Warhammer 40K Tabletop XXX: Imperium After Dark

[Cheesegear]

Firstly, I'm thinking of playing dark eldar (I'm not sure if that's a bad choice for a new player - I've never played a wargame before, and only painted a handful of my old HeroQuest miniatures.) but I don't really like their lore, so I was planning on playing them as refluffed eldar coirsairs.

Eldar Corsairs, eh?
Okay. First up. You're playing 'Aeldari' now. If you start to get hung up on Craftworlds vs. Kabals, you're in for a bad time. You play both now. The only thing separating Craftworlds and Kabals, is a paint scheme. Look up 'Dark Eldar Wraithknight'. It doesn't matter. Do whatever you want. The rules of 8th Ed. mean that if your models share at least one Keyword, then you're the same army. It's even better for the short term, because Drukhari and Asuryani are in the same book. If you have one's rules, you have the other's. It's nothing like forcing a GK player (Imperium I) to buy a second book (Imperium II) for access to MTs.

Whatever. Point is, each model is going to have Keywords. You need to stop thinking in terms of 'Factions' (even though GW wants you to think that way), and start thinking in terms of Keywords. The one that matters to you, is Aeldari.

As such, I plan on having an army compromised only of standard eldar and vehicles - none of the homunculus, pain-engines wracks or gross animals. Can that be a viable army?

Oh ****. You just said the magic words. You know what happens when an Aeldari player wants to ditch Coven units?
By your Powers Combined...
You play Ynnari, now. All the rules are in the one book that you need. There are barely any restrictions on playing Ynnari, but as far as Drukhari are concerned, their only restriction is 'No Coven Units' (or Drazhar, for reasons...). If you don't want to use any of the Asuryani units, you don't have to. Nothing forces you to. Except for a cool guy on the internet telling that that it literally doesn't matter, and if you wanted to, you could paint Spiritseer & Wraithknight (because obviously) black and neon green if you really wanted to, and it would still be on Theme. If you wanted Coven Units, I'd be saying different things. But you don't. So that's where we're at.

Ynnari are extremely strong because they interrupt the flow of the game without using Command Points - which means you still get to use your Command Points for even more interrupts. So, yes. No Coven Units is very viable. If you want to use Asuryani/Craftworld units, there's literally nothing stopping you. If you don't...That's cool, too. But if you're explicitly not taking Coven Units, and calling yourself 'Dark Eldar', instead of 'Ynnari'; You're doing it wrong.