Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

after i finish my khorne berzerker army, i will be collecting dark eldar. so i love the models i love how they play but there are two issues

1. fluff

i F*****g hate the fluff, so is it possible that the dark eldar somehow cure themselevs of the grotesque things? like they become renegade and have to raid to keep themselves alive and they live in a giant ship, they keep slaves but not like totally screwed up like their brethren

2. competitive

this army will be my main competitive army (i know not a really good idea) i am totally down for some venom spam and dark lance spam, so the main question is how do i do it? oh i hate wyches and haemonculus

 -v10mega wrote:
after i finish my khorne berzerker army, i will be collecting dark eldar. so i love the models i love how they play but there are two issues

1. fluff

i F*****g hate the fluff, so is it possible that the dark eldar somehow cure themselevs of the grotesque things? like they become renegade and have to raid to keep themselves alive and they live in a giant ship, they keep slaves but not like totally screwed up like their brethren

What you are describing is Corsairs. You can easily run fluffy Corsairs using mixed Eldar/DE detachments (or one or the other). They also have their own rules in IA 11 (Doom of Mymeara), which is rumored to be getting an update soon. In the last edition, the DE even had a special character (Duke Sliscus) who left Commorragh to be a space pirate.

As for competitive:

Optimal Choices (If I leave these units out of a list, I feel like I'm missing out on something.)
HQ- None
Troops- Warriors in Venoms
Elites- Grotesques
Fast Attack- Reavers, Venoms, Scourges
Heavy Support- None
Formations- Scalpel Squadron, Grotesquerie

Reasonable Choices (Useful.  I'm not going to cry if I can't take them, but I might still take them.)
HQ- All
Troops- Warriors in Raiders
Elites- Trueborn, Mandrakes, Incubi
Fast Attack- Raiders, Razorwing
Heavy Support- Talos Engines, Ravagers
Formations- Raiding Party, Scarlet Epicureans, Corpsethief Claw, Dark Artisan

Sub-par choices (If I have to take these, I'm handicapping myself.)
HQ- None.
Troops- Wyches
Elites- Bloodbrides, Wracks
Fast Attack- Beast packs, Hellions
Heavy Support- Voidraven Bombers, Cronos Engines
Formations- Covenite Fleshcorps

I strongly prefer fielding units of five warriors with a blaster, riding in a venom, as my troop tax.  Four to five of those is very cheap, and hard for opponents to handle with their quantity.  

The Hellions and Wyches are useless. (Wyches will serve you better converted to harlies.)

However, if you aren't averse to allies and really want to throw competitive players a curveball, I recommend the Freakshow lists.  You can find links to a series of tactical articles on how to do it here.  Of course, if you're looking for a purely Dark Eldar style of play, Mushkilla's articles (higher on the same page) have a wealth of tactical information for a new player.  (And for the experienced veteran, if I'm honest.)

Hope that helps!

(Also, if you're pursuing Dark Eldar, I highly recommend visiting the Dark City website. It's an extremely close community, which is amazingly supportive of its members.)

1. It is quite possible for your army to be based off of a ship. Perhaps it was a kabal who launched a failed coup and were banished? Or perhaps they just left. Either way yes you can do that

2. If you're running DE as a competitive force you're going to have an uphill battle. Dark Eldar aren't particularly great when it comes to the competitive scene at the moment. It can be done, but it will be a hard fight every time.

 -v10mega wrote:
after i finish my khorne berzerker army, i will be collecting dark eldar. so i love the models i love how they play but there are two issues

1. fluff

i F*****g hate the fluff, so is it possible that the dark eldar somehow cure themselevs of the grotesque things? like they become renegade and have to raid to keep themselves alive and they live in a giant ship, they keep slaves but not like totally screwed up like their brethren

2. competitive

this army will be my main competitive army (i know not a really good idea) i am totally down for some venom spam and dark lance spam, so the main question is how do i do it? oh i hate wyches and haemonculus

Well, those two issues are basically the entire army... You can't change the fluff, so just ignore it, and they are a very, very, very, very unforgiving army. if you go up against magic users or cover ignoring users....you're boned.

The way i am looking to run my DE competitively is by allying with Eldar. Im not spamming scatbikes, merely taking a seer council lol
what i wanted to take was 1 archon 2 kalbite in vemons 24 reavers 2 seer councils or 1 seer council and a crimson death which would provide AA


Automatically Appended Next Post:
use the seer councils to cast invisibility with 23 warp charges and shrouded for 2+ jink. this cancels out flamers which is the primary anti cover


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and since reavers have 3+ jink with skilled rider and vemons get stealth even -1 to cover still gives you a 2+

Sounds like a good core for a list.

