Dark Eldar - Examination of weakness and potential fixes.

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**Arctik_Firangi**

Gunline DE might be one of their effective builds, but they're boring both to play and to play against.

Effective raiding DE is what I want to see. Nice fast warp beasts are essential. Rending is overdone in general but it suits several DE units if it suits harlequins.

Feel No Pain command is almost necessary now to deal with Space Marine command... but that's also just counter-building. Hmm. Rending helps to balance out vs. marines, and helps S3 be effective in combat without helping it to damage vehicles. The big problem with FnP is that it's taken after the wound, so it's effectively an additional cover save... as if cover wasn't enough cheese. But then DE don't have much business in cover, do they?

I don't think Warriors should be able to, mind, but one good sized pack of Rend in the list just seems too fitting. Night-fighting rules similar to harles for shooting could also benefit a key unit, such as HQ's retinue.

But then again, the Eldar advantage is mobility and defensive tricks. Do we want Dark-coloured Eldar? Without a farseer-type choice it'll never be the same, but DE are just Eldar statline with rubbish units. I think the current incarnation should be plunged into the warp, forgotten, mutated, and thrust back into the multiverse with a plethora of warp-beasts, and jetbikes with lots and lots of spiked chains.

Another thing I liked was the Space Marine Biker Scout's new ability to set mines... something similar could do the Darkeldar well.

EDIT: I posted 'DA' instead of 'DE' throughout. Weird.

**aka_mythos**

I think the important thing with DE is that every unit have some way of being fast; thats the DE's main trick and they should have every way of achieving speed... transports, deep strike, flying, skimming, jetpack-ish, fleeting, and maybe something made up just for them. Beyond that differentiating them from eldar is really about tapping into the Pirate-gladiator-torture-slavers themes and how that would permeate into their technology.

From a rule building view DE by not being tough need some way to either be tougher or to make opponents less tough to balance their survivability. I see this being in the form of combat drugs to improve and poison to remove or diminish enemy toughness in the equation. I don't think they need to be toughened as much as just given weapons to give them a way of dealing with tougher enemies. While I think FNP is appropriate to some units I think it'd be to wide sweeping to give everyone. Close combat weapons with different poison effects and some ranged weapons with rending I think would do enough.

I agree that the marine scout units were good with respect to their new special rules and it'd be cool to see something similar with DE. I don't think it fits with their nature to set booby traps atleast not in the land mines sort of way. I think something like the Scout land speeders ability to block deep strikes and to affect LD are more DE.

**Arctik_Firangi**

I was thinking more like invisible black monofilament wire strung through cover. Something nice like that. Has fluff ever mentioned DE having monofilament tech, BTW?

**Seamus O'Shank**

I'm pretty sure that Shredders shoot monofilament wire/netting, so they do have that sort of tech.

**MinMax**

"The Shredder unleashes a web or mesh of monofilament wire, often with miniscule barbs or serrations along the lines."

Yup. They've got that technology.

**jesterzdragon**

That does seem like an interesting idea. I always thought the shredder was horribly overpriced, but make it a flamer template and it might work better. I thought it could be turned into slave capturing device. It shoots out a web and takes slaves in a way similar to the old warp spiders, but the squad shot at can free its own members by some mechanic.

The Talos should get a stinger weapon upgrade. It is modeled after a scorpion and haemonculi built it. FNP for the talos seems like it could work, I don't think heavy weapons are the answer as the Ravager does that. The Talos is a CC killer, and it is lacking armor, but the toughness makes it more akin to a Wraithlord. A stinger weapon that shoots could potentially be very dangerous and fitting. Talos speed seems to be ok, but maybe it can boost itself as it does have a grav engine on it. I don't think a jetbike boost as it is so large, but perhaps a 9" assault or something odd. 12" seems like warp beast, and the Talos is larger so I don't know if it should be that fast. 6" move, 12" assault puts it faster for sure, but not as fast as a Raider force. It is in the middle of foot soldiers and Raider craft based assaults.

**aka_mythos**

I have a thread going on Warseer:
http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=154896

And Ayestes on their posted the following:

Ayestes wrote:
I found a cheat sheet for our mini-dex but it didn't have any point values. I don't recall where I put our mini-dex, and the computer I have it on is stashed away somewhere deep a few hours away from here.

