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Hello there,

I'm new to Dark Eldar.
I've been scouring the internet for any and all tactics, advice etc. I found the videos by Skared here watched them all, as well as done other research, I mostly rely on 1d4chan tactics on it's wiki page (those pages are great and I would recommend them to anyone specially those who can further improve the advice and tips on them)

My starting Dark Eldar force is about 5,000 pts (yes I know it's not usual for a new player but Ive been collecting 40k for several years now and Bartertown is awesome for 40k deals)

I have not played a single game yet. I hope you guys can help guide me on how to run a proper Dark Eldar force.

My starting inventory is as follows:

HQ

1x Converted Archon w/Blaster
- made this guy after reading some tactics and everyone seems to always use Archons. Gave him a blaster because I hear Trueborn are solid and he should join them.
- I cut the barrel of a dark lance off and called what remained a blaster (to me as a new DE player it sort of looks like the regular blaster but larger with the bulb-like tip

1x Succubus w/Agoniser + Archaite Glaive
- prior to converting that archon, this was my go to HQ choice. I kind of like the model.
- it's a finecast model and it seems to be equipped with those weapons, but I really only want the Archaite Glaive as it seems to be the better option. What say you?

3x Haemonculus
- Another finecast model. They all seem to have a liquifer gun. I've been trying to learn to identify DE weapons.

TROOPS

36x Kabalite Warriors
- all with splinter rifles

45x Wyches
- they have variant weaponry I have yet to sit down and break some limbs to fiddle with the loadouts but I intend to do so this weekend.
- to my best recollection I have 2 razorflals, 3 hydra gauntlets and 7 shardnet and impaler.

ELITES

10x Incubi
- My favorite DE model. We all have certain models that attract us to an army. The incubi called out to me and whispered promises of great vices if I started a DE army.

15x Trueborn
- 10 blasters, 9 of them converted. 4 of the 9 I used the same method as with the Archon. For the other 5 I cut the tip of the Shredder guns and cut the bulb-like tip of the Blast pistols then glued it together.
- 4 Splinter Cannons

40x Wracks
- bought a bunch of these guys because I wanted to also use Covens.
- They have several diff loadouts, and being finecast its difficult to switch up gear so advice here? I think some have hexrifles and the whip thing that I can't figure out if it's an agonizer or one of the other whip things. Some also seem to have liquifers


Transports

5x Venoms
- splinter cannon

6x Raiders
- Dark Lance

FAST ATTACK


10x Scourges
- They had splintercannons but I ripped off their arms and glued them to the Kabalite Trueborn.
- I intended to equip 8 scourges with converted hayware blasters, any ideas?

4x Razorwing Jetfighter
- tried to keep these cheap. 1 jetfighter with 4 shatterfield missiles and default load out. 3 jetfighters with dark lance/splinter cannon/mono missiles

HEAVY SUPPORT

3x Ravagers
- dark lances ahoy!

1x Talos
- chain flails and I wanted to give this guy a hayware blaster or are there better options for the tail?

1x Voidbomber
- default loadout to keep it cheap


All advice/list suggestions are welcomed.

Also I would really appreciate some ally suggestions, but I want to stay away from any codex released after Dark Eldar 7th. (this means no Eldar allies)

I'm interested in allying Orks, CSM, Astra Militarum etc etc, anything that came prior I have good inventory for some good ol allied shenanigans.

For now, Wracks, Wyches, Hellions and Bomber are complete waste of points, (Some players have made them work time to time, but those are in friendly games, in any type of comp lists you will never see them).

If you have 3k Eldar, ally them instead of those other you want, DE really need AT and (if you wanted to) Psychic powers/Defense. Eldar are good at both.

