The Dark Eldar, for their enemies death is a gift.

















"The earth does not deserve to touch my feet."

Dark Eldar are the forsaken and corrupt kindred of the Eldar. The are the sadistic pirates of the Warhammer 40.000 universe, practicing enslavement and finding plasure in torture to the extreme.

Their armies, like their Eldar counterparts, usually have the advantages of mobility and advanced technology, though they are often lacking in resilience and numbers. Dark Eldar armies make use of various anti-gravity skimmers to launch high speed attacks. striking with little or no warning, using an interdimensional labyrinth known as the Webway to traverse the galaxy safely and far more quickly than most advanced races are able to with their Warp jumps.

The Dark Eldar are unique amongst the intelligent races of the Milky Way Galaxy because they do not live on a settled world or worlds, but rather the bulk of their population is concentrated in one foul city-state, the Dark City of Commorragh that lies within the "ordered" Immaterium of the Eldar Webway. The Dark Eldar are mainly pirates and slavers who prey on targets across the galaxy to feed their unholy appetites for other sentient beings' souls, a terrible desire called the Thirst, though they are sometimes used as mercenaries by other species.

Source: http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/

Key principle: Powerful but fragile - Most Dark Eldar units are extremly powerful in terms of damage, but die like flies in terms of health.

Secondary principles:

1) Powerful Scouts - Mandrakes are strong, can infiltrate, and have excellent building damage. You'll have to use their help in the early stage of the game if you don't want to fight an uphill battle. They are good even in tier 2 but fall behind after.

2) No turrets or mines for defense - You'll have to rely on your army for defense. However, Dark Eldar is a rushing race, your main focus shouldn't be on defense. But if you need it, Slave Chambers with Gruesome Display Add-on deals area of effect damage around it, and in tier 2 the Dark Lance Listening Posts add-on can be of help, but really not much.

3) Low Health builder but able to Multitask - Weakest builder in the game in terms of health, but most useful in terms of building. After he touches a building the building will be built by itself, making you able to build several buildings and repair at the same time.

4) Few detectors and infiltrator in early game - The 1st Soul Power and the secondary hero Haemonculus that needs the lab. Mandrakes can infiltrate with a tier 1 research, and unlike the tier 1 infiltrator from Tau they deal big damage although melee.

5) Units need several buildings - Dark Foundry for bikes (Hellions) and Jetbikes to use early game, and Hall of Blood required for regular troops (Warriors) and jump troops (Scourges). These 3: Mandrakes, Hellions, Jetbikes are your early game army before getting the Secondary Hero, with Warriors and Scurges being situational.











6) Very good mobility - Dark Eldar have a fast army.

7) Access to vehicles in Tier 1 - Jetbikes from Dark Foundry have good damage and can decap too.

8) Jumping Heavy Weapons - Scourges can beat most units/vehicules/buildings and get 2 jumps. However, they have very low HP so should only be used against that. Hellions that are your main infantry early game can jump too.

9) Soul Powers - Hard to use, but you can use them, others can't, don't neglect them.

10) Rigid Build Orders - Can't switch a Build Order for another without spending tons of resources.

11) Rigid army composition - You have Mandrakes, Hellions, Jetbikes in tiers 1 and 2 and then switch to Witch, Beasts, Heroes, Raven, Ravager, Relic Unit in tier 3. Necrons and Dark Eldar have fewest amount of units in the game.

* To increase Dark Eldar population, build Slave Chambers.

I do not know what's happening on your battlefield, I only know what's generally a good thing to do, so don't take these builds orders as dictatorial imposed rules of what you should do in order to achive absolute and concrete victory, but simply guidelines of what you should do to get your army to the next level as fast and as efficient as you can.

One example, if you're being attacked and the next thing on the build order is "build your vehicle building", you're obviosuly not going to build your vehcile building but reinforce your already existing squads and/or create new squads.

Another example, if the enemy is using infiltrators first you're going to deal with the infiltrators regardless of what the build says (use 1st Soul Power, queue up Haemonculus or Wych Squad, they're Dark Eldar detectors).

