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Really? A friend has been convincing me that the Talos is pretty silly. I tend to agree. A slow skimmer with random shooting and a skinned guy plugged into the tail. Oh, and apparently it swallows people too. Into a cavity that, if it has room to hold a person, would suggest that the whole Talos is hollow.

JohnHwangDD wrote:

Scottywan82 wrote:See I WANT Chaos Eldar. I always thought that would be sweet.

It'd give a better conceptual basis for the army, that's for sure.

Ugh. I disagree emphatically. I think it would betray an excruciating lack of imagination on GWs part. It's so bothersome that some people insist that everything evil in 40k, HAS to be tied to chaos somehow. A little monotonous, don't you think? Personally, I think Dark Eldar add breadth to the selection of evil armies. I find them appealing because of how much more raw their sadism is. They don't have some Chaos deity overpowering their minds and compelling them to do horrible things. They do horrible things because feeding their thirst for tortured souls makes them giddy and smiley-warm deep inside. I see Chaos as a gaggle of idiotic automatons in the service of some God. (no offense if that's your cup of tea) Dark Eldar serve no Gods. They serve nobody but themselves. In fact they do what they do specifically to avoid feeding Slaanesh, whom they despise.

The concept of Chaos Eldar, in fact, makes absolutely no sense and is not consistent with the story of The Fall as it's told by GW today. Which explains why you've heard nothing about such a faction since 2nd edition, and why GW is trying to pull DE further and further from chaos. Some people just stubbornly refuse to go along with it because, for some reason, they're offended by the notion of an evil that has nothing to do with Chaos...

GW forces don't need to display much imagination at all, so Chaos Eldar fits right in with the rest of the 40k universe far better than the current "Dark" Eldar, which are more "Emo" Eldar / "Goth" Eldar.

JohnHwangDD wrote:GW forces don't need to display much imagination at all, so Chaos Eldar fits right in with the rest of the 40k universe far better than the current "Dark" Eldar,

Only if you're one of those people who loves monotony and lack of depth. Which is fine with me if you are. But I'm not. And I think you're wrong about GW being okay with a lack of imagination.

JohnHwangDD wrote:which are more "Emo" Eldar / "Goth" Eldar.

Not really, you just don't like them. A common trait among people who know absolutely nothing about them.

Nope, I own the *ORIGINAL* Dark Eldar Codex, along some of the first minis ever made for the army.

But yeah, *clearly*, the FAILDAR Emo/Goth approach is a resounding success that shouldn't be tampered with, lest GW lose both of you remaining Dark Eldar players...

JohnHwangDD wrote:Nope, I own the *ORIGINAL* Dark Eldar Codex, along some of the first minis ever made for the army.

But yeah, *clearly*, the FAILDAR Emo/Goth approach is a resounding success that shouldn't be tampered with, lest GW lose both of you remaining Dark Eldar players...

wow...someone doesn't like Dark Eldar much, but your not alone, most people don't like them much as it is now from my pov.

Chaos Eldar = Dumb
Pirate Eldar = Cool (which coincidentally GW and the BL have been putting a lot of time and effort for years to steer their lore heavily in this direction)

I like this new direction if even some of the rumors are true. I particularly like the extra ccw warriors would get and I always felt that splinter rifle weapons would be suited better as assault 18" weapons instead of rapid fire 24" ones, because of the constant move style of the army. And any idea about having an assault type dark lance is all win in my eyes.

I don't see them getting rid of the Talos either or maybe even Grotesques. Both of these are part of the homunculus (sp?) lore and breaths some depth into the codex. And I do use these units from time to time, however I would love to see the grotesques get new rules, funny they are a CC only unit and yet suck at it too. They are only good if and only if you combine them with an assault from other assault units....like they weren't really thought out too well originally.

Except that they aren't just Eldar pirates. There are other Eldar pirates that aren't depraved like the DE.

