not too expensive on the one hand (Incubi) or too useless on the other (Wyches) is another problem. Again, in specific instances, he might be useful.

 Dezstiny wrote:
How are scourges they seem like they'd be a good unit with assault 3 guns and 2 heat lances per squad of 5 or 6 and 4 for a full squad of 10?

They suffer from effectiveness vs point cost syndrome. Other units either do their job better, whether it's anti-infantry (MSU troop Venoms) or anti-vehicle (Trueborn), or they are more effective pointwise in their fast attack slot (Reaver Jetbikes, Beastmasters). Also, if you equip them for anti-vehicle, you waste a lot of poison shots.

basically 100%

Talos/Cronos are very weak slow MCs that cant keep up with your speed. If you want to build a fun/fluffy list based around other slow foot sloggers like grotesques or with allies this might be a good idea. No one takes them in competitive play. Also, marines now wound them on 5s in CC.

Most CC characters took a hit in 6th edition, but even in 5th archons were not that good. The loss of the 3rd edtion combat drugs hurt them a lot. They are ok if you want a high BS blaster with some combat ability. Taking the 2++ save helps prevent (slay the warlord) but at the same time, using him in combat is probably a surefire way to get him killed eventually.

Scourges are basically only good with splintercannons and against hordes that cannot shoot very well(nids) if DE needed help fighting 'nid, you could see sideboarding them in. But they dont. Awesome models, terrible rules.

There really isn't anything that's auto include because DE is more about list theory than 'this unit is broken, spam it.'

One of the biggest challenges you will face when trying to build a DE list is balance. Dark Eldar, like in their fluff are prone to excess, which can either let you absolutely crush your opponent, or will find you tabled by turn 3. The things you have to balance are: Range vs. Assault; Lances vs. Splinter Cannons; and finally Durability vs. Maneuverability.


First, DE still have some super beefy assault troops. They will plow through the right kind of unit with ease. Incubi will just walk past heavy armor, low number elites like they weren't there. Beast packs laugh at hordes and most assault units when paired with the Baron and a Farseer. Talos are monstrous creatures, which are really good in close combat if you can get them there (smash is a godsend for doubling out characters). The problem is, these units desperately need ranged fire support to 'thin' out the opponent. In this edition, more so than ever, the closer you get, the more the enemy's firepower intensifies. Any intelligent opponent is only going to let you charge his cheap throw away units first, which will only result in your assaulters being blown away the next turn. You will need the long range firepower of venoms, trueborn, and ravagers to kill high priority targets fast.

On the flip side, you can't just rely on your long ranged firepower to do the work. Especially with Tau returning to the tables. If you are playing with any sort of LoS blocking terrain, suits will laugh at you as they jump in and out of LoS, killing you one unit at a time. Assaulters are needed to flush out those nasty units that just won't be shot. Stealth/Shrouded units in ruins, Tau suits, snipers, etc. You really don't want to waste venom fire into a +2 cover save.

Second, its very hard to balance your anti-tank vs. anti-infantry. Splinter cannons are soooo good at greasing infantry squads and monstrous creatures. The problem is, lances are actually really bad at killing armor (any experienced DE player will tell you all about the "Dark Glance"). There's a reason the lesser races run around with melta guns in durable,cheap squads. So you have to really overload lances if you want to be efficient at killing armor.

Why do you have to overload so much? Because you want to be sure you can quickly eliminate your opponent's armor. Enemy armor is often highly durable and contains adequate long ranged firepower to destroy fragile DE craft. DE craft rely on long range to protect themselves from opponent's fire. If you let your opponent's predators, hammerheads, leman russes, chimeras etc. live, prepare to lose a LOT of your craft every turn. And depending on your list, a DE player without his boats is a DE player who's lost the game.

But if you overload on lances to kill the enemy's deadly armor, you won't have enough splinter cannons to kill his infantry squads. One game I loaded up with lance trueborn, ravagers, eldar allies war walkers, etc. I had sooo much anti-tank fire. My opponent was using an IG armored fist list. We called it on turn two after I had lost two allied Vypers and the imperial player was down to a command squad huddled in terror in the middle of the remains of 4 chimeras and a russ. My next opponent was an IG player who had only infantry and heavy weapons teams. You can imagine how that went...

So always be cognizant of how many lances you are taking vs. how much anti infantry you have. If you neglect one in favor of the other, you can find your list has serious holes in it.


Finally, you've already been hearing about DE's famed lack of durability. This is because the easiest way to get overwhelming firepower is to load up on lightly armored skimmer craft. These, will, however, die to a swift breeze. And not only that, but will kill roughly 75-80% of the transported dark eldar when they inevitably explode (almost nothing ever gets glanced to death in a DE army). If your opponent can shoot you, you will lose models. If your models are venoms and ravagers, you are losing VERY IMPORTANT models. In many cases you will have to think about trading some of the firepower in for durability. 20 man kabalite squads are a lot more durable than a venom. Talos are much harder to kill than a ravager. In a game of objective holding and kill point denial, these units are much more valuable than they appear to be.

Again, sorry I can't really tell you what to 'auto' take. DE is a hard army to play. It takes a lot of test games (and a LOT of losses) to get the feel for how you want to actually play your list. The easiest way to 'start' a DE army though is, lots of venoms, trueborn, and ravagers. From there you can tweek your list, add units, and define your own playstyle.

I myself have moved away from the ravagers and started using a pair of talos. The talos are really nice mid field bullies that (as long as they live anyway) give me a high degree of mid field board control (along with the psychic buffed beast pack). This gives my lighter, more fragile boats room to dance around in the back field.