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Just a disclaimer to start, I am not super well versed in all of the 40k fluff, and I just got back into it after being away for about a year, so I am brand new to 6th edition as well. There have been two things regarding the new 6th edition rules and new CSM codex that have been bugging me, as far as fluff goes.

1) Why are Eldar and Dark Eldar "best bussides" when it comes to allies? That just seems really odd to me.
and
2) Why do the CSM not have access to drop pods? They have the tanks, dreads, but no drop pods?

Thanks guys!

1/.

Dark Eldar and Eldar aren't really best buddies. The allies chart is so far gone that you'd need a telescope to spot it.

Eldar and Dark Eldar are both still ELDAR. They will band together against common foes, and have done in the fluff.

Thing of them like this: Craftworld Eldar are like the successful businessman. Clean cut, efficient, generallly a nice guy, if you don't mind him being an elitist snob with racism issues.

Dark Eldar are like that guys multiple-rapist, drug using, psychotic pimp brother.

The businessman doesn't acknowledge that he has a brother, most of the time, but when someone else tried to muscle in on the businessman, he is sure glad to see his dubious brother show up to beat the scrud out of the interloper.

Of course sometimes the dubious brother just stands at the end of the alley, laughing. Or is the one mugging the businessman himself for drug money..

It's a family thing.

1. Space elfs consider anyone not an elf as inferior. Thus Elf = worthy ally

2. CSM wanted to be different, not spiky marines. As spiky marines they would have spiky droppods...as not-spiky-marines..

2/. CSM don't get drop pods, because then they would be on par with Marines

Sad but true.. CSM don't get most of the cool toys, unless you go Forgeworld. Pretty sure there is a CSM drop pod in there..

 tyro_neophyte wrote:

1) Why are Eldar and Dark Eldar "best bussides" when it comes to allies? That just seems really odd to me.
and
2) Why do the CSM not have access to drop pods? They have the tanks, dreads, but no drop pods?

1) I think that yes Eldar and Dark Eldar have a strong rivalry
but when it comes down to the survival of their species they will put aside there diffrenceses,
or the DE could just be hired guns. Plus dose it actualy say that the 2 factions actualy hate each other?

2) I think I have seen a forge world CSM drop pod befor (although I could be wrong)

I agree that Eldar and Dark Eldar hate each other. That is like SM allying with CSM.

SM Drop Pod tech might have come out after the Heresy? *shrugz*

Nids not being able to ally with anybody makes sense fluffwise, but from a play balance perspecive it sucks for nid players.

I am shocked how many armies can ally with Necrons.

They got the IG Ally of Convenience correct with Orks considering the Blood Axes Clan

I think is cool is how Tau can ally with many armies. It is a reflection of their culture of friendly (if at all possible) assimilation.

 1hadhq wrote:
As spiky marines they would have spiky droppods...as not-spiky-marines..

BTW the CSM drop pod on forge world was very spikey

tyro_neophyte wrote:1) Why are Eldar and Dark Eldar "best bussides" when it comes to allies? That just seems really odd to me.
and
2) Why do the CSM not have access to drop pods? They have the tanks, dreads, but no drop pods?

1: Corsairs. Not all Eldar are Craftworldy and not all Dark Eldar are Commoraughey.

2: Good question.

2-Supposedly drop pods are pre-heresy. The Dreadclaws that were used pre/during the heresy had machine spirits that went... off. So the loyalist legions spaced them while the traitors were forced to keep them as they had no real way to resupply.

DA SPEED FREEK wrote:

 1hadhq wrote:
As spiky marines they would have spiky droppods...as not-spiky-marines..

BTW the CSM drop pod on forge world was very spikey

But here we got a design choice:
- in 3rd ed, both marines started as pretty similar...
- in 6th ed, CSM have got a real different path.

As I see it, they are now closer to a Mechanicum vs Dark Mechanicum theme.
Those loyal to the throne cannot remember where they stored the good stuff or are to lazy to dig...
The ones leaving towards chaos are to obsessed merging machine and demon to care about effective transports...

This nets the loyalist marines access to what they had and and a few variants. Because its easy to justify anything with a newly found STC to supply new kits.... CSM however are stuck with only Rhinos and basic Land Raiders in their list because they got non-transports as their new kits and the plan was a demon/machine , demon/host theme...

CSM aren't SM(everything)+demons. So any non-SM gear meant less SM-typical gear.

