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Hey everyone my fiance wants to start collecting and he dosn't know what army to get, he says he wants something incredibly difficult but when played right wins games and so I reccomended dark eldar. Although I really dont know where he should start, Ive saved up around 300$ or so and I want to get him a decent sized dark eldar force of about 700 points maybe a bit more. I was wondering what is a viable formation/build for a small dark eldar army thats cost efficient? But also strong

Dark eldar can be pretty hard to do on a budget. Their units are all cheap points wise, but not so much money wise. Also dark eldar are in pretty bad shape right now ans the recent FAQ's look to take away what little there was left to salvage in the codex. So its not really a great time to start them.

If your dead set on it though reavers and scourge both have good potential. Kabalites in venoms are solid troops. Razorwing jetfighters are pretty good but the new death from the skies might have changed that, I haven't looked at what it does yet.

Beastmasters, Khymerae, Razorwing Flock, and Grotesque's are good but really really pricey. Also they are large units all sold seperatly and mono pose. Which personally I hate with a passion.

Stay away from wyches, hellions, and wracks.

What would you suggest that is hard to master but amazing when played right?

Unlike a lot of the naysayers I think Dark Eldar are a decent tier army that can put out a lot of hurt when used right. In general it's a fast army that needs to make excellent use of positioning and target priority to win games but can be more susceptable to the rock/paper/scissors aspect of 40k than most due to being rather fragile and relying heavily on cover.

At 700pts I'd recommend a Succubus (run with the Archite Glaive and Armour of Misery), a squad of Incubi to join her, two squads of 5 Kabalites (4 regular, 1 with a Blaster), 3 Venoms as dedicated transports and 6 Reaver Jetbikes with Cluster Caltrops for fast objective grabbers and a bit of anti-tank. This brings you to about 630pts, for the other 70pts you could throw in a unit of Mandrakes, they can act as a decent objective holder in terrain with a 2+ cover save but lack in damage output and have no armour so Ignores Cover is guaranteed death for them. Or you can put in a 4th Venom and leave it empty, it'll still have 2 Splinter Cannons for 12 poison shots at 36" per turn. From there the army can be exoanded with Scourges, Ravagers, Talos, Grotesques and Razorwings as needed.

The alternative is to get the Haemonculus Covens supplement as well and run the formations from there. At 700pts the best choices would be a Scalpal Squadron (2 Venoms and 2 units of Wracks) and a Grotesquerie (2 units of Grotesques, a Hamenculus and preferably 2 Raiders). The problem here is that Grotesques are a single pose Finecast model that are sold indavidually and quite expensive, I used 2 boxes of Crypt Horrers to convert into Grotesques, much cheaper but you really need the Talos set for the spare parts to make a convincing conversion.

And as coblen said, stay away from Wyches and Hellions, they are useless, and Wracks are only worth bothering with in the scalpel squadron (and even then they're a bit of a tax, it's the Venoms that do the damage).

He is actually really interested in DE, so with the Haemoncullus covern formations what tactics do each involve? Just not sure what to tell him about how each unit you reccomended works

Covens are interesting in that they opperate in pretty much the complete opposite way to the rest of the Dark Eldar. They're slower as they don't have Fleet but are much tougher (Wracks and Hamonculus are T4, Grotesques and Urien Rakarth are T5 and the Talos and Cronos are T7). They also make for a very elite army, I played a 2K list for the last couple of weeks that only had 37 models in it, 7 of which were Harlequins, when I'm used to running 60+.

With the Scalpel Squadron, the Wracks have to start in the Venoms and the Venoms have to start the game in reserve, automatically Deep Striking turn 1. The formation also gives them D3 Victory Points when they score First Blood so you're looking for an easy turn 1 kill with them. After that the Wracks can be used to hold up an infantry sqaud or 2 in close combat (they're not good for much else to be honest) whilst the Venoms do their usuall thing, shooting up non-vehicles and grabbing objectives.

