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How to make mandrakes even a considerable choice.

Move them to troops as a selection.

Done.

Not really?
For the amount of points that they are, Kablites and Wyches are still a far superior choice than Mandrakes will ever be.
Put them in a free slot choice unit and still nobody would take them for competitive reasons.

Give them a 'Strike from the shadows' special rule where they can appear anywhere on the board turn 1 that is out of line of sight, may not assault first turn or be joined by characters barring Mr.K (I'd give him IC, but can only join Mandrakes. Please don't make me spell his name!). Then give them a ''Fleeting Shadow'' special rule meaning if the mandrake unit is fully within any type of area terrain then any shots originating from outside of said area terrain must snap shot at them. Finally give the 'Sarge' access to a power weapon of some sort.

First turn survivability? Check. Effect enemy positioning pre game (Want to avoid leaving blind spots)? Check. A threat that needs addressing? Threatens shooty units, wont scare assault-y units. Perfect, points stay same.

blaktoof wrote:
How to make mandrakes even a considerable choice.

Move them to troops as a selection.

Done.

would still be terrible. In 5th, perhaps the DE elite slot was crowded(as everyone wanted 3 units of Trueborn)
but now it isn't. FA and HS are now the crowded slots.

Making Mandrakes scoring would do very little.

Their rules are just fine the problem is that they are over costed.

Their base line is that of a guardian/dire avenger with the following changes.

+1S and +1A

S4 AP4<S4 pseudo rending.

No battle focus, but has move through cover, stealth, and infiltrate..

Range is better than a guardian same as a dire avenger.

Deamonic 5+ invo instead of an armor save. Better than a guardian worse than a dire avenger's 4+ because the unit has move through cover.

Drop the point cost down to 10 or 11 and they are playable. Make them a troops or a scoring elite with a HQ option in addition and they will be a popular unit. >

4+ invuln.

Weapons are AP3

Done.

I would give them real rending
assault and defensive grenades
shrouding INSTEAD of stealth
PE psykers
Focus fire psykers. psyker characters cannot LOS wounds unless the unit is also composed of psykers.

A fade in and fade out power like Snikrot's Kommandos in Apocalypse. Awesome rule right there wish we saw more of it

 McNinja wrote:
4+ invuln.

Weapons are AP3

Done.

I'd support this. Getting some more low AP melee weapons in my DE lists would be welcome.

 Exergy wrote:
I would give them real rending
assault and defensive grenades
shrouding INSTEAD of stealth
PE psykers
Focus fire psykers. psyker characters cannot LOS wounds unless the unit is also composed of psykers.

This I like. Gives them a purpose and supports the army which is psyker vulnerable.

I also think that the DE should have some more anti psyker rules in general, due to their fluff.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 McNinja wrote:
4+ invuln.

Weapons are AP3

Done.

I'd support this. Getting some more low AP melee weapons in my DE lists would be welcome.

so they are cheaper incubi, with less killing power and still no grenades....

 Exergy wrote:

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:

 McNinja wrote:
4+ invuln.

Weapons are AP3

Done.

I'd support this. Getting some more low AP melee weapons in my DE lists would be welcome.

so they are cheaper incubi, with less killing power and still no grenades....

I guess so, but the point was to make them playable, not ungodly powerful.

 Rinkydink wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

I would give them real rending
assault and defensive grenades
shrouding INSTEAD of stealth
PE psykers
Focus fire psykers. psyker characters cannot LOS wounds unless the unit is also composed of psykers.

This I like. Gives them a purpose and supports the army which is psyker vulnerable.
I also think that the DE should have some more anti psyker rules in general, due to their fluff.

Thanks

It always bugged me about the DE fluff. DE are eldar, a race with a high number of psykers. Cormogarth has no psykers (HOW?). There must be some force or group that keeps psykers from entering the dark city and must go throughout it's layers seeking out new born psykers and killing them. Why not mandrakes? They are partially in the warp, yet are not psykers so perhaps they have some ablilty to detect psykers and could adapt to a role hunting them.

I would give the Nightfiend Altered Physique, so that the unit can start with a Pain Token.

It's simple, effective, grants them Feel No Pain, and lets them fire from go, and gives you a reason to take the upgrade character.

Being it's a shooty unit that has to kill something in close combat to be able to fire, this is flawed.
And there's so many possible fixes I've seen, but this is the simplest, most effective I can think of.

 Exergy wrote:

 Rinkydink wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

I would give them real rending
assault and defensive grenades
shrouding INSTEAD of stealth
PE psykers
Focus fire psykers. psyker characters cannot LOS wounds unless the unit is also composed of psykers.

This I like. Gives them a purpose and supports the army which is psyker vulnerable.
I also think that the DE should have some more anti psyker rules in general, due to their fluff.

