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Before me is a difficult task. I am a relatively new player to 40k. I have a dozen or so games under my belt, entirely with borrowed vanilla space marines. I'm finally going to take the plunge and start buying some figures of my own, but when I sat down to really think about what I wanted? Dark Eldar. I love the old fluff of Eldar being space pirates and raiders and Dark Eldar fit that bill beautifully. Unfortunately, from what I understand they are also one of the hardest armies to play well. Ultimately, I may consider adding in some of the slightly less evil regulardar to supplement the force, paint them with a similar scheme and call act like they are part of one big pirate fleet. For now, I need to work out how to build a core of evil buggers to vex my enemies --- without getting tabled.

So, I appeal to the generosity and kindness of Dark Eldar (irony?) players, wherever you are. Any tips, tricks, strategies, and the beginnings of a 1000 point list that can stand up against my primary meta: Space Marines, GK, and Eldar.

Meanwhile, I go to research.

They're actually extremely easy to play, but difficult to master. They earned the term "glass cannon" more than any other army. I've dominated with my DE, but I've also been crushed to the last Wych dying under a plate because the opponent wanted to laugh out loud.

I recommend a gunboat army as it really captures their flavor. Beastpacks look fun, but it seems like an Ork/horde thing. I love my boats, and they lead me to very interesting games. Sometimes I'll try to rush (ending horribly, but with some fun moments) and sometimes I'll hang back and make them chase me all over the board (much better ending).

Venoms are a very solid transport as they work with your Troops and Elites. Load up on troops and Venoms (a Venom full of Wyches runs around 125pts, so plan on spending a bit of cash...) and look at how you can get as many Dark Lances as possible.

36" range and lance rule are going to be your best friend against tanks. Heat lances are great, but you have to get way too close for my comfort. I prefer to stick with range. I really like Ravagers for that, because they get 3 of 'em, run a solid 115pts, and can move and still fire all 3 lances at normal BS (icing on the cake).

Raiders are fun, but are far less successful for me than the Venoms. Sure, you get up to 24 re-rollable splinter shots that cause saves on a 4+, but you have to get within their rapid fire range to be able to do that (and will probably be glanced down by an Ork belch right after). Venoms have the shots, maneuverability, cheap...ness, small squads, built-in flickers, etc. that makes "Venomspam" a thing. I would prefer to lose a boat with 5 Wyches in it than a Raider filled with Kabbies. Their relative point costs are just uneven. I think I pay a full 75pts more for the Raider, and I end up losing it and then 50-75% of the things in it die in the explosion.

Here's a little summary of points I haven't touched on, but may sum up my experience:

Run what is fun for you; run what you think looks cool; Cover is your friend; yes haywires are worth it; More boats means more guns; Cronos is junk; you will lose boats; expect to buy something somewhere along the line that you don't want or doesn't work for you as well as you thought it would; Ebay; cheap HQ can be just as desirable as other options with amazing stat lines; and probably some other stuff.

EDIT: As far as a list goes, just look around and find something that sounds like fun to start out with. DE are nasty at lower point levels (I mean, our Ravagers are 115 points!) so even a 500pt list along the lines of what you want to run in the future would be a good foundation and let you get some really fun games in.

I'm tossed between running 10 warriors on raiders or 20 on foot. Right now, with the power if shooting I recommend warriors over wyches. Though small units of wyches are good for glancing vehicles to death (like Eldar wave serpents and land raiders) in cc.

Optimally I'd run 2 Eldar wave serpents with a farseer in whatever death star cc unit you'd like from the dark Eldar codex. 2+ rerollable on your dark Eldar hq is a great tank. And the wave serpents will pull a lot if fire away from your raiders/venoms.

For characters, lords are money, I'm a fan if the duke, asdubael is solid and the baron has some of the best points/per rule besides cortez from grey knights.

Beasts are nasty but really expensive, both in points and money.

With a lot of monstrous creatures running around, de are one of the best armies around with their poison weapons.

6th Edition means little has changed for the Gun-Boat army style of play for DE. Our vehicles still fall apart after a few pokes, but man can you pump out a lot of them.