A few tips every DE player needs to know.
1) Dark lances/Lances are NOT good at all for AT
2) Venoms are amazing
3) DE are good at MSU
4) MSU are good, but having 1-3 staple units can be good if not amazing Example: Talos, Gun Boats,
5) Bikes are good, but dont over cost them, take them in 3-4 mans with Caltrops and/or a Heat lance (I dont like Heat lance on them personally)
6) The fliers are not AT
7) Scourges are good, they have good multi use, I love them as AT with Haywire, they dont need AI, venoms and Warriors are well enough for AI
8) DE has the Cheapest HQ at 10pts, the Court of Archon IS a HQ choice so you can take a Lhamaen (spelling?)

Some good set ups (I bet you know these already)
Gun Boats: Raider with 10 Warriors + SC and/or SR
Venoms + 5man w/ Blaster
Blaster Borns (Trueborns with 2-4 Blasters) in venom or raider with with Archon

Other notes, Dark lances are good, but at the same time Diss Cannons can be just as good, If you are facing alot of 2+ armor they will wreck them.

Hope some of this helps.

1. Not interested in Eldar allies. Interested in older codices for allies

2. Why are dark lances no good for AT?

3. Which MSU set ups do you recommend? I think I could possible do so to an extent.

4. I have no bikes.

5. I removed the splinter cannons from the scourges because they seem more like the type of unit to never ever sit still. I do like the haywire blaster option any idea on how to convert some? I only own 2.

6. I have no court of archon models.

7. My main opponents will be Astra Militarum (mostly infantry), Tau Empire (mostly gunline with a wide variety of older units prior to 6th ed codex no riptide etc), and Space Marines (this guy has all sorts of SM shenanigans, bikes, centurions with grav, skyhammer formation, imperial knight, shadowsword)

1) I understand, but then you wont have BB, so you will have to watch movements, You could do a DS, or some type of Drop pod list so you DE can stay away?

2) The problem with lancers they are really good against AV 13+ but mostly you will see AV11-12, and then its a 50% chance just to take a HP off a Av12, and a 33.4% chance to Pen, that if they dont get cover, each point of cover is another 16.7% chance to stop it, 5+ cover is 1/3 chance, 4+ cover/Invul is 50% chance to stop to,

If you want to kill a Av12 Vehicle with 5+ cover, you need 9 DL to hit. that means you need 12 DL to shoot at 1 Av12 target.

3) 5man Warriors + Venoms are amazing, Adding a Blaster is always good, the Sybarite isnt really worth it much anymore. You can also put them in Raiders (5man still) with a DL, I personally like this better! B.c you can take Venoms with you HQ or as FA and have them Empty, a Empty Venom is still 12 shots

Scourges are costly, but having a unit or 2 isnt bad, you just need to protect them well (hide in LoS spots or DS them, DS can be risky tho), Dont forget they have a 6+ Invul, many players forget this.

That Single Talos is nice, T7 3+ is always good,

5) YES very easily able to make HWB Scourges, 2 ways, T1st way is best way, Use a Heat Lance and add the Spikes from Splinter Rifles as end pieces, 2nd way, use splinter Cannons from Warriors and do the same thing with the Spikes but always Cut off the bumpy parts on the base of the barrels

6) The court are easy to make (Some of them) you really only need 1 the Lhamaen are the ones you want for cheap HQ's, use a Wrack Legs/Bottom (the dress thingy) and use a Wych Torso and Head/Arms, and there is your Lhamaen

7) AM (IG) Can be hard, but at the same time can be easy, You will want many Blasters, lances and HWB (But a HWB on your Talos for this fight) You need to hit them hard and fast, and this is important, Movements!, you Placement will really help, you can out move him and you will need to LoS him (IG has lots of Long range weapons, theyw ill hurt, but not as much as 20-30 S4 S5 shots from mid/close range guns that are all over the place), Tau will be a very bloody fight.... very, If he has T4 Suits DL will ID them , Kill anything that can IC you, (Jinks are your friend). SM, well it depends what type, but SM can he extremely hard or really easy. If they are Rhino Rush, focus down the units 1 by 1 and you should be fine, focus your movements too.

Scourges are the best AT we can get, especially with Haywire Blasters. They are just so reliable at stripping hull points. They are also easy to convert, since the Heat Lance looks so similar to the Haywire Blaster.

