Darkwynn's thoughts on the Dark Eldar unit by unit break down.

I have been looking through for combos and there are some nasty ones that you would have to watch out for. FNP is super important to the army as once units start getting FNP they turn into MEQ saves which will allow them to stay around. That being said I walked through the codex messing around with point cost of each unit and different builds and this is what I found out.

HQ's worth anything:

Ancient Hamonculus with Husk blade, Soul trap, Shattershard
He can run out make any MC or IC take a toughness test with the shattershard or die with no saves of any kind allowed. Then if he kills one he turns into STR 6 on the charge with furious charge. So he will have a power weapon that inflicts instant death at INT 6. Yes please can I have another!

Hamonculus with Anmis Vitae and venom blade will be cheap Pain batteries

Hamonculus with shatter shard or a liquefier gun and a web way portal will be common also.

Duke: Allows you two rolls on combat drugs and low orbit raid to deep strike. He will be in a lot of combat drug heavy armies.

Baron: one of the other strong characters, +1 to go first and stealth to a unit is huge. Also makes Hellions troops which is great

Archon I think will be okay but for the cost of the other characters I just don't see him getting played a lot. If you do you are more than likely going to take a Huskblade, Soul trap, Shadow field, and combat drugs which makes him 145 points.

For HQ's in general I think it will be common to see one Special character or Archon followed by 1-3 Hamonculus to spread out pain tokens.

For Vect, I think he is too expensive and will suck. For me to seize the initiative I have to go second, and if I lose I have set myself up to get boned. We won't see any Vect builds at the top. Becuase in a 5-7 game format your going to fail that seize roll and depending on what your playing you could get crippled pretty quick. Too much of a risk to Hedge against.

Elites:
Incubi are awesome but do you really need more death and killing at 22 points? You take them bear bone without the Klavix upgrade.

Grotesque, I think they will suck in more ways than one on the table top. Too expensive and with the bulky rule makes them kind of hard to field unless you’re going to web way portal and if that is the case you have to worry about rampage. Let’s just leave these at home.

Wracks are awesome, bunch of poison attacks and can be made troops. Liquefier guns are great also because of d6 AP which means you have a good chance of making most things die. Plenty of weapon options for the upgrade character also. Oh they also start with a pain token which is great too.

Mandrakes I still like but I need to play test them I think they are the ultimate harassing unit but you need to get a pain token on them fast or they are going to die and become useless. They suck in combat also really but they look super cool.

Harlequins ... they are harlies nothing different. You can give them pain tokens but you would only give them one for FNP. You will see people with shadow seer in front giving cover to the rest of the army.

Trueborn are great too I think you will see a lot of common builds with them such as 4 blasters in Venom.

Bloodbrides are great also but I don't think you will be seeing them mainly because they are not troops and they can only come in ten man size units which mean people will want to put them in raiders.

Troops:

Warriors are okay. Dirt cheap loads of poison weapons and they can get Dark lances.

Wyches are awesome as always, I think you should take Shard nets every time with them as if you charge some MC or other tough units taking two attacks is huge. The Hetrix has to have an Agnoizer otherwise she won't kill anything and they will be in combat the whole time. Once the Wyches have FNP though they will be close to a 2+/3+ save in game system terms. Either you take them in a raider of 10 but problem is you can't get a Hamonculus with them to get FNP or run them in 15 man squads for Web way portals.

Fast attack:

Hellions are awesome and super all around great unit. 16 points, with the Baron above they will have a 3+ stealth save and then you give them FNP they are going to take a long time to kill. Along with the STR 4 with two attacks base is great. They have 2 poison shots a piece at 18 inch range which means they will kill most MC in large numbers. With Jump infantry they also have fleet which means you can get them where you need them pretty reliable. Stun claws are awesome but get ready for your opponent to yell and cuss at you when you take their IC out of combat with them on their hit and run move then next turn you leave him there only to shoot him with 8 blasters so he dies. Also, FC with combat drugs they can get up to STR 6 which means they can break down vehicles pretty well at that point esp. with the Baron who will be STR 7 on the charge.

Scourges they are a disappointment to me in a lot of ways. 22 points for that model is too expensive. You want to take them for the anti tank but then they just get more expensive and you have to take them in a ten man unit to get some decent anti tank. Your best bet is to take Haywire blasters so you can shoot at a vehicle in hopes to shake it or you can get other weapons but at 260 points for the unit, I rather take a Trueborn squad. They have hamstringed this unit pretty heavy.

