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Hey guys!

I've recently mained orks as my current army. I'm really enjoying my time building and painting them (Bad Moonz).

I'm after a secondary army that I can look at, more competitively. An army that will more then likely grow on me, and one with the most tactical possibility.

I know the current state of the Dark Eldar codex isn't great, but I assume eventually when it gets brought up to the necron style of decurion formation it will get re vamped. The reason I'm saying this is because I'm kinda focusing on my orks at the minute. It would be nice to gradually build up a secondary army though. Get 1 unit and paint it. It doesn't even have to be a power house army. But my friend fields...*sigh* a War convocation at 1500 points, and a cut throat Tau list. He moans that Necrons are just boring... and that losing a unit is down to bad dice rolling with all saves they have. I'd love to wipe him off the board using dark eldar ☺☺☺

I'll be honest, if you're going against Tau, Dark Eldar is going to be hard countered from all the ignores cover weaponry and S6+ weapons which deny your FNP. If you want competitive I would not suggest them until they get a severe revamp because as is you are very limited in terms of army-build (basically a Covens list, which forces you to buy/pirate the supplement).

Necrons are the far safer bet if you want to go toe-to-toe, and honestly your friend whining about facing armies that make him actually put effort into wins makes it seem like he just wants to keep you on the lower level curve to keep up his own win count.

You ain't gonna beat Tau, especially new Tau with Dark Eldar. if you want power and effectiveness go Necrons, they're not boring and they do have cool models.

How ever if you want a fun army that'll challenge you and have some of the best looking models in the game, dark eldar are the ones for you.

The fact he runs 2 of the cheesiest armies in the game (and i'm a Tau player) means he doesn't get to moan about other armies.

Dark Eldar have the nicer models and the option of allying in Eldar, but Necrons are the more powerful book.

There's no guarantee DE will get a Decurion-style detachment any time soon. Nobody really knows GWs long term plans and the patterns they follow in terms of codex design don't even last an edition.

Necrons have the benefit of being a cheaper army to start on top of not needing allies to function (which kinda adds to the cheapness of building the army I just stated).

The only thing DE have going for them, is the aesthetic of the models, and even then, one would need to like that particular aesthetic. They have the potential to get a nice, shiny codex in the future.

Necrons have overwhelming table-top rules. They're super easy to paint, assuming you stick with a fairly "common" paint scheme. You can make anything difficult, if you want to, but Necrons should be easier to paint than DE.

So, in short, if you're looking to have a powerful army with multiple play-styles available, with some pretty cool looking minis and fun rules [they can be fun, it's not impossible ] then I'd suggest Necrons, especially if you're looking for an army that won't just get annihilated.

 Andy140491 wrote:
Hey guys!

I've recently mained orks as my current army. I'm really enjoying my time building and painting them (Bad Moonz).

I'm after a secondary army that I can look at, more competitively. An army that will more then likely grow on me, and one with the most tactical possibility.

I know the current state of the Dark Eldar codex isn't great, but I assume eventually when it gets brought up to the necron style of decurion formation it will get re vamped. The reason I'm saying this is because I'm kinda focusing on my orks at the minute. It would be nice to gradually build up a secondary army though. Get 1 unit and paint it. It doesn't even have to be a power house army. But my friend fields...*sigh* a War convocation at 1500 points, and a cut throat Tau list. He moans that Necrons are just boring... and that losing a unit is down to bad dice rolling with all saves they have. I'd love to wipe him off the board using dark eldar ☺☺☺

To be fair, your friend isn't wrong about Necrons, at current, they're pretty much "march forward, shrug off everything an opponent does, envelop on turns 2 and 3, clean up by turns 4&5", and there's typically not a whole lot of skill required against any "pre-necron" armies or anything trying to play with just a traditional CAD. However, if your pal is playing a war convocation, given they're probably getting to play with ~1850-2000pts with that "1500"pt list, plus getting gobs of free special rules and ignoring "gets hot" to boot, it would be hard to feel bad either way.

As much as I'd say that DE might be more interesting, their next book could be 3+ years away, they went 11 years between updates previously, and with the way GW is changing design philosophies every year or so, who knows how they'll end up?

Honestly, pick whatever you like painting and looking at the most.That's how I pick armies

Competitively? Necrons, without a doubt.

I like Dark Eldar. I highly recommend them. I think the 40k community frequently undersells their competitiveness.