Grotesques are S5, T5 creatures with 3 wounds each that can put out an obsurd number of attacks (up to 8 attacks each on the charge, 9 for Aberration Sgt upgrade) and being Poison 4+ (with Instant Death on 6's) means that quite often you'll be re-rolling to wound as well. The downside is that they only have 6+ armour so will be relying on Feel no Pain pretty much all the time and being Ld 3 will need to be babysat by an IC all the time. In a Covens list they're better, the first thing the Power from Pain table gives them is Fearless and a Grotesquerie Formation lets them roll on a table for an extra boost where any of the results are good (+1S, +1T, Fleet, Shred, Rage or Feel no Pain 4+). Use Raiders to get them into combat quickly, they're an assault unit with no real shooting, are death on legs to horde armies but have such a high valume of attacks that they are a threat to anything but elite close combat units.

The grotesque formation is a bit too pricey for a starter army, the scalpel squadron seems fine pricewise, have any other less expensive recommendations to add with that formation?

Don't use the Grotesque finecast models to make grotesques. The Vampire Count "Varghouls" I believe they are, are almost perfectly sized for grotesques. A single Talos Pain Engine set comes with enough spare masks to outfit a whole set of Varghouls with very nice looking masks.

Usually i see one of the Finecast kits used as the "sergeant" grotesque, and varghouls used as the mooks.

Reavas wrote:
The grotesque formation is a bit too pricey for a starter army, the scalpel squadron seems fine pricewise, have any other less expensive recommendations to add with that formation?

Formation wise, no. The only formations DE have are from the Covens supplement and like I said, it's an elite army where Grotesques and Talos will take up most of the list.

Does he have any preference as to the type of DE army he wants to collect? There are three types which are unfortunately on a power scale, not level

1) Covens, slowest, most durable and strongest, CC orientated
2) Kabal, best ranged capabilities, middle of road for speed/durability, make best use of vehicles
3) Wych Cult, fastest but make tissue paper seem like titanium, arguably the least competitive fluffy army out there.

Haemonculus Covens are actually one of my favorite books. They're very weak to tough walkers (Imperial Knights and, to a much less extent, Furiosos come to mind) but maul just about everything else in close combat. Point for point, Coven Grotesques are possibly the best melee unit in the whole game. Add to that the fact that Covens have some of the coolest formations out there - Corpsethief Claw and Dark Artisan, in particular - and you have a nifty army. The problem is that things not mounted in a Raider are SLOW, and this game is all about shooting, not combat.

As others said, cost is a real issue for DE, but I can't really think of a much better alternative. Everything has skyrocketed in price these days, it seems. At least with Covens, your army may only have like 30 models to buy. That's something, I suppose.

Haemie covens get in real trouble when it comes to vehicles, since outside lances on raiders, or haywire on talos dont have much. The best method is have a cad of regular DE for stuff like scourges or blaster born.

For the grots i recommend looking into ebay for the rat ogres from island of blood. Then use extra bits from talos/cronus kit.

With Walkers/Skimmers sure. Against anything else Talos/Grotesques can handle due to S7/S5 against rear armour.

Although I would put my money on Talos vs Walkers anyday.

I highly recommend buying a used army lot (there are two or three DE ones in the Swap Shop right now--I can vouch that Pretre's armies are competitively priced and come from a good trader) when starting a new army. It gives a large, stable foundation to build from.

Rat ogres or ogre kingdoms troops are good foundations for making grotesques (which are the best unit the army has right now). It is FAR cheaper to convert grots than buy them. The same is true for Talos engines, which can be converted from old metal wraithlords quite easily (at a $10 price point on ebay most of the time).

Venomspam (warriors with a blaster in a dual Splinter Cannon venom) is a time honored tactic which is still quite potent (the SN International Tournament was just recently won by a pure DE venomspam list). 3rd edition warriors can be found all the time on resale sites and ebay, often for less than $1 per warrior.

 Frozocrone wrote:
With Walkers/Skimmers sure. Against anything else Talos/Grotesques can handle due to S7/S5 against rear armour.

Although I would put my money on Talos vs Walkers anyday.

Not sure about that, a Talos would find a Dreadnaut a tough nut to crack in close combat.

