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Recently, I bought myself an Archon model to paint up, for a change of pace from Terminator armour [GK] and Power armour [SW]. I am enjoying painting him so much that I am pretty much set on getting a DE force, but not really sure where to start. I want to keep it as cheap as possible [40K? Cheap? Ok....] and have a 1000, 1500 and 1750 point lists. The trick is having a solid, but fun core for 1000 and being able to add on another 500, then another 250 to bring it up to 1500 and 1750 and also be able to use ALL the models. So this is where you guys come in, what's a good start?

Thanks in advance =D.

Just start buying Venoms.

I assume you'll want to make the best use of your Archon, considering you've made him all fancy. Archon's aren't incredibly efficient, the Husk Blade *really* needed AP 2,but when building an Archon I'd advise go big or go home. Shadowfield, Huskblade/Agoniser/ Soultrap with optional webway portal and/or relic.I like to use him in a unit of Incubi because it looks frickin' amazing but a more practical use of him is to be in a unit of Grotesques as they gain more from him company (High leadership for Shriek, high I for sweeping and a 2+ invul with majority T5 is just lovely).

Basic army would be Archon + 3 Incubi with Klaivex in Venom or Archon + 4 Grotesques in a Raider with Nightshields.
Core is either 10 Warriors w/ Splinter Cannon in a Raider with Nightshields and Splinter racks (my personal favourite, but if you meta has Ignore cover this set up doesn't work).
or 5 warrior units with optional blaster in a Venom with double cannons. Cheap, scoring, fast with long range firepower.
Take either 2 of the Raiders or 3 of the Venoms in 1000pts, your call. Ignore Wyches.
Take either 2 units of Scouges, you can get away with 1 at 1000pts if you need to. 5 man unit with 4 haywire blasters costs 120pts and is the most reliable AT Dark Eldar have. Reavers are also great, Cluster Caltrops are amazing, but don't mistake Reavers for AT. They are a swiss army knife and do not replace Scourges, take them alongside scourgs.
Flyers are meh, I quite like the Fighter due to it's ability to drop all 4 missiles the turn it arrives. Take one if you face large units or like the aesthetic.
Ravagers are ok, not great, not bad. Consider keeping the Disintergrators if you face Eldar or Marines a lot. I've found 9 Str 5 Ap 2 shots are quite good at forcing Jetbikers to jink if they get the chance.
Talosi are good, but if your taking Talosi take a look into the Haemonculus coven supplement. The formations make Talosi much more appealing.

Example 1000pt list.

Archon with a webway portal + Medusa (or any other flamer unit)+ Raider is really killy.

you might also want to take a look at the coven lists.

if you are into those things you could make a really nice list with only a few big monsters, and some really nasty tricks.

DE are actually pretty monetarily merciful if you use the strategy of "buy Talos Kit, use extra bits to convert fantasy varghouls into grotesques" you can get a pretty awesome beefy monster army without too much cost.

Thanks for all the help guys! I really want to use some of the Covens formations at some point, love all those Monster models.

@Alex, I made a list very similar to that, and I absolutely love the idea of tossing my Archon in with Grotesques!

Grab one box of Kabalite warriors and go for 8with splinter rifle and 2 blasters.
Then get 2 venoms (go for dubble splinter cannon).
Thats a 5man warrior in a venom x2 for 240p and the best optional Troop you can get.
For added troop just keep spamming this formula since you can't really go wrong with it.

Then I would recommend a 5man unit of Scourges with 4haywireblasters since these are some of the best anti-tank in the codex.

I would get loads of venoms, them pop in Incubi, scourge, and reavers.

Well it seems everyone loves the Venoms! Loving all these options! Thanks =D

Edit:[u]Also, with the Huskblade and Soul Trap, if I kill a multi wound character with ID in a duel, does that count as inflicting only one wound, or would I get the 3 wounds to go towards The Trap.

 salix_fatuus wrote:
Grab one box of Kabalite warriors and go for 8with splinter rifle and 2 blasters.
Then get 2 venoms (go for dubble splinter cannon).
Thats a 5man warrior in a venom x2 for 240p and the best optional Troop you can get.
For added troop just keep spamming this formula since you can't really go wrong with it.

Then I would recommend a 5man unit of Scourges with 4haywireblasters since these are some of the best anti-tank in the codex.

Unless I've been misreading my codex, a 10 man warrior squad can only take one special weapon. The ten man unit size unlocks a heavy weapon, so you could grab a dark lance, but those suffer from being heavy.

That said, warriors are a good way to go! They're a decent troop choice that doesn't cost a lot of money, and the old versions of the models are cheap on ebay. For kicks, you can take a blob of them and give your archon a webway portal so you end up with a ton of splinter shots (add cannons and blasters to taste) coming out of nowhere, not scattering, and pouring on the pain. Plus, you can use them as trueborn which are pretty okay. Especially blasterborn. They won't compete with fire dragons or sternguard, but they're still pretty alright. Plus they use up an elite slot you may or may not be doing anything with.

Scourges are in a similar boat. They're relatively cheap and pack a half-decent punch. Plus they have access to haywire blasters which are nifty.

Venoms make great transports for most of our infantry units and offer a ton of poison shots at a great price. Many people consider them our bread and butter these days, though I'd argue they're rather hard-countered by the GMCs and impeial knights that are in vogue. I get a lot of use out of raiders myself. The splinter wracks make ten man squads of warriors hit pretty hard when in range, and night shields help out with survivability.

All that said, Covens are the more powerful option, but not necessarily the more affordable option.

I think Salix was saying on how to build them before splitting them up into two 5 man squads.

x2 5 man warriors in Venoms.

I do plan on going into Covens though, I really like the Dark Artisan formation and the Grotesque one.

On that note, I came up with this list.

 Tiberius5000 wrote:
I think Salix was saying on how to build them before splitting them up into two 5 man squads.

x2 5 man warriors in Venoms.

Yeep, just like that.