Thanks

It always bugged me about the DE fluff. DE are eldar, a race with a high number of psykers. Cormogarth has no psykers (HOW?). There must be some force or group that keeps psykers from entering the dark city and must go throughout it's layers seeking out new born psykers and killing them. Why not mandrakes? They are partially in the warp, yet are not psykers so perhaps they have some ablilty to detect psykers and could adapt to a role hunting them.

DE have evolved from Eldar. How would they have psykers? They are sealed off from the warp and the realspace in the Commorragh they aren't able to draw power from the warp when they are constantly sealed away from it. The psychic resonance released from the souls they turtore nurtures their body and sustains them for many years, so they are quite different from their Eldar Kin.
Also, mandrake are not in the warp. They exist between reality and "a cursed otherworld".

Zewrath wrote:


DE have evolved from Eldar. How would they have psykers? They are sealed off from the warp and the realspace in the Commorragh they aren't able to draw power from the warp when they are constantly sealed away from it. The psychic resonance released from the souls they turtore nurtures their body and sustains them for many years, so they are quite different from their Eldar Kin.
Also, mandrake are not in the warp. They exist between reality and "a cursed otherworld".

DE have not evolved from Eldar, DE are eldar. If anything, CWE have diverged from what Eldar use to be. DE are the closest thing in 40k to what Eldar were in 25k(the fall).

Commorragh is not sealed off from the warp, psykers can connect to the warp inside the webway which is why the DE go out of their way to prevent psykers from enterying the dark city and killing all psykers that manage to get past.

Mandrakes are half in the warp, they have the daemon special rule.

 Exergy wrote:

Zewrath wrote:


DE have evolved from Eldar. How would they have psykers? They are sealed off from the warp and the realspace in the Commorragh they aren't able to draw power from the warp when they are constantly sealed away from it. The psychic resonance released from the souls they turtore nurtures their body and sustains them for many years, so they are quite different from their Eldar Kin.
Also, mandrake are not in the warp. They exist between reality and "a cursed otherworld".

DE have not evolved from Eldar, DE are eldar. If anything, CWE have diverged from what Eldar use to be. DE are the closest thing in 40k to what Eldar were in 25k(the fall).

Commorragh is not sealed off from the warp, psykers can connect to the warp inside the webway which is why the DE go out of their way to prevent psykers from enterying the dark city and killing all psykers that manage to get past.

Mandrakes are half in the warp, they have the daemon special rule.

No they're not. They are a degenerate version of what the Eldar used to be, exactly what other Eldars feared them to become if they continued their decadent lifestyle. The Eldar who shunned the pervese and degenerate actions performed by their soon to be fallen kin isolated themselves and created the craftworlds that exists now.

" In the final weeks of the 13th Black Crusade of Abaddon the Despoiler in 999.M41, the Eldar collapsed several Webway portals leading to Commorragh, isolating it from much of the rest of the Webway. Given the mutable nature of the Webway, however, the Dark Eldar can still use artificial Webway portals which are a part of their technological base to create temporary tunnels through the Warp to reach realspace. As a result they remain largely unaffected by their Craftworld cousins' actions."

So no, you can't use the Webway. The Dark Eldar utilize their own webgates and this makes it next to impossible to enter the Dark City without their tech or consent.

"The Webway is an extradimensional construct that spans the dimensions of Creation, primarily defined by the fact that it sits between the material realm and the roiling tides of the Warp, an interstice comparable to the fabric of a veil cast over something foul." <-- Not in the warp.

The Riptide is a big frothing monster covered it armor plates. I has the MC special rule. See? I can make strawmen arguements too.

Mandrakes are part warpstuff though.

And Dark Eldar are closer to original Eldar.
There's even quotes on it.
They're 'true to themselves', while the Eldar control every aspect of their being.

Not sure what your 'can't use the webway' thing is....
There's plenty of webway links to it - it's how the Harlequins get in and out of Commoragh.

And you can access the warp in Commargh, there's been instances of it in the iterature.
Furthermore, Material Space is not in the warp either, but Psykers can still access is.
The Webway is between the Material realm and the Warp, but not immune to it.

Furthermore, Vect has dropped sections of Commoragh into the Warp before.

This may be overpowered but would give them a purpose:
Give them a web-way portal for X points.

 Ovion wrote:
Mandrakes are part warpstuff though.

And Dark Eldar are closer to original Eldar.
There's even quotes on it.
They're 'true to themselves', while the Eldar control every aspect of their being.

Not sure what your 'can't use the webway' thing is....
There's plenty of webway links to it - it's how the Harlequins get in and out of Commoragh.

And you can access the warp in Commargh, there's been instances of it in the iterature.
Furthermore, Material Space is not in the warp either, but Psykers can still access is.
The Webway is between the Material realm and the Warp, but not immune to it.

Furthermore, Vect has dropped sections of Commoragh into the Warp before.

