Editing Warhammer Army Project/Dark Elves (section)

===Buying Your Army===
The army is expensive as fuck.  If you buy a Cauldron of Blood/Bloodwrack Shrine, always make the Cauldron of Blood.  You get Hellebrone (a special character), the Death Hag (a Hero), the Bloodwrack Medusa (a monstrous beast) and the Cauldron.  Spearmen and Crossbowmen got dearer, so be careful with core units.  Also, Witch Elves, Executioners and Black Guard became WAY overpriced because of the excuse that it's a double kit, since they're plastic models that cost as much as they did when made of metal.  

Cold One Knights are still fairly reasonably priced, and the  Hydra got cheaper while also gaining the option of making the Kharibdyss.  Bolt Throwers are as expensive as they ever were, but still a good unit.

To save money with a Dark Elves army, you'll have to get creative.  

Buy some basic High Elf models from GW (or Mantic--but only if you like owning ugly ass minis), remove their more High Elven bits and replace them with Dark Elf bits or spikes.  Then paint them in Dark Elf colors and in the fluff pass them off as defectors from Ulthuan (or Athel Loren) gone over to Naggaroth (For example; Spearmen become Dreadspears, Glade Riders become Dark Riders).

Corsairs are good for conversions and can be used to make other units.  
* For example, take a box of Corsairs (using Aus prices that's $55).  Take two away and use them to buff an existing Corsair unit.  As for the remaining 8, take 5 Corsairs and with some modeling putty and tools convert 5 of them into Shades.  Take the Standard Bearer and give him the same treatment, he becomes a BSB Master.  Another Corsair can become either a Master on foot, a Dreadlord on foot or a Fleetmaster.  The final Corsair, with the same method, can be converted into an Assassin.  Buying GW's Shades, two Masters and an Assassin model would cost $125, but with this idea you save $70!  (NOTE: IF you're already into conversions you won't have to worry about buying modeling putty or tools, and get them from crafting stores, not GW).  Since Warhammer is more expensive with Aus prices, imagine how much cheaper this method would be for gamers in the US or UK (prices in other parts of the world vary but fall between these price ranges).

Alternate take, buy some dark eldar. They are currently one of the cheapest armies of 40k and they have great kits that you can convert with relative ease.