2) Lost/damaged drop pods vs the ability to rebuild/repair them. CSM don't have the infrastructure to do it competently enough to maintain the supplies needed for it to be more then a special case event. So your average CSM warband does not have them thus they are not included in the codex.

But there is always the Dreadclaw which is actually a flyer and not truely a drop pod which are around enough for them to be included in Forge World's stuff.

1. Dark Eldar think that they are only ones that are allowed to kill, enslave and do unpleasent things to their cousins.

2. Apparently all the previous references to to Chaos drop pods throughout GW fluff upto and inclduing "present Millenium" is all wrong.........

its a marketing choice I believe and damn the history :( not for the first and not for the last time.

 Stonerhino wrote:
2) Lost/damaged drop pods vs the ability to rebuild/repair them. CSM don't have the infrastructure to do it competently enough to maintain the supplies needed for it to be more then a special case event. So your average CSM warband does not have them thus they are not included in the codex.

But there is always the Dreadclaw which is actually a flyer and not truely a drop pod which are around enough for them to be included in Forge World's stuff.

That could be argued with a lot of their equipment though right? I guess heat absorbent or some other special materials for the bottom might require a rare process.

In regards to the dark eldar and eldar. Where does it say they hate each other? as far as I can tell they just have different views on how to not get their soul eaten up by Slaanesh. To both sides of the Eldar the survival of their species is extremely important. So its kinda like two brothers who arent on the best terms teaming up together, theyre still brothers of course.

Eldar and DE don't hate each other, they simply have 2 different approaches to the same problem. They are still the same species and if other "inferior" races are around they will team up.

Its not like in Fantesy where they genuinely hate each other more than anything else.


And for #2, the Drop Pods used currently were developed after the Heresy, as were many other types of equipment.

Chaos does still use the Dreadclaw drop pod. which was a more advanced Drop Pod, but its Machine Spirits were faulty, hence why Loyalists don't use it anymore.

Plus Chaos Marines usually attack with massive armies in drop ships, hence they have no need for the surgical precision of a drop pod assault.

I Thought the reason CSM dont have drop pods is because they dont have strike cruisers or battle barges to launch them from

The dark eldar have some rules that govern their society that are taken extremely seriously. One well known one being that no psychic powers can used in the webway; and another just as important one is, don’t mess around during a realspace raid.

Dark Eldar are a functional military force because they don’t use raids as an opportunity to kill rival dark eldar. A dark eldar that, during a realspace raid, attacks another dark eldar just committed an extreme taboo act, even though dark eldar betray and kill each other all the time in Commorragh. This extends to the craftworld eldar, as any dark eldar kabal that attacks another kabal during a raid committed one of the most serious crimes in dark eldar society, turning against a craftworld allied force would violate one of the few laws the dark eldar are required to follow because it jeopardizes the raid or future raids which the dark eldar require to survive.

And there is some mobility between Dark Eldar and Eldar. It is isn't unheard of for a member of one society to join the other.

Plus Eldar Corsairs are a mix of Eldar and Dark Eldar.

Regarding the Allies chart, don't think of it as "how likely are these guys to call up these other guys and ask them if they want to go on a campaign with us?".

Instead, ask yourself if you can imagine a scenario where these two forces could possibly find themselves working together (being attacked by a common foe being a stereotypical one). For Eldar and Dark Eldar, regardless of how they feel about each other, they are still likely to hold each other in higher esteem than any other race and so could conceivable cooperate.

Orks can be useful, given desperate circumstances, although no one would fully trust them. Thus many are willing to ally with them, though not as battle brothers.

To Tyranids, the presence of any third faction is simply more biomass to be consumed.

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I Thought the reason CSM dont have drop pods is because they dont have strike cruisers or battle barges to launch them from

Then how do they get where they need to go?

nomotog wrote:

 Backspacehacker wrote:
I Thought the reason CSM dont have drop pods is because they dont have strike cruisers or battle barges to launch them from

Then how do they get where they need to go?

Chaos fleets use vessels primarily from before the development of Battle Barges and Strike Cruisers. The Battlefleet Gothic books available as PDFs on the GW website break down the common vessels used by the traitor legions. More recent renegades would, naturally, have equipment modern Chapters use; if a Chapter goes rogue in 998M41, they don't ditch all their drop pods, storm bolters and land speeders by 999M41; it's just a limitation of the rules, rather than a statement of how the universe works.

