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I wanna know some general stuff about Dark Eldar tech. You just never hear much about them, but I think their pretty cool, especiallly their badass lookin' vehicles

I am particularly interested in:

-What do their various weapons fire?
-How do they travel from planet to planet?
-Any cool background tidbits as well.

I tried lexicanum, but for some reason my new computer seems to disgree with it, and refuses to load it so turned to the infinite source of useless knowledge that is the DakkaDakka background forum!

Thanks a bunch!

They shoot shurikens for most of their tech, but some guns use more advanced ammo, like monofilament nets and holes to the warp. They move around largely by the webway, although in system they might move by ships.

Shruiken? Like tiny blades?

no not shurikens. that is from normal eldar. dark eldar fire crystals. The ammo are crystals which are broken down into small shards before fired. they travel trough the webway.

Oh, I was under the impression they used poisoned shurikens in their weapons.

no they don't. have you got the DE rulebook?

Yeah, but I haven't read it in a while. I need to go find it first.

They fire SPLINTER weapons which are suppose to fire small slivers of crystal poison designed to incapacitate targets without killing them as the dark eldar are in the slave trade , no use killing the merchandise !!!
They use gravity accelerator technology to fire there weapons same as the eldar but just different ammo.

lexicanium cut and paste as you said you cant read it

The Dark Eldar are kindred to the Eldar, an ancient and advanced race of elf-like humanoids. Their armies usually have the advantages of speed and technology, though they are often lacking in resilience and numbers. The Dark Eldar revel in piracy, enslavement and torture, and are sadistic in the extreme. Dark Eldar armies make use of advanced anti-gravity skimmers to launch high speed raids on their enemy while still transporting a large number of their warriors. Due to their use of the galaxy-spanning interdimensional labyrinth known as the Webway, they are extremely mobile, striking from seemingly nowhere, with little or no warning, and vanishing with their captives before significant military reaction can be mobilized.
The Dark Eldar are unique amongst the races in the sense that they do not occupy many planets, but rather one dark city called Commorragh. They are mainly pirates, though are sometimes used as mercenaries.

The Dark Eldar city of Commorragh is located somewhere deep within the Webway. The Webway is exploited by the Dark Eldar to make the race incredibly mobile, allowing them to make devastating and unsuspecting slave-raids, before retreating before any significant defence can be brought to bear against them.
As well as Commorragh, the Black Library of Chaos is hidden and virtually inaccessible within the Webway.


The origins of the Dark Eldar can be found in the Fall, the great cataclysm that nearly destroyed the entire Eldar race. It was an event so terrible that not only did it kill trillions of Eldar, but it breached the gap between real space and the warp, and gave birth to a Chaos God.
To understand the reasons for the Fall, it is necessary to know something of the Eldar mind and soul.
An Eldar's mind is incredibly complex. Their senses are extremely sharp, able to perceive incredible levels of detail. Their emotions can be so strong that a human’s are merely pale shadows by comparison. They are extremely intelligent; their thought processes are much faster than a human’s. All of this means that an Eldar experiences the universe and all its sensations to a greatly heightened degree.
Similarly, an Eldar's soul is much brighter in the Warp than those of 'lesser' sentients. Eldar are able to affect the nether-realm much more than most other races. They are all latent psychics and have the ability to become very powerful psykers with training. It is the strength of their souls that was one of the causes of their downfall.
Before the Fall, the Eldar had an immense galaxy-spanning empire comprising millions of worlds, larger and more powerful than even the Imperium of Man at the height of its power. The Eldar lived in relative peace—barbarian races such as the Orks were kept at easily manageable numbers and never had the strength to threaten the might of the Eldar empire. The humans were not yet virulently xenophobic and did not have a large domain, and the Tyranid Hive Fleets were unknown. The C'tan and Necrons, ancient foes of the Eldar, were long ago defeated and still remained dormant.
Life on the Eldar worlds was idyllic, with fantastically sophisticated machines to take care of all labour and manufacturing required, leaving the Eldar free to indulge in other, more aesthetic pursuits. With all menial work taken care of for them, the Eldar became indolent and decadent. They began to explore more and more the arts of pleasure, delving ever deeper into hedonism. The descent into decadence spanned millennia. Tradition and order disintegrated as they limited the pursuit of pleasure. Sects called Pleasure Cults were formed, dedicated to achieving the highest levels of hedonistic sensation, and their ceremonies and practices became ever more wild, eventually devolving into violence and sacrifice of their own kind. Some Eldar hated what their race had become and left the Homeworlds for the virgin Maiden Worlds, or left on the newly-constructed Craftworlds, leaving the Pleasure Cults to their madness.
Meanwhile, something terrible was stirring in the Warp. The millennia of Eldar hedonism had made a massive impact in the psychic realm of Chaos. Within the warp the decadent Eldar civilization was giving shape to a Power of Chaos, which grew and grew over thousands of years, getting stronger and more defined until suddenly it sparked into an intelligence – a shatteringly huge and malign intelligence, with an immense and bottomless thirst for Eldar souls. This was the birth of Slaanesh.
The process lasted for thousands of years, corresponding to mankind's Age of Strife, although when Slaanesh finally came into being, the results with the universe were apocalyptic and sudden. An almighty psychic shockwave scythed across the galaxy. The souls of almost every Eldar were stripped from them in an instant and devoured by the new-born Chaos god. There were few survivors. Most were driven mad, their minds trapped half in the real world and half in the swirling insanity of the Warp. A great warp rift was created, encompassing the entire Eldar empire and creating the Eye of Terror.
Of the few survivors of the Pleasure Cults, some remained sane and able. They found to their horror that Slaanesh had not yet finished with the Eldar – S/he was slowly draining their souls while they still lived. To escape this these survivors fled in small groups to the Webway, the system of sealed tunnels that run through the Warp and enabled the Eldar to traverse the galaxy safe from attack by Daemons and other Warp creatures. Deep in the Webway, these small groups came together and laid the foundations of Commorragh. More and more survivors began to arrive, and added their own parts to the new city, making it even larger and more heavily populated.
Some Kabals can trace their history back to the creation of the Dark City, including Asdrubael Vect’s Kabal of the Black Heart.

