Editing Warhammer 40,000/8th Edition Tactics/Dark Eldar (section)

===Fast Attack===
====Beasts====
In Matched Play, you can only take 3 Beasts per detachment, and the detachment itself must contain at least 1 Beastmaster.
*'''Clawed Fiends:''' Horrifying but overlooked. Lots of Wounds, high Toughness and lots of attacks at high strength and with damage 2. Its only weakness, the 4+ WS, is remedied by the Beastmaster granting it rerolls.
*'''Khymerae:''' Decent harassers with a 5++. Basic stat line of a marine but much cheaper and 3 cc attack, able fill up small hole in your deployment zone to deny alpha attemp.
**'''Alternate Models''': Dire Wolves work pretty well as a cheaper and plastic alternative. Just green stuff the undead bits and add in spikey bits and job done.
**'''Alternate Models''': Necrohounds from maxmini.eu make an excellent dark city style alternative.
**'''Alternate Models''': Displacer Beasts from D&D Nulzu's miniatures are dirt cheap, comes with a 40mm base, and they come pre-primed. Did I mention they're a dime a dozen?
*'''Razorwing Flocks:''' Horrible Strength and Toughness of 2, but with Instant Death being a thing of the past, all you can see are the 4 wounds per flock  and no longer have the insane attacks from the codex, but a fluffy -1 AP with 4 attacks each. For best results, throw them at big stuff like Wraithknights. You'll wound most things on 6+ anyway so might as well make those 6s count. 48 wounds for a maxed out unit and 48 attacks for 144 points (if I'm mathing right and not totally retarded) is great for a throwaway unit. These will either be ignored or shots will be dedicated to stopping them. Plus how badass would you feel if your Archon could just summon murders of murder birds to the field? Be sure to use these things like a tau shield drones, let your bird bois soak those lascannon shots so your raiders can nice and close. Then charge the birds in to soak the flamers in overwatch. Saves your Raider the trouble from losing out on his juicy dark lance by charging in.
**'''Alternate Models''': These things are disgustingly overpriced IRL. So if you arn't running tourneys and want a cheap alternative use the Murder of Crowz from zombicide. The model looks a little janky, but it might mean that you can actually afford these guys.https://youtu.be/WAvzmqw8qxI you could also get the new Ravening Direflock endless spell from AoS, which gives you 3 bases

====Cults====
*'''Reavers:''' By Drukhari standards, Reavers are indestructible juggernauts with T4 2W and a 4+ save. They combine decent shooting (Splinter Rifle and Splinter Pistol) with decent melee (S4 AP-1 Bladevanes). They can also take either a heat lance or a blaster for every three models in the unit. In light of the new Codex, heat lances are now the cheaper option. The difference comes down to whether you prefer S8 AP-4 DD6 (Blaster) or S6 AP-5 DD6/Melta (Heat Lance) - both are viable after the update and both have the same range. Finally, they can take either Cluster Caltrops or a Grav Talon, at a rate of one per three models. The difference is, the former can deal Mortal Wounds when the Reavers Fall Back while the latter can deal Mortal Wounds when the Reavers charge. Your choice. They are now 19 Points, rejoice! 
**Given that it turns these guys into T5, 2W models with a 4+ save, Reavers are the best candidate for Painbringer, and it should really be your default Drug of choice. A big group of these with Grav Talons is one of the best tarpits in the army that your opponent '''really''' doesn't want to fall back from.
**With the Eviscerating Fly-By strategem, Reavers have regained their old  wonderfully fluffy tactic of simply flying over something and causing damage! A unit of 9 bikes will reliably put a mortal wound or two on something which can be a nice way to soften up a target before a charge. 
**Agonisers are only 4 points so consider them on your Arena Champions if you have the spare points. Extra AP is never a bad thing.
*'''[[Hellions]]:''' For some reason each little Hellion gets a damage 2 melee weapon on top of their Splinter Pods, which makes them both better at shooting and scarier in melee than Reavers. However, they are far more fragile than Reavers, too. These guys are horde sweepers. They fly around blasting suckas with a bunch of poison shots, then charge in. With no AP on their weapons and striking at S4 (maybe S5 if you gave them that Combat Drug), their attacks will bounce off big and tough things with a decent save. That 2 damage is there for one reason only: making sure infantry with FNP-type saves (a la Ork Boyz with a Painboy) have to roll boxcars or 5+ TWICE to stay alive. They could maybe harass some light vehicles (oddly enough they'd be extremely effective against enemy Drukhari vehicles) but will in no way, shape or form charge in and take out the enemy's centerpiece model. They are, however, a nasty, hard counter to horde-style armies. Give them +1A Combat Drug and send them in against a 30 man Ork Boy or conscript squad and let the bodies hit the floor. The 2 damage attacks also make them somewhat interesting against multiwound infantry like Crisis or Stealth Suits, Wraithguard, Nobz or Tyranid Warriors/Raveners/Shrikes.
**'''Note''': The new FAQ confirms that Hellions can't be taken in Raiders or Venoms.
**'''Alternate Take''': Take 14 with Adrenalight and a Succubus for those Re-Rolls of 1's and shove them all into a Tantalus (the wording of the FAQ does not mention Tantali are illegal transports for Hellions). Watch your opponent weep at the Alpha Strike.
** Primaris beware: if you can pile on enough unsaved wounds, Hellions turn Primaris marines into the most overpriced models in the game by nullifying their magic second wound.