The dark Eldar require finess. I have been playing them for a very long time. And have quite a few videos that showcase them! Http://YouTube.com/skaredcast

The formation consisting of 5 talos' looks quite good, all you need to do is kill a few units depending on the game mode and score loads of victory points

Reavas wrote:
The formation consisting of 5 talos' looks quite good, all you need to do is kill a few units depending on the game mode and score loads of victory points

Their extra VPs can make or break the game. (Their VPs have frequently snatched victory from the mouth of defeat for me, more often than not, and I've yet to bring them and lose a game.)

However, they have some huge vulnerabilities. They are extremely slow. They are very vulnerable to D weapons and stomp attacks. Their extra VPs only generate from melee, which means you will often want to eschew shooting so you don't shoot yourself out of charge range. Also, if you bring them, you will often find that they are your best anti-vehicle choice (and at a 600+ point buy-in, they make up a huge chunk of your list) which means they have to forgo getting you those extra points in order to crush an enemy tank or walker.

For my part, I like running them with a Telepathy Farseer tagging along behind them on a bike. He can turn them Invisible or Shroud them for bonus cover saves against the AP fire they will attract, and his Psychic Shriek, Hallucinate, Dominate, and Terrify all benefit from the -1 Ld bubble they generate.

Another good idea is to run them as shields for a Dark Artisan. If the DA haemmy is your warlord, he adds to their Initiative and Weapon Skill, as well as gives them the ability to reroll 1s on FNP. (And the Cronos he brings gives all of them FNP on a 4+.)

 Jimsolo wrote:


Another good idea is to run them as shields for a Dark Artisan. If the DA haemmy is your warlord, he adds to their Initiative and Weapon Skill, as well as gives them the ability to reroll 1s on FNP. (And the Cronos he brings gives all of them FNP on a 4+.)

The Talos and Cronos get the +1 to WS and I as part of the formation, the Hamonculus Warlord Trait is Master Artisan which allowes his unit to re-roll FNP rolls of 1. The only benefit it can offer to the Corspthiefe Claw formation is the +1 to FNP from the Cronos, which admitedly is not a bad boost to have.

The corpsethief formation is excellent, 5 talos with bonus points for killing no vehicles

 Imateria wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:


Another good idea is to run them as shields for a Dark Artisan. If the DA haemmy is your warlord, he adds to their Initiative and Weapon Skill, as well as gives them the ability to reroll 1s on FNP. (And the Cronos he brings gives all of them FNP on a 4+.)

The Talos and Cronos get the +1 to WS and I as part of the formation, the Hamonculus Warlord Trait is Master Artisan which allowes his unit to re-roll FNP rolls of 1. The only benefit it can offer to the Corspthiefe Claw formation is the +1 to FNP from the Cronos, which admitedly is not a bad boost to have.

Actually, the Master Artisan Warlord trait applies to all engines within 12".

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:


Another good idea is to run them as shields for a Dark Artisan. If the DA haemmy is your warlord, he adds to their Initiative and Weapon Skill, as well as gives them the ability to reroll 1s on FNP. (And the Cronos he brings gives all of them FNP on a 4+.)

The Talos and Cronos get the +1 to WS and I as part of the formation, the Hamonculus Warlord Trait is Master Artisan which allowes his unit to re-roll FNP rolls of 1. The only benefit it can offer to the Corspthiefe Claw formation is the +1 to FNP from the Cronos, which admitedly is not a bad boost to have.

Actually, the Master Artisan Warlord trait applies to all engines within 12".

Oh wow, I missed that. Suddenly it's a much better Warlord trait.

It's so awesome! I like wrapping the CTC around the DA to give the warlord's unit a cover save if someone tries to take him out first.

Reavas wrote:
What would you suggest that is hard to master but amazing when played right?

Harlequins are the best answer to this question. Ally some with your Dark Eldar.

AdMech War Convocation is by far the most complicated army so them too. Grey Knights are a little bit tricky. Blood Angels are difficult but not hard to master.

At the other end of the spectrum are Necrons which are pretty easy, scatter bikes and Wraithknights are good with just a little bit of tactics. Imperial Knights are simple enough. Deathstars are somewhat complex but tactically simple: charge and crush!

But why does a beginner want a challenging army?

If he does want to go DEldar, I am a huge fan of Scourges.
I have one unit of haywire scourges and two units of blaster scourges, and they always kill a lot. The haywire scourges (with a bit of help) killed a knight today