Technology

Dark Eldar, like most Eldar kindreds, make use of advanced technology, including anti-gravity devices, dark matter weaponry, nanotechnology and psychic artifacts. While Dark Eldar do make use of psychic devices, they do not use psychic powers themselves. Psykers are treated as playthings in Commorragh, and given the twisted sadistic nature of the Dark Eldar, this necessarily involves pain and torment for the psyker. The technology, weapons and wargear of the Dark Eldar are analysed in the Dark Eldar Armoury

Splinter Rifle
The most common Dark Eldar weapon in the armoury, the Splinter Rifle is used by nearly every citizen of Commorragh at some point in their lives. It's the standard weapon of choice for Warriors, as well as Hellions, although they have specialized versions called Hellglaives. The weapon is light-weight and usually sports monomolecular blades for added functionality in melee combat. It features a medium sized ammunition crystal to reduce weight while still maintaining a decent amount of ammo before the user needs to reload, and is usually impregnated with toxins for added lethality.
The gun houses an ammunition disintegration generator to break up the crystal into shards, along with a cyclic ammunition feeder to house the shards before firing. Once fired, it routes the energy used to disintegrate the ammunition crystal through a magno-electric impulse chamber that accelerates the crystal to supersonic speeds, rocketing it towards its intended target.


A Splinter Pistol
Splinter Pistol
The Splinter Pistol is the ranged weapon of choice for most the remainder of the Dark Eldar forces, finding frequent use in the ranks of Archons and Dracons, Wyches, Mandrakes, and most Sybarites. Usually paired with a Monomolecular Knife or Claw and used as a pair for added effectiveness in assaults. The Splinter Pistol uses the same ammunition and firing mechanisms as the rifle, although compacted and therefore less powerful, and with a smaller ammunition crystal to reduce the weight even further. Splinter Pistol crystals are therefore the most frequently impregnated with toxins, as they are the weapons that need the added effect most.


A Splinter Cannon
Splinter Cannon
The Splinter Cannon is the most lethal of the three, and much more expensive to produce, as it incorporates several additions to allow the user to fire this large, bulky weapon even while charging into assault.
The primary additions are a semi-liquid stabilization mechanism housed approximately in the center of the cannon, to provide a counterweight to the constantly fluctuating center of gravity on the weapon. Second, an auto-burst trigger will continue to fire splinters for four to five seconds after it has been pulled, in case the user loses his grip temporarily during the charge. Finally, and possibly most important, is the addition of magneto-impulse directional spines along the barrel, and a secondary power generator housed in the back of the cannon, to prevent stalling or improper functioning. These directional spines provide additional magnetic field stability, preventing the splinters from exiting the barrel traveling at an awkward angle or hitting the inside of the barrel and causing damage to the weapon.
The Splinter Cannon otherwise contains the same mechanism for loading and firing ammunition, and comes with a very large ammunition crystal to allow for extended use of the cannon regardless of its high rate of fire.

|The Dark Eldar use a rather exotic, extremely dangerous energy dubbed Dark Matter in their anti-vehicle weaponry. How they harvest this energy is beyond current understanding, as it is believed that the only sources of Dark Matter that are available in the Materium are from black holes, warp storms, and similarly hazardous celestial phenomena.
Dark Lance



A Dark Lance
The most commonly seen example of Dark Matter Weaponry is the Dark Lance. Similar in construction to the Bright Lance of their Eldar cousin's forces, a Dark Lance is redesigned to allow for the use of Dark Matter ammunition. It's commonly found mounted on Raiders and Ravagers, although Warrior Squads are seen carrying them across the battlefield as well. The device uses magnetic containment and stabilization fields to prevent the Dark Matter from damaging the weapon or its user. The Dark Matter is accelerated very rapidly down the barrel by these same containment fields. Upon making contact with its target, it reacts very violently, tearing through armor regardless of thickness or composition, and in the event of the Dark Lances use on infantry, it's incredibly rare that any sign of the unfortunate target is left whatsoever.
Blaster

A Blaster is a smaller, light weight version of a Dark Lance, which includes a semi-liquid stabilizer like that found in the Dark Eldar Splinter Cannon. This allows for Warrior squads to launch volleys of this devastating energy while running, although the more compact build of the gun significantly shortens the maximum range of the device.
Disintegrator



A Disintegrator
A Disintegrator is a very dangerous adaptation of a Dark Lance. It uses the same Dark Matter munitions principles as the aforementioned weapons, but the Dark Matter used is less pure, and as a result it spreads out over an area, rippling and popping as it reacts to the imperfections found in its shot. The Disintegrator has two firing modes developed to make use of these impurities, the first a short, high-velocity round similar to a Dark Lance or Blaster shot, although less powerful due to the substandard munitions. The second, commonly used on large mobs of weaker beings, builds a sizeable amount of the Dark Matter within a secondary chamber, then lobs it in an arc at its targets, allowing it to spread out and cover a rather large area before hitting the ground, with devastating results.

Thanks everyone

Much love to darkangels_rule, thats some great stuff right there. Still trying to figure out why I can't access Lexicanum, but this stuff will tide me over.

Thanks again