On the other hand Overwatch really hurts DE since it takes advantage of our soldiers when they're the most frail.

For an overall army list I've had good success in 6th with something like:

HQ: Blaster Archon+ Minimal Court in Venom

Elites: 3 Trueborn w/ 2 Splinter Cannons in Venom's again.
dakka dakka

Troops: 5 Warriors w/ Blaster in Venom once again

FA: try not to put anything here if at all. if you do then small squads of reavers with blasters would be best.

Heavy Support: Ravagers with ALL Lances or Disintegrators, depending on how many vehicles you will see

It all comes down to what you are really wanting to do. I have toyed across many spectrum of the Dark Eldar force.

One option is the Venom Spam, with The Duke. Some armies (not all) going foot slogging you have extreme amount of fire power to punch holes, but down side is the armor companies that you can't get through. You use minimal Trueborn with Splinter Cannons, 5 man Warrior Squads with Blasters, and 3 Jetfighters with Cannon upgrades.

Second option (current project) is The Baron rolling with Hellions and Reavers. A lot of speed, a lot of hit and run, and a lot of CC on your terms. Remember though you have only a 5+ armor save so cover becomes your friend.

Third option is the Carnival of Flesh, Homunculus, Wracks, Grotesques and Engines with all the nasty little add on that they have, my personal favorite is the Liquidfier Gun.

Wyches aren't as dead as some might think, you just have to know how to snake them into combat. I generally field Homunculus with them to get the pain token for their real save of 5+ FNP. After that the Homunculus is just cannon fodder to soak up a couple of hits.

Generally you want to out run your opponent by out positioning him, don't under estimate night shields and flicker fields because taking 6" from their guns and having a 5+ save at all time is hot. Your general threat to your vehicles are not the lascannon, but the small arms fire from heavy bolters on down.

I have yet to really start combining the Dark Eldar with Eldar do to being deployed, but from what I see there are some fun combos to level out some hard times.

Well IIRC you can fit about 7 venoms and 3 ravagers in 1k. My suggestion is max out as many vemoms as you can and inside the venoms run basic troops(not whyches) take on special weapon of your choice(blaster or venom cannon IMO) Beast packs are your friend despite what people say and also ravagers are your friend.
Take flickerfield and night shield on every vechile you buy because trust me they will save your butt.

One small note on Jpat's post: Wyches are basic troops. Plus, 10 pt haywires are awesome. I always put Wyches in my Venoms and stick some haywires on them. It really takes advantage of the Venom's mobility and can get your Wyches into a great position to glance a LR into the ground. That's exactly twice the point value of the unit you ran up there to glance it with, so in my book worth it (Venom+Cannon Upgrade+5 Wyches+Haywires=125pts). Food for thought.

I run two five man trueborn with either 4 blasters and a splinter cannon or 4 shardcarbines depending on the opponents forces. One of those get my archon with a blaster, agoniser and shadow field (the 2+ invul). 2 venoms for these would be great!

Then I run 10 kabalites in a raider with splinter cannon and the raider has a few upgrades, but most importantly it has the splinter racks. I use it to drive up and hide behind terrain. Then pup out under 6" and let loose with re-rollable to-hits for the kabalites.

Reavers are a good harrasal unit with the D6 s6 hits upgrade. Turbo over the map into hiding behind the enemy. And then either repeat or go in behind something heavy if you give them a heat lance and try to blow them up. I've one shotted a Furioso dreadnaught this way.

"Run what is fun for you; run what you think looks cool"

False. Everyone on the internet will tell you to do this.

Let me unfold this mistruth for you.

Simply don't do it.

This what will happen. These guys look cool, I'll get some of them. Oh they didn't do as good as I hoped they would do. Ohwell, I lost. Lets go ask the internet how to make my list better.

Internet: Your a fething moron for taking all these very weak units. You should have never gotten them. Moron.

Drazar is amazing, love that guy

in the case of DE, it's very difficuly to run just what you think looks cool/fun. Other armies can get away with doing so much more as they aren't as punishing