We've talked about this before, but IMO the DE background right now is cutting it. Piracy isn't a motivation in of itself. And their status as Eldar-who-act-like-Slaanesh-worshippers-but-aren't is just too convoluted. The best themes are usually the simple ones, and that's why most other armies have a more iconic background.

Now, recenter their background around them being soul vampires (an aspect of their fluff which is currently underdeveloped IMO), and suddenly they have a real motivation and a lot of other things fall into place.

Exactly my point and very well put gorgon.

Being a pirate isn't a motivation in and of itself. You have to want something. A pirate is just someone who takes what doesn't belong to him/her and usually by force. The question is the motivation.

And sense 3rd edition when they were introduced in codex form they have long since had the motivation to torture for the sake of salvation. A great page in the codex talks about Uriel being the first to discover how they can save themselves through the depravity of others and since then several millennium latter they themselves are so used to doing what they do have nearly forgotten the why they do it in the first place. This has always been pretty weak sauce IMO for a motivation.

I hope they can introduce a new way of looking at their soul craving.

padixon wrote:most people don't like them much as it is now from my pov.

Very true. GW wasted too much time thinking that people would hate DE no matter what. For years even DE's biggest fans have been begging for more. More background. More substance. More options. More anything. They wanted more to love than just piratical soul-harvesters.
Only recently did GW grow a brain and realize that getting people to love Dark Eldar is no harder than attractive models, vivid and exciting background, and a little acknowledgment. Frankly, I bet they're so worried about another flop that they've hashed out an over-abundance of flavor, just in case. I predict DE will be one of the most vibrant armies when their codex arrives. Such is my faith in GW.

I think that's fine if people don't like Dark Eldar, but going so far as to ridicule or insult other people that do is a bit too much. No one deserves to have their army ignored or even Squatted, everyone deserves updates and support no matter how ridiculous you personally find the army as a concept.

Yep, that's why so many Lost & the Damned players are still up in arms over the whole eye of terror thing.

OK, let me try again, when I don't have to react to someone else's comments...

I think that "Evil" Eldar are actually a very good idea.

I think that Dark Eldar as currently presented are very badly done. They have a lot going on, and are not well-developed. They don't have a clear, simple concept underlying them, either in Fluff or on the tabletop.

Nearly every other 40k army can be presented as a 5-second simplified Hollywood pitch - and that's why they work. "Knights in Space" - "Elves in Space" - "Giant Bugs" - "Vampire Knights in Space" - "Werewolf Knights in Space" and so on... With the Dark Eldar, there are a lot of "X but Y... and also Z..."

EPIC FAIL.

The Dark Eldar are very weak from a conceptual standpoint, and simply do NOT make sense from a 40k game perspective, much less an Apocalypse standpoint. As currently presented, Dark Eldar would be great for something like Necromunda or a 500-pt mini-game scenario.

But an actual 40k army? No way. There is nothing in the Dark Eldar background that suggests they would ever engage in the sorts of mass battle situations that are common to 40k gaming.

So in a nutshell, the Dark Eldar are the WFB Wood Elves, but worse. Unlike the WFB Welves, the Dark Eldar don't exist in the conventional universe, so there's no territory to invade. This is similar to how the Harlequins live in the Webway, and they had that concept first.

And then, numerically, Dark Eldar are a single city. So their rarity should be comparable to the Grey Knights. So again, they shouldn't be an army, but rather an army entry subsumed under another list. Like, say, the Harlequins, which had this concept first, also.

And even worse, the Dark Eldar are a house divided. So the idea that they would work together en masse for a 40k battle, doesn't make sense, either.

The way GW solved the exact same series of problems with the Harlequins was to make them a singular entry in the Eldar list. This is pretty much perfect, as it cements their role in the game. And allows for mass play via Apocalypse Datasheet.

Conceptually, it's essentially the same problem as the Hrud - diffuse, and not well-suited to mass battle. Hrud cannot take the field as a standard army. They'd make a great scenario force, however. Or fantastic allies for an expanded Tau Empire, in the same way that Kroot make a great expanded Datasheet army.