Beastmasters here is another unit that can be really nasty. you can 5 beastmasters with 5 khymerae each which is a total 30 models that will have a 4+ INVUL and FNP that moves like beast so they will have great movement to keep with the rest of the army and they can put out a lot of attacks in close combat. I think Clawed fiends are meh but Razorwing flocks can be awesome with 6 attacks on the charge with rending. You take a full size unit and you have 60 rending attacks

Full unit of khymerae is 348 points
Razorwing unit is 210

Reavers, I am just going to say great on paper but they suck for everything else. If you are going to use them for Anti tank you need to take 9 so you can get three heat lances in there which is 234 points and they will die afterwards. It’s cool they can turbo boost 36 inches but once they get assaulted they are going to die pretty bad. You can run a 9 man group by themselves and wait for the land raider to come up close but I don't think these guys are really worth it.

Raiders same thing but Aether sails is cool for the 2d6 extra movement
Venom- Awesome for MSU units and you take the splinter cannon upgrade. That way you can put 12 shots of poison on anyone all the time.

Heavy support:

Ravagers same thing but moving 12 and firing everything is great plus they could deep strike and fire everything. Don't bother buying Disintegrator cannons they are useless.

Talos can be cool but I am worried about all the long fangs out there. I think it’s great to put a haywire blaster on the Talos instead. It keeps it cheap and you can shoot it at certain tanks to shake them and if you get lucky you can always immobilize or destroy it.

Cronos Parasite engine... These are a must have either you take one or two but having the ability to flip out two pain tokens a turn is crucial to scale the army quickly. I think keeping them at 100 points is the way to go so you have the large template and the flamer. That way you’re able to pass out two pain tokens out if the Cronos is in the ideal position.

Razorwing haven't' messed with but seems great
Voidraven haven't messed with but seems great. I would take the razorwing before I take the Voidraven as the Voidraven is too expensive.

Dark Eldar: No more Raider spam!

After looking at the Dark Eldar codex I think it is safe to say that Raider Spam armies are not going to work like they used because of point cost not with the raider but with the units will be using the raiders. There are some great units in the new book which is a huge improvement from the previous one. I am also glad they made Mandrakes and Hellions awesome. Wyches , I think got scaled back power wise a little bit with their special weapons choices and really you see a push from Phil Kelly to have more bodies on the field. The Pain token idea is a new concept for GW and it will make Dark Eldar tough as the army starts to ramp up they will only get stronger and having Wracks and other units in the list just for Pain Batteries is rough for a lot of armies.

That being said before the book came out I thought Dark Eldar were not going to shake up any of the meta game and IG and Spacewolves were still going to be on the top. Now that might be the case but working out some of these list I see them shaking up the metagame a little bit. Razorbackspam will be dead by mass hellion squads and mobile infantry. IG will have a hard time with killing DE with stealth and FNP throughout the army. There are ways where Dark Eldar can start their whole army with FNP and have 80 guys on turn one 6 inches from IG which will be really tough for any army out there to actually handle.

That being said here is a list going through the book that I worked out with a couple of buddies.

1850 Points
Baron Sathonyx
Haemonculusx 2 Venom blade, anitmas vitae
Hellions x 20 Stunclaw with upgrade
Hellions x 20 stunclaw with upgrade
Cronos parasite engine Spirit probe,sirit vortex
Cronos parasite engine Spirit probe,sirit vortex
Wracks x10 10 man squad with two luqifier guns wrack sarg upgrade
Raider for the Wracks aethersails
Wyches x9 + hetrix Blaster
Raider For Wyches
Wyches x9 + hetrix Blaster
Raider For Wyches
Wyches x9 + hetrix Blaster
Raider For Wyches

Stunclaws are a neat concept as you can take IC's with you when you hit and run. Next turn you’re still in close combat with your opponent‘s IC, which means they can't shoot at you. Hit and run again and you can Dark lance the HQ and if he isn't Eternal warrior you can instant kill him or if he is Eternal warrior just shoot the mass amount of poision weapons you have and kill him by thousand cuts. Parasites I think are going to be important for any army just to have the ability to pass out pain tokens. I want to try them out but I don't know how they will work out as you need to start killing something with them turn 1 or 2 to start passing out pain tokens otherwise they lose their effectiveness and you might as well get something else in there.