Dark Eldar Evolution

My currently painted DE suffer a little bit from the impatience and inexperience I had when I first got them with the release of 3rd ed. Namely, my 30 warriors span 3 different paint schemes, with the Wyches having a completely different scheme as well, though at least the beastmaster model matches. My first batches of warriors featured a metallic blue paint, with silver and gold weapons.

Very blingy.
The second squad of warriors was a variation on the theme, with blood-effect smeared armor that teenage me thought might look good:

As promised, my Wyches had nothing in common; they featured white and black speckled armor washed green, and skin covered in a purple wash. I really don't know why.

After painting my Incubi, I leaned more toward their dark scheme and so, subsequent paint schemes were mostly black, with some red and silver and gold weaponry.

I hated the old Archon model (and later Dracon model too) so I converted my own. My original one was ridiculous, with a Power Claw stolen from Abbadon the despoiler; yes, it was way too big. My second take was much more successful. I had decided that the best load-out for the Archon was to make him an Incubi with a shadowfield and combat drugs essentially. The most direct way of giving him a punisher was to cut off some Incubus arms and put them on a plastic warrior. I gave him some spikey bits and a greenstuff cloak pierced with Abbadon's trophy racks (one includes abbadon's head impaled on it).

I am no longer as enamored as I was with the scheme, and have been thinking about going toward the opposite end of the spectrum, with bone colored armor with dark red accents. I think it could be very striking and a bit different. It's also not the same palette as my Tyranids, so will seem more like a new adventure instead of more of the same in different shapes. Additionally, I think the new scheme will be a nice representation of a break in philosophy that the army will take. In old editions, my strategy was mostly to bubble-wrap the Archon's raider until he popped out into combat with 9 Incubi and they melted anything they touched between their high initiative and lots of power weapon attacks (28 from Incubi + 6-7 from the Archon, all S4, hitting on 3s 90% of the time).

Now, combat is not what it once was, and DE are pretty nasty at torching things from a distance in a hail of splinter and dark lance fire. Does this mean I plan on making my list Venom-spam? No, though I might take one. I'm actually going to be still fairly combat-centric, with some new units filling those roles, but it's going to be much more about movement, hiding, and pouncing at an opportune moment. The new models I have that are calling my name are:

• Archon (slightly kitbashed)
• 10 new Warriors
• 10 new Wyches
• 25 Helions
• 1 Venom
• 1 New Raider

These can be complimented by what I have already (particularly 4 raiders and a ravager) as well as a bunch of old Warrior kits. The two lists I'm toying with are either a fairly standard mounted list with 3 Raiders, a Venom, and a Ravager, and a Baron List with two blobs of Helions complimenting Raider-borne wyches and warriors, with some blaster-borne for the AP potential. I really like the idea of having Helions as troops, though I won't be surprised if it doesn't work that well in practice.

As far as painting, at least I can take comfort in the assurance that the army will become more consistent no matter what scheme I go with.