And that is why the Tau are a small, growing empire on the fringes of Imperial space. It places them on the map, gives them a clear reason for comflict against Imperials, and allows others to attack them. Tau are deliberately simple, because the concept can be clearly transmitted and built upon, allowing players to understand them and support them.

So, as I said above, Dark Eldar would make a great basis for a game called Comorragh, in which you guide a Dark Eldar cabal following the Necromunda / Mordheim ruleset, just swapping Imperial stats and wargear for their Dark Eldar equivalent. In this situation, the intensely self-contained politics and cutthroat play makes *perfect* sense.

So, as I said above, Dark Eldar would make a great basis for a game called Comorragh, in which you guide a Dark Eldar cabal following the Necromunda / Mordheim ruleset, just swapping Imperial stats and wargear for their Dark Eldar equivalent. In this situation, the intensely self-contained politics and cutthroat play makes *perfect* sense.

A game based on the least popular army in 40k would make perfect marketing sense indeed, but yeah, the concept has something going for it.

And then, numerically, Dark Eldar are a single city. So their rarity should be comparable to the Grey Knights. So again, they shouldn't be an army, but rather an army entry subsumed under another list. Like, say, the Harlequins, which had this concept first, also.

Rarity isn't factored in any army. The only armies making sense as an army (sentence?) are guard and traitor guard (latd players: Indeed! Hurrr!). Ok, tyranids also but Space marines and Eldar are supposed to be a small bunch of guys. How many space marines in a chapter again? 1000? and those guys are played all the time. So this argument is mood.

I agree however, that the concept of the Dark Eldar is seriously lacking. Personally, the image of darker Eldar than Craftworld Eldar is exactly my style, but the Dark eldar just don't do it for me...they are...meh. Not more.

But that can be changed if you try.

Greets
Schepp himself

In terms of rarity, you look at both numbers of soldiers *and* the combat duty rate for those soldiers.

Notionally, the 1000 Chapters of SM aren't very large, but they're *very* active, helping make up for the fact that they aren't massively numerous.

The problem with the GK is that they're 1/1000 of the SM, so even if they're 10x as busy as the average SM, they're still only 1% as visible overall.

In terms of rarity, you look at both numbers of soldiers *and* the combat duty rate for those soldiers.

I don't see how you can use that to justify the existence of Marines and not DE, though...

Dark Eldar could potentially show up anywhere in the galaxy, IIRC (isn't there a piece of wargear representing that?), and what little background we have suggests they're pretty active raiders. Not only that but I'm pretty sure there are more DE in the city of Comorragh than there are Space Marines in the entire universe.

Anyway, that's just what I think, though. If Space Marines deserve to be their own army, so do Dark Eldar.

Schepp himself wrote:
I agree however, that the concept of the Dark Eldar is seriously lacking.

Ya... That's what I'm saying. Even a DE player won't argue this. In fact, it's what we've been trying to tell GW for years... But as you, Schepp, pointed out, They are not beyond salvation. Their coolness potential is through the roof.

JohnHwang obviously has a different concept of DE in his head than I have. In 5th Ed rulebook we read throughout the timeline about DE making very large scale attacks. Like crippling the Imperial Navy's moorings at Bakka, for example, or the attack on Birmingham, when DE massacred the whole planet. Generally, I think 40k scale fights are perfect for DE. Attacking an outpost. Making a space marine prisoner run. Hitting a secluded branch of a Tyranid invasion to snatch up creatures for arena fighting. Etc. Anything larger is too slow and predictable to be characteristic of DE. Anything smaller would be silly and not worth any respectable Archon's time or effort.

Dark Eldar are "souless space vampires". There I condensed it enough for you.

The problem with Dark Eldar now is not necessarily their background. Their models suck, and that is their biggest problem. I promise you, I would own an APOC sized army tomorrow if their models where anything near decent looking. I like their background and I like their play style.

Gobstomp420 wrote:

Archonate wrote:You know, I get the feeling that it will be like getting a completely new army. DE as we know them will be squatted, and the new DE will be so far from what they were, that only in name will we recognize them.