====Unaffiliated====
*'''Scourges:''' Heavy weapon squads with wings, which somehow aren't in a Kabal, despite their fluff in the same book establishing that they used to be Kabalites and still work for the Kabals. Their stock weapon is a Shardcarbine, which is already a very nice gun, but let's be real here, you take Scourges for the clusterfuck of heavy weaponry they can schlep with them. With how specialized Haywire Blasters have become, Blasters and Dark Lances may be your best bet for general use against vehicles, but Heat Lances have received a point reduction that makes them by far the most effective anti-tank option within melta range. Splinter cannons have dropped 5 points each, and are cheaper than individual scourges. Shredders also received AP -1, so both are now valid weapon options to kit out scourges! Also don't be afraid to mix weapons as you can split your fire.  The Solarite in charge of the unit can't ditch his weapon for something you'd like better, so if you're ''not'' sticking with Shardcarbines, consider him an ablative wound.
**'''Note''': Scourges can't be taken in Raiders or Venoms, but they ''can'' be taken in the Tantalus. 3 Squads of 5 with Carbines, Blasters or Dark Lances, or a mix of the three? Congrats, you just became [[That Guy]].
**'''Melee Note:''' If you do want to take a Melee weapon on the Solarite, all the weapons perform about the same given the number of attacks the model has, with the Lance being best due to it actually being a Power Maul and the wielder being S3, and you should always expect to have to fight MEQ. If you want to abuse Shoot, Charge, Fallback, Shoot shenanigans to stop an enemy unit from shooting for a turn, then there are other units that do it better; however, your Scourges' mobility does let them easily support Reavers or Hellions with a follow up charge. If you are going to do this, however, in Matched Play it's best to keep the unit as cheap as possible. In Open/Narrative Play you're probably having a Casual/Fluffy game anyway so go nuts.
**'''Scourge Weapon Analysis - Short Version:'''
***'''Shardcarbines:''' The cheapest option and the one that gives the most mobility, at 18" Assault 3.
***'''Blasters, Dark Lances, Haywire Blasters, and Heat Lances:''' The weapons for fighting Vehicles and Heavies. 
****'''Dark Lances''' are 36" Heavy but deal as much damage as blasters; since you have mobility anyway, there is limited utility in paying the extra points for having more range.  Plan on your Scourges moving every round they can.
****'''Heat lances''' are very efficient when in melta range and awesome for sniping out characters that are badly wrapped, but when you Deep Strike, they're outside of melta range - you'll have to get aggravatingly close (for Scourges) to really use them properly.  Their point cost is fundamentally fair for their performance, but be aware of what you're buying.
****'''Haywire Blasters''' are the cheapest (the same cost as a Shredder) and extremely effective at dishing out mortal wounds to vehicles now that they are Assault 1d3 (which you ''really'' want against Quantum Shielding, Invuln Saves, and other defenses where the best bypass is mortal wounds).  Very type specific - they're ''terrible'' against {{W40Kkeyword|MONSTERS}} or any other heavy without the {{W40Kkeyword|VEHICLE}} keyword.  In a big way, consider this the opposite of the Poison Weapons you're used to playing with.  One valid way to field Scourges is using Haywire squads to solve your vehicle problems while you use Poison everywhere else to solve all of your other problems, but be aware doing that largely means you won't have any good solutions for monsters, since most of the poisonous weapons you can field have terrible AP and many of them have terrible damage. 
****'''Blasters''' are quite expensive - nearly 1.5 times the cost of the elf carrying it - but avoid all of the above headaches: you can move and shoot with them at no penalty, they don't care about typing on the target, and they don't need to be closer than your Deep Strike distance for full functionality.  This ease of use is probably why they're such a popular choice as the default option for a heavy-hunting unit.
***'''Shredders and Splinter Cannons:''' Splinter Cannons now give more shots per point (3.7) than flat carbines (4) but give up being assault weapons for more shots at the same range. Shredders are also more efficient in terms of points per wound inflicted against GEQ, MEQ AND Light Vehicles, but give up 6” of range, leaving them vulnerable to Rapid Fire and being charged.  Both weapons are type sensitive, but the Shredder is worse - there are far more non-Infantry targets you can face than non-Vehicle - and while both weapons work at full functionality at minimum deep strike range, your Scourges are kind of terrible in melee, so you'd better off using the Cannons and just deep striking farther away to avoid being charged.
**'''Scourge Weapon Analysis - tl;dr Version:'''
***Your safest defaults are a Shardcarbine/Power Lance Solarite (pistols suck) with 4 Splinter Cannons for hunting light targets or 4 Blasters for hunting heavy targets.  Every other option you can take is more complex and requires more thought.