How are your Venoms getting stealth? The only way I know for DE to give Stealth to their vehicles is Night Shields, which Venoms cant take.

In addition, I think the big tournament FAQs (ITC, ETC, NOVA) have ruled that flamers can still hit Invisibility-buffed units. Don't quote me on that one, though.

oh haha i assumed venom's came with night shields or something... Im not sure about the rulings but my playgroup says because flamers cant snapshoot you cant use em lol but oh well

That is RAW, and if your TOs run their games rules-as-written, or with their own FAQ lists, you'll be fine.

Most of my TOs use ITC FAQs, so I can't rely on that, woefully.

Can you buy Eldar and paint them like they are evil?

If yes then you have a very competitive army.

 -v10mega wrote:
after i finish my khorne berzerker army, i will be collecting dark eldar. so i love the models i love how they play but there are two issues

1. fluff

i F*****g hate the fluff, so is it possible that the dark eldar somehow cure themselevs of the grotesque things? like they become renegade and have to raid to keep themselves alive and they live in a giant ship, they keep slaves but not like totally screwed up like their brethren

2. competitive

this army will be my main competitive army (i know not a really good idea) i am totally down for some venom spam and dark lance spam, so the main question is how do i do it? oh i hate wyches and haemonculus

As has been mentioned, you're sort of describing corsairs which are similar in many ways to dark eldar (squishy, hit hard, have some of the same gear), but also suffer from having lots of outdated rules. If you play them in tournaments, you may want to run things bye them (like whether a piece of wargear uses the old or new rules).

That said, you can also play dark eldar pretty much the way you've described. The true kin do have to raid and/or torment things to stay alive, but there's not reason they can't eat to live rather than live to eat. Its counter to the culture of the dark city at large, but hey, Comorragh is a big place. There has to be a few individuals showing some form of restraint out there, right? Plus, if they live in a giant ship, they might be one of those dark eldar fleets that's just a few steps away from being extra-spiky corsairs. That is, they're still aligned with Comorragh and their kabal and so forth, but they don't spend much time in the dark city. When you don't have easy access to a slave market, it makes sense not to "waste" your slaves by tomenting them so harshly that they expire. If you want "real" dark eldar, they still need to get a fairly regular supply of agony to nom on from somewhere though.

And while it probably wasn't his intention, Filch's suggestion actually might be helpful. If you're basically just looking for a dark eldar playstyle or aesthetic, you *could* consider using dark eldar models and craftworlder rules. Fluff bladestorm as poison kicking in and felling big beasties despite their size. Run incubi using banshee or scorpion rules. Use scourge models for hawks. That sort of thing. They do play rather differently, but it's a thing to consider if you find yourself loving the models but unhappy with the rules in competitive environments.

That said, dark elda may lack the cheese of the most powerful books, but they still have some nice gems. Scourges can handle vehicles and MCs nicely (depending on what guns you give them). Vypers will put out tons of shots at an impressive range making them fantastic bully units that can force a lot of saves on MCs and artillery. I've found dark lances to be unreliable, but see above about scourges, and consider checking out the dark eldar reaper from Forgeworld. I've found that we do well against melee-centric armies because our speed and range allow us to dictate what assaults happen where after we soften the enemy up. We struggle against shooty armies a bit because they tend to ignore our cover and/or leave our squishy units stranded after blowing up their transports. Unless you're facing Tau or Coteaz, consider deepstriking a bunch of stuff, and remember that all of our transports can deepstrike. Now the problem with going deepstrike heavy is that certain enemies actually have a pretty good chance of tabling us turn one if we can't hive behind BLOS terrain. Personally, I like Talos and Cronos for this as a marine armor save, an easy-to-get 4+ cover save from ruins, and 4+ FNP tend to make those guys way more durable than you'd think. If you hate haemonculus stuff though, consider mandrakes. They're better than people give them credit for, and they're super cheap considering they can ignore fire warrior armor, easily get a 2+ cover save, and can be taken in squads small enough to easily hide behind line of sight. You can take a small squad of them for less than 40 points, and they'll make it that much tougher for your opponent to win by tabling you before your reserves arrive.

Oh, and shadowfields are cursed. They aren't an awful choice, but you will fail the first save you roll way more often than you should.