In fact, in most of the backstories, the Black Legion makes extensive use of drop pod assaults, it's just the Dreadclaw pods the CSM use have a tendency to, well, eat the guys inside. Their machine spirits are described as being "dangerous self-aware," and don't care for being fired out of starships and being packed full of power armoured supersoldiers.

The short answer as to why they don't have them in the rules is gameplay decision by GW; they actually appear in the background of several of the pieces of artwork in the current codex. It's not that CSM don't have them, it's just they're not in TT rules.

Indeed, an army's Codex may not always represent the full arsenal. Andy Hoare once wrote a supplemental army list for SoB with drop pods as well, yet we never had them in a proper 'dex.

I'd not be surprised if there actually was a GW army list with Chaos drop pods somewhere in an issue of White Dwarf or whatever. There was a time when they posted such "special lists" with unique rules a lot. Codex Eye of Terror mayhaps?

Ah yes, the Ordo Hereticus Strike Force. I remember that.

Eldar and Dark Eldar are homies because they share a common fate. They'll all be eaten by Slaanesh... In the end.

CSM don't get drop pods because our one is reusable and therefore better than a C:SM pod. Reason enough to leave it out right there.

CSM don't get drop pods because DROP PODS ARE FOR WEAKLINGS! CHARGE AT THE ENEMY HEADLONG WITH YOUR CHAINSWORD SCREAMING ALMOST AS LOUD AS YOU ARE! BLOOOOOOOOOOD!

But in all seriousness, I think it's just because Chaos tends to break things on a regular basis. Space Marines have Power of the Machine Spirit because they religiously clean their tanks and meticulously repair all their vehicles. Chaos would fire all their drop pods at once, have them get stuck because the internal guidance wouldn't work, and then just say "Eh, we'll get it later" and then a year later say "Wait, where'd all our drop pods go?"

I think you should look at the allies chart as how the common foot soldiers think of eachother while fighting alongside one another, not what the race as a whole thinks of them.
Eg. Space marines know tau can't be corrupted and are honorable, thus when fighting alongside one another they trust them.

In a lot of cases, the allies chart makes sense. In a lot of cases, it really doesn't. SoB + SW, for example.

I'd just treat it as an interesting rule and see what you can come up with. If it were up to me, I'd allow everyone to ally with anyone, if the other player can present a good enough argument. Like Genestealer-infiltrated PDF or cortex-leech-possessed Guardsmen as backup for his 'nids.

Hmm, wasn't it previously mentioned that some Khornate Berzerkers favored a tactic of massive drop pod strike right into enemy formations?

Or was it just a single traitor chapter thing? (adn/or maybe they were using dreadclaws).

 Zande4 wrote:
Eg. Space marines know tau can't be corrupted and are honorable, thus when fighting alongside one another they trust them.

Tau are a thriving race with a firm leadership that have virtually no presence in the warp. They can be corrupted both physically and mentally as can their client races like the Kroot. They also have at least one client race that is highly psychic. People seem to massively overestimate the Tau strengths as "immunity" to the warp - which is patently untrue, as well as hugely overstating the "alliances" between the Astartes and the Tau empire. They have all been short lived tempoary affairs that only lasted as long as there was a mutual enemy and then the conflict between the Imperium and the Tau resumes - the Tau Codexes make this clear with the Astartes usually being the ones that object to any form of comprimise with the Tau, its usually the Guard and the Navy that do so. Even the new rulebook shows this is the case when you look at the timeline and the conflicts. The best the Tau get is "not being exterminated" when they have fought alongside Astartes against enemies like the Necron.

The Astartes may recognise that in general the Tau fight honurably but they are also conscious that they are enemies of humanity as Xenos. Thats why IMO the chart should had them as being Allies of Convenience which would have fitted nicely. Its arguable that the Dark Eldar/Eldar should be the same.............

 Grey Templar wrote:
And there is some mobility between Dark Eldar and Eldar. It is isn't unheard of for a member of one society to join the other.

Plus Eldar Corsairs are a mix of Eldar and Dark Eldar.

Exactly that. Dark Eldar and Eldar DO NOT hate each other. The mobility you mentioned can sometimes be pretty restricted or a one way street - but in both of the books I read so far (Path of the Renegade, Path of the Warrior) there are Eldar from the other side of the fence joining the main characters.