General Wargear Changes
Splinter Rifle - 18" Assault 2
Splinter Cannon - Assault 5
Splinter Accelerator - 36" S4 AP4 Assault 2 (New!)
Shredder - Template
Horrorfex - 24"
Xenospasm - 18" S3 AP2
Disinitegrater - Sustained Mode is Heavy 4
Dark Lance - Assault 1
Dark Pistol - 12" S8 AP2 Pistol
Blaster - S9 AP1
Stinger - 18" S- AP6 Assault 1 (Wounds on 2+, if a model is removed they take an additional 1d6 hits with an AP of 2 wounding on a 4+)
Desolation Cannon - 36" S9 AP1 Ordinance Lance, Terror Effect

Close Combat Weapons
Poisoned Blade - 4+ Poisoned
Paralytic - 2+ Poisoned
Agoniser - 4+ Poisoned, Power Weapon
Hellglaive - Furious Charge, +1 S

Protective & Mobility Wargear
Wych Armour - Gives 6+ Save, allows re-rolls of consolidation checks
Warrior Armour - Gives 5+ Save
Corrupted Exarch Armour - Gives 3+ Armour Save
Incubi Armour - Gives 3+/5++ Save, Removes Fleet
Reaver Jetbike - +1 S, +1 T, 3+ armour, TL splinter rifles
Skyboard - 5+ cover save while moving, 4+ armour, Hit and Run
Scourge Wings - Jetpack Rule, Hit and Run, 4+ armour

Misc. Wargear
Tormentor Helm - +1 Attack
Gruesome Talisman - unit gets extra kill in assault for morale test purposes
Trophy Rack - Prisoner taken = +1 Ld
Hell Mask - Enemies 12" aura -1 Ld, does not stack, cept with Torture Amp
Wych Drugs - Give Stubborn
Combat Drugs - WS, T, S, A, I, and 12" Assault
Crucible - Psykers within 24" suffer from -3 Ld and take Perils only at 10,11,12, when a prisoner is taken the field expands 12"
Nightmare Doll - Re-roll for first turn (Had an idea to make seize the initiative a 4+ instead of 6+)
Nightfield Amulet- Causes a Night effect for one turn and gives all Dark Eldar units a +1 to cover saves for that turn

Magical Wargear
Shadowfield - only take 1 total per army
Animus Vitae / Mask of Damned / Vexanthrope - only take 1 total per army
Animus Vitae +1 S/WS, additional +1S for 1 round on prisoner
Mask of the Damned - Ignore Grenades, -1 Ld enemy 12", when prisoner is taken enemies take fall back checks within 12"
Vexanthrope - + 1 T/W, Ignore Instant Death, +1 T for 1 round on prisoner

General Rules
Prisoners Captured on Poisoned, Splinter, or Sweeping Advance Kill
Prisoners have no point bonuses anymore, just Item bonuses
Most Dark Eldar Units have "Vicious and Quick" which is Preferred Enemy, Fleet, and Skilled Riders
Mandrakes, Wyches, Grotesques could be Troops with appropriate Leaders

Vehicle Rules
Night Shield - +1 cover save, at least 5+ cover save
Scaling Nets - Emergency Disembark is at most a S1 hit, never pinning
Screaming Jets - Deep Strike, pushes enemy models out of the way causing pinning tests
Scythes - Allows Tank Shock and Ramming. Tank shock causes 1d6 S4 Hits and Ramming gets a +2 bonus to the enemy.
Torture Amp - 12" Radius enemies -1 Ld, does not stack, cept with Hell Mask

Units
Archons/Archites may take multiple Dracon/Drachites, all have multiple options for wargear
Archons can be made shooty with heavy weapons, start with Splinter Rifle, Pistol, and CCW
Archites remain pretty much the same, start with Wych Weapons, Splinter Pistol, and CCW
Hamonculi are fairly similar to what they were before with new wargear
Incubi are Elite type, given a Protectors rule (takes a single wound away from a single model)
Grotesques T4 (sorry, my mistake) S4 W2 Sv 4+ FNP
Mandrakes all have Poisoned Blades and Splinter Pistol, Leader gets access to more - changed to infiltrate/scout (did like surprise deployment though, considered lictor-like entry)
Wyches auto have plasma nades and wych weapons, wears Wych Armour
Any attacks targeting a model with wych weapons suffers from half WS (if S<6) and -1 Attack
Warriors get special and heavy weapons every 5 models, can board Raider
Reavers are a Troop Type with Warrior baseline stats - made more of a shooty type unit
Hellions are built to be hit and run troops, really only dealing good damage on the charge, wears Wych Armour
Warp Beasts - Rending, T4, 4++ save - made Fast Attack type, made a little more "warp" or daemon-like
Scourges - All have Splinter Accelerators baseline, heavy weapons on the move, thought about making them fast attack with the Jetpacks they have now
Dias - Force Field similar to Wave Serpent, armour 12, non-open topped, can have Desolation Cannon, x4 Splinter Cannons, upgradeable to other fun stuff - made to be a heavy tan of sorts
Talos - has 18" S6 Ap3 Assault 2 attack as another shooting option, Wildfire causes units within 18" d6 S4/AP6 hits, 5+ invuln

I want to get some other impressions on it, so what do you think?

**jesterzdragon**

Interesting ideas. Not sure who the original poster is, but I like some of the ideas. I always wanted a big gun for the higher ballistic skill leaders, and that is in there.

I hope the codex is on board with some of these changes.

**aka_mythos**

He's a bit new on there, but he has alot of good ideas for DE that make alot of sense and seem pretty fair and appropriate. That's the reason I shared them here.