These builds are only the spine, not the whole, the rest is up to you, keep that in mind.

USE VERSUS: Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, Chaos, Imperial Guards, Tau, Sisters of Battle

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the builder build 1 Vehicle Building (Dark Foundry)

- Have the HQ queue up 2 scouts (Mandrakes)

- Right after the builder has touched Dark Foundry, have the builder build 1 Gen.

(Dark Eldar buildings will start building by themselves once the builder has touched them. So all the builder has to do is touch the Dark Foundry building and them move to the Plasma Generator location right away because the Dark Foundry will continue constructing itself independently)

- Right after the builder has touched generator, move him near the 1st SP to be captured by scouts.

- When the 1st scout is created, have him capture the closest SP

- When the 1st SP is captured, build LP on them and the armory building (Haemonculus Laboratory) right after that.

- Queue up 1 Hellion Squad from Dark Foundry.

- When the 2nd scout is created, have him cap another SP

- When the Scouts pairs have captured their first SPs, have them capture the next SPs.

- Attack with 1st Scouts as soon as they finish capping their 2nd point, and with Hellions.
(Except vs Space Marines, in that case, take your 2nd scouts to attack too)

- Build Reaver Jetbikes (up to 3 depending on situation) and have the builder build LPs on SPs

- Reinforce 1st Scouts and Hellions, try to decap and kill/destroy as many things as possible, starting with builders/cappers.

- Have the builder build 1 more Gen.

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Have the builder build the Infantry Building (Hall of Blood)

- Research "Soulseeker Ammunition"

- Have the builder build Slave Chambers.

- Queue up 3 more Jetbikes.

- Research "Reaver Targeting Module" and "Night Shields".

USE VERSUS: Necrons (Small Maps)

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the HQ queue up 2 scouts (Mandrakes)

- Have the builder build 1 Infantry Building (Hall of Blood)

- Right after the builder has touched Hall of Blood, have the builder build 1 Gen.

- Right after the builder has touched generator, move him near the 1st SP to be captured by scouts.

- When scouts are created, have them cap SPs.

- When Hall of Blood is complete, queue up commander unit (Archon) and 1 Warrior squad.

- Have the builder build 1 Slave Chamber.

- Harass the enemy with 1 scout, Archon and 1 Warrior squad.

- Keep Capturing SPs with the other scout and build LPs on them.

- Queue up 1 more Warrior squad.

- Continue harassment with the 2nd scout and the 2nd Warrior squad.

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Queue up Scourges from the Infantry Building.

USE VERSUS: Necrons (Large Maps)

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the HQ queue up 2 scouts (Mandrakes)

- Have the builder build 1 Infantry Building (Hall of Blood)

- Right after the builder has touched Hall of Blood, have the builder build 2 Gens.

- Right after the builder has touched generator, move him near the 1st SP to be captured by scouts.

- When scouts are created, have them cap SPs and the builder build LPs on them.

- When Hall of Blood is complete, tech up to tier 2 from HQ and queue up commander unit (Archon).

- Have the builder build Haemonculus Laboratory

- Have the builder build Slave Chamber

- Research "Soulseeker Ammunition"

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Queue up Scourges from the Infantry Building.

USE VERSUS: Dark Eldar

Tier 1 - Game Start

- Have the HQ queue up 3 scouts (Mandrakes)

- Have the builder build 1 Infantry Building (Hall of Blood)

- Right after the builder has touched Hall of Blood, have the builder build 1 Gen.

- Right after the builder has touched generator, move him near the 1st SP to be captured by scouts.

- When scouts are created, have them cap SPs.

- When Hall of Blood is complete, research "Infiltration"

- Attack with 2/3 scouts (decap, kill builders/scouts, and destroy Listening posts / generators) , and as soon as they attack and reinforce each squad with 1 unit.

- Keep Capturing SPs with the 3rd scout and build LPs on them.

- As soon as you're done with the LPs, build the armory building (Haemonculus Laboratory).

- Queue up secondary hero (Haemonculus) from HQ.

- As soon as the armory building is built, have your builder build slave chamber.