You know, I think I would still be ok with that. Does anyone know if the drugs and their random tables will still exist in this new book? I hope so, but we know GW doesn't like any random-ness creeping into their dice-based game.

Actually players don't like randomness creeping into their dice-based game.

Witness the reaction to Possessed.

I'd say it's a red herring - players don't like rules that clutter up gameplay or require additional set-up time before the game. Like the possessed's random abilities, the catachans used to have jungle traps and lictors had their secret deployment, both of which were too much trouble.

I don't think the concept of Dark Eldar is poor in its condensed form so much as it was presented very poorly. I read through the Dark Eldar codex way back when and never even realized that they fed on souls to hold back Slaanesh;I thought they were just space emos. If they efficiently presented the desperate situation that defines existance as a Dark Eldar, as the selfish, defiant "original" Eldar that are eternally enslaved by Slaanesh, then there are interesting directions it can go in. Right now it is a disorganized mess with too many pointless emo-goth influences.

Mahu wrote:The problem with Dark Eldar now is not necessarily their background. Their models suck, and that is their biggest problem. I promise you, I would own an APOC sized army tomorrow if their models where anything near decent looking. I like their background and I like their play style.

It's a combination of both bad models and poorly presented background. Most people don't mind one of those two things, but the other keeps them from wanting to play. (And some just hate both.)
I love the army because I understand what GW was grasping at with it and I like it. I used to love the models until ALL the other armies' models evolved and got much cooler. Now I'm twiddling my thumbs until DE get their new package. Toying around with some Tau in the meantime. Now they have an extensive history and a very nicely laid out background.

And then, numerically, Dark Eldar are a single city. So their rarity should be comparable to the Grey Knights. So again, they shouldn't be an army, but rather an army entry subsumed under another list. Like, say, the Harlequins, which had this concept first, also.

A single city thats been around for 20 thousand years and has been growing the entire time. It also sprung up from the remains of many of the eldars core worlds. The dark eldar have none of the birth rate problems that crafworld eldar do. That city is likely to hold many, many billions. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they outnumbered the Tau, they certainly have been growing considerably longer and have a near infinite lifespan.

The whole problem with them is their poorly presented and at times generally poor fluff. They are trying too hard to be evil and they end up just not making any sense. They are in the same boat with the necrons, their origin stories haven't had time to refine into something useful and the original work wasn't particularly stellar. The necrons still have it worse though, they are an entire race of plot holes and contradictions.

It's a combination of both bad models and poorly presented background. Most people don't mind one of those two things, but the other keeps them from wanting to play. (And some just hate both.)

Actually i think its a combination of bad models and the fact that those models aren't readily available in stores. I think them having bad/undeveloped fluff actually has little to do with people not playing them.

I think some people would be suprised to know how little most people actually care about the fluff behind they're armies. Most new players (which is what GW is after) are going to pick an army based on what they like. Be it robots, aliens, tanks, demons or whatever.

I for one hope that the new models have less spikes and tall helmets on them, then I might be interested in playing the army provided the rules were decent.

Well, 5th Edition has another 4 years to go, so hopefully, GW will be able to clean up the DE and Necron concepts into something that is more clear and compelling.

IMHO the Necrons origin is pretty interesting but explaining the C'tan as simply "extremely powerful energy vampires in the material universe" cut off a lot of the mysticism and esoteric flavor the Necrons could have had. I think the Dark Eldar actually have a good origin and description but it is presented in such a disjointed fashion that actually getting a good view of what they actually are is far from the first impression that an army needs to interest people.

Railguns wrote:IMHO the Necrons origin is pretty interesting but explaining the C'tan as simply "extremely powerful energy vampires in the material universe" cut off a lot of the mysticism and esoteric flavor the Necrons could have had. I think the Dark Eldar actually have a good origin and description but it is presented in such a disjointed fashion that actually getting a good view of what they actually are is far from the first impression that an army needs to interest people.