Blasters and Dark Lances are still useful, they just aren't reliable. They can instant death T4, strip wounds off of Monsters and have a chance to blow stuff up. As a rule when you have Haywires and Dark Lances, fire the Dark Lances/Blasters first. That way if you get lucky and blow it up your taking all 3 hull points instead of the Haywire Blasters reducing it to 1 hull point then exploding it.

MSU for me at least means 2 gun boats, 3 Dakka Venoms w/ Blasters and 2 Ravagers at 1500pts as my core force, other bits sprinkled in to taste.

A Lhaemen model is very easy to make, almost every dark eldar kit comes with something that looks like a Venom Blade and has female as well as male parts. Kit bashing a sexy female with a sword, that's it

Infantry IG should be easy to beat, by premeasuring movement carefully you can ensure your gunboats can inflict maximum damage but take the smallest. Pick a flank and pick him apart, getting *barely* into weapon range then killing yourself out of retaliation range of all but his long range weapons.

Tau are harder. Use positioning to direct wounds onto the suits rather than the drones. Kill Pathfinders first. Venoms are good at this, Pathfinders don't like taking saves.

Great advice specially on the converting a Lhamean tips, I had pretty much wrote that off completely as an option but i'll see if i can do something decent enough that i can play as one.

Also thanks for the HWB convertion tips I'll see what i can work out there.

Positioning being the key its good to know, I enjoyed that piece of advice i expect that it will really help.

Any tips vs marines?

I'd add that lances have other uses too other than just hoping for the kill shot. Many vehicles only need to be forced to snapshoot (through either getting them to jink or a crew shaken/stunned result) to negate them on the battlefield. If you're fighting a vindicator for example, just get the damage result you needed and then direct firepower into other targets. I think a lot of DE players spend too much time trying to finish off vehicles like Vindicators when they can just leave it shaken and then start working on other targets.

I like taking Sybarite upgrades for my 5 man Kab units w/ blaster in venom purely to be able to add a haywire grenade. Every little bit helps for anti tank in a pure DE list.

Wouldn't tossing Blasters into 5man warrior units mean that they will often have wasted roles? I mean if you have a blaster + haywire grenade then I can see how that can work, but is the cost vs reward of doing so worth it?

 Akaiyou wrote:
Wouldn't tossing Blasters into 5man warrior units mean that they will often have wasted roles? I mean if you have a blaster + haywire grenade then I can see how that can work, but is the cost vs reward of doing so worth it?

Shooting at tanks yes it wastes the poisoned shots, but shooting at anything else means the blaster is very likely to kill something

 Akaiyou wrote:
Wouldn't tossing Blasters into 5man warrior units mean that they will often have wasted roles? I mean if you have a blaster + haywire grenade then I can see how that can work, but is the cost vs reward of doing so worth it?

Its always good to have a AP weapon, and it even better b,c its S8 (you can ID many things this way) Lets say you are shooting at Broadsides, the Poison and Blaster are different profiles so you can have the poison kill the Drones 1st, then have the blast ID a Broadside

At the same time if you dont need the poison shots and need more AT well you have 2-5 spread out between your Warrior units.

interesting i'll have to try that out thanks.

I'm not a big fan of running blasters in the venom squads myself. I prefer to just take the saved points from that and put them toward dedicated anti-armor units like scourges (or bringing along an aspect host of fire dragons who do what the blasters do but far far better and for less points).

 lessthanjeff wrote:
I'm not a big fan of running blasters in the venom squads myself. I prefer to just take the saved points from that and put them toward dedicated anti-armor units like scourges (or bringing along an aspect host of fire dragons who do what the blasters do but far far better and for less points).

I wasnt either till I was told it was good and tried it out, having 5-7 extra blasters is alot of points, but, Holy crap it makes a huge difference more thans that it didnt, and some of those differences for me was way to good to never not take blasters on warrior units.

I will try it out with blasters in warrior squads