- Queue up 2 Warriors from HQ.

- Attach the secondary hero to any of the 2 Warriors squad.

- Reinforce the 2 Warrior squads with Warriors Leaders.

- Only reinforce Warrior Squads to 5 + leader because only 6 units can shoot from a Raider, and because you can use the spare requisition to build a generator to tech faster and get Raiders faster.

- Have your builder build 1 more Gen.

- Have your builder build 1 Dark Foundry

- Queue up 2 Raiders for your Warriors and 1 Talos for base destruction

Tier 2 - First HQ add-on researched

- Research requistion upgrade and power upgrade from LP and any Gens.

- Queue up Scourges from the Infantry Building.

The Dark Eldar have a third resource, Soul Essence, which they can harvest from the fallen bodies of their enemies and even their own troops. Players start every game with 50 Soul Essence.


This Soul Essence can be used to cast a variety of powerful global abilities which appear in a new panel on the in-game UI, and give the Dark Eldar an edge in combat. These abilities range from more basic powers like Piercing Vision, which enables any unit to detect cloaked enemies for a time, to Screams of the Damned, which universally lowers morale for all enemies on the battlefield. At the highest tier, one of these abilities, Soulstorm, allows the Dark Eldar to tear open a small Warp Storm on the battlefield, which can be controlled for a limited time and decimates enemy infantry wherever it goes. These Soul abilities, combined with the hit-and-run nature of the Dark Eldar, makes their play experience unique and very exciting.


Piercing Vision
Cost: 40 Soul Essence
Target: Friendly unit, squad or vehicle.
Cooldown: 60 seconds

- Grants a detection radius of 30 to the target for 30 seconds.
New units reinforced in a squad will not have the detection.

Screams of the Damned
Cost: 60 Soul Essence
Target: Every enemy unit with morale on the map.
Cooldown: 180 seconds

- Halves maximum morale of all enemy units on the map for 15 seconds
- And then, they take 40 morale damage with that halved morale.
Imperial Guard's vanilla Guardsmen with 100 morale will break instantly.


Rend Soul
Cost: 150 Soul Essence
Target: Enemy infantry (commanders included) and daemons.
Cooldown: 180 seconds

- The target takes instantly 100 damage and 20 morale damage.
- After 20 seconds, it takes 100 damage and 20 morale damage again.
- It also takes 10 more damage every second for 25 seconds.
- The unit's abilities are disabled for the duration of the ability.
This ability automatically targets squad leaders over regular units in the squad.

Corrosion
Cost: 200 Soul Essence
Target: Location, affecting all enemy units and buildings.
Cooldown: 180 seconds

- Unleashes the misery of trapped souls as a raining cloud of corrosive acid.
- All enemy units and buildings caught under the cloud have their armor reduced by 8%.
- Also increases their taken damage by 10%, applied after the armor reduction damage bonus.
The effect lasts for 17 seconds on units caught within the acid rain, but does not affect new units
that enter the cloud after it is cast.


Rekindle Rage
Cost: 200 Soul Essence
Target: Any friendly unit, squad or vehicle.
Cooldown: 240 seconds

- All abilities on the target are instantly recharged.

Soulstorm
Cost: 275 Soul Essence
Target: Location, affecting everything except buildings.
Cooldown: 180 seconds

- Tears open a small Warp Storm upon the battlefield.
- The ability DOES FRIENDLY FIRE.
- The summoned storm lasts for 20 seconds.
- Can be moved around the battlefield to track targets with a movement speed 16.
- The damage is dealt every 0.25 seconds, but the damage value varies depending on the target.

* Even if I've talked more about the abilities than the army or build orders, it doesn't mean they're more important. Abuse them, but don't rely on them to win completely negligating everything else. They're useful as support, but not good enough to generaly focus on them instead of build orders.

"No! Not the whip!" - Tortured Slaves

"Death is my meat, terror my wine." - Archon (primary commander)

"I'm he-ere! Where are my victims?" - Haemonculus (secondary commander)

"My chariot... Forged in the dark city, built for pain and death!" - Dias of Destruction (relic unit)