I present this:

The necrons could not keep up with the old ones due to their slow colonization of space, the old ones had webways and the necrons had stasis.
The necrons got cancer a lot for some reason due to their star being random and spraying death at them.
The necrons got really pissed off at the old ones because cancer sucks and they had to wait a while.
The necrons developed crazy supertechnology to fight the old ones, including non warp faster than light tech.
The necrons still had cancer.
Faster than warp drives.
Inability to cure cancer.

The C'tan are giant energy beings that feed off of energy.
The C'tan like to "harvest" the life energies of "mortals" to eat.
Fear and other dark emotions tastes good.
C'tan have no interaction with souls or the war at all in any way.
The nightbringer feeds off of the "fearful" energy of mortals.
No ability to interact with the warp.
Eats peoples emotions.


Race. Based. On. Contradictions. They are more emo then the dark eldar.

ShumaGorath wrote:A single city thats been around for 20 thousand years and has been growing the entire time. It also sprung up from the remains of many of the eldars core worlds. The dark eldar have none of the birth rate problems that crafworld eldar do. That city is likely to hold many, many billions. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they outnumbered the Tau, they certainly have been growing considerably longer and have a near infinite lifespan.

Which kind of plays into an interesting thought I had in an old thread. We've all heard ad nauseum that the Craftworld Eldar are a dying race, right?

Well, what if the DE are thriving? What if the decisions they made turned out to be more effective than the Craftworlders' paths and methodologies? It'd be an interesting contrast, and might provide another fluff source of new DE...namely, Craftworlders who see the DE way of life as being a better path to survival.

The necrons still have it worse though, they are an entire race of plot holes and contradictions.

And that's something I've been saying in other threads too.

Necrons are a mishmash of Chaos Androids, evil robots, Lovecraftian horror, Star Trek Borg, Terminators, and WFB Undead in space. I think because the army's been built piece by piece over time, they've just kept glomming things onto it, and it's not very conceptually cohesive.

Like I've said, it even filters down to the models. Necron Warriors are very stylized and sleek, which works for a high-tech robot army. But they don't really communicate "ancient civilization" and Lovecraftian horror. Those things imply *ornateness.*

Another quick example -- a robot army would tend to be about technology...lots of upgrades, weaponry, attachments...you see where I'm going. But Necrons, in rules and miniature design, are extremely uniform and fixed, probably stemming from the undead and Borg background origins.

IMO, there's too many influences at work, and the designers have done too much cherry-picking without thinking about the whole. So I fully agree GW has some cleanup work to do with the Necron army concept. Not that I'm expecting anything other than a Tau Empire-style treatment, mind you. DE will at least get the overhaul they deserve.

Hey Shummy, I never said they were done well either, but it had interesting pieces. Put together well? Obviously not. The whole Lovecraftian theme they wanted would have been cool(I remember a particular Ask Dirty Steve in a WD that said it was "ancient, Lovecraftian Horror style"). But still, done badly.

ShumaGorath wrote:
I present this:

That, sir, was some funny stuff. I've never grasped the full story of the Necrons before I guess. They seemed rather cool to me, a bit mysterious... really, don't laugh!

And that brings me to another point:

Another quick example -- a robot army would tend to be about technology...lots of upgrades, weaponry, attachments...you see where I'm going. But Necrons, in rules and miniature design, are extremely uniform and fixed, probably stemming from the undead and Borg background origins.

Bah...The concept of cool funky robots is seriously misplaced in the 40k universe! The bland robots are fitting exactly in. I kind of like the mishmash thinking about it.
What was the tagline in the 4th edition? They number is Legion. Their name is death. Or something. Pretty cool. I always thought that was fitting.

Anyways, that thread is about Dark Elves, sorry to stride away.

Greets
Schepp himself

Anyways, that thread is about Dark Elves, sorry to stride away.

'zactly. Sorta.

Undead in Space shouldn't be discussed here!

But then, neither should we be talking about War Hydras and so forth...