Okay, first things first:

"The change that was wrought upon those Eldar sealed within the Webway was far more subtle. Rather than having their psychic essences, their souls, consumed in one great draught by Slaanesh, their souls slowly drained away into the Warp, taken over time by She Who Thirsts. The Eldar hate and fear Slaanesh above all other things, for she was given life by their actions and yet she waits hungrily to claim each and every one of them, now or later. Where the Eldar of the Craftworlds learned to deny Slaanesh's hold upon them by using the mystical Spirit Stones, the Infinity Circuits and the philosophies of the Eldar Paths to safeguard their souls from consumption by She Who Thirsts, the Eldar of the Webway became exceptionally good at ensuring that other beings suffered in their place. As long as they steeped themselves in the most evil and savagely decadent acts, the Eldar of the Webway found that the curse of Slaanesh upon their race could be avoided. The agony of others nourished their diminished souls and kept them vital and strong, filling their spare frames with unnaturally robust energies. Assuming that they could feed regularly enough upon the miseries of other intelligent beings, the Eldar of the Webway became psychically immune to the passage of time. So it was that the Dark Eldar were born, a race of sadistic murderers and torturers who feed upon the suffering of others in order to prevent the slow death of their own immortal souls. Ten thousand standard years later, in the 41st Millennium of Mankind, Slaanesh's Thirst consumes them still. There truly is no escape, for the Dark Eldar have only exchanged a horrible but quick death for an eternity of infernal hunger and the infinite emptiness wrought by self-absorption."

No, they are far from the true Eldar Race.

"Yet for all their physical beauty, the Dark Eldar are still repugnant monsters. When viewed with the witch-sight of a psyker, the Dark Eldar's black souls are revealed, for they eternally thirst only for the anguish and torment of other thinking beings in order to fill their own infinite emptiness. Unlike their Craftworld Eldar cousins, the Dark Eldar do not integrate their still powerful latent psychic abilities into their culture, and indeed have a great disdain for psykers of any kind. This is because for the Dark Eldar, the use of psychic abilities would only further draw the attention of She Who Thirsts (Slaanesh) upon them, and their souls are already at risk enough of being devoured by the Prince of Chaos."

So no psykers here.

Actually, no there isn't many webway gates links to it, and those that exist are mostly forgotten about. If you read up on webways and their infrastructure, you would know that there are MANY webgates that are lost in knowlegde to the Eldar and only the Harlequins truly knows about the entire webway paths and strings, in addition to be the guardians of the Black Library.

Maybe immune is the wrong word, but the fact is that they avoided the psychic screams of Slaanesh by sealing themselves inside the Dark City and avoided further influence of the warp.

Ofcourse he is able to drop sections of Commorragh into the warp. The webway can be used to create a tunnel through the warp and the realspace, so dropping anything to warp is nowhere near impossible for them to do.

1: Source your quotes.

2: They are the original Eldar.
The Craft World Eldar are different to how original Eldar were, because they so carefully control their emotions and desires.
The Dark Eldar are the same hedonistic, donkey-cave torturers they were before the fall.

2: your second one sorta proves the point that psykers still work in Commoragh, they just don't use it and have allowed their potential to atrophy.

3: I know for a fact there's at least one huge link to realspace that comes out in the thaxar rift that they open and close, because it's how their fleets get in and out (and how the mreens got in for vects coup).

4: Being in the Dark City saved them yes, but that doesn't mean it's seperate and can't access it.

1. Several codices and 5th+6th BRB.

2. No, their roots are from the original Eldar. The sadomachochistic behaviour, pale skin and nigth vision sight is a degeneration of their origin root. The Craftworld Eldar are different because they change their behaviour? Erhm.. no.. They protect their souls with spirit stones, ghosthelms and so on.. Physically, they haven't changed and certainly in no way the same way the Dark Eldar has changed.

3. My second qoute proves why there are no Dark Eldar pyskers, don't change my words. Also, how the hell does the qoute prove that psykers exists in the Commorragh?

4. Yes.. the keyword here is They. The Dark city was originally the biggest webway city for the entire Eldar race and was used to move their entire fleets.
Vect purposely lured the SW's into to the Dark City and kept a passageway open for the astropaths inside the stolen ship to allow their reinforcements entrance.

5. Sigh.. I'm not sure how else I can explain this.. half of what you're saying is my exact words to some extent.

When I said source your quotes, I meant each time you make a quote, otherwise it's just random text isn't it.

I didn't say psykers exist in commoragh, I was arguuing against your previous point that they can't work in commoragh.

You also don't prove there are no DE psykers, as apparently in Black Library novels, such things exist, they're just hunted down to be murdered.

It's possible there's some 'error in translation' though, and we mean the same thing? (At least for some of it)

 Ovion wrote:
When I said source your quotes, I meant each time you make a quote, otherwise it's just random text isn't it.

I didn't say psykers exist in commoragh, I was arguuing against your previous point that they can't work in commoragh.

You also don't prove there are no DE psykers, as apparently in Black Library novels, such things exist, they're just hunted down to be murdered.

It's possible there's some 'error in translation' though, and we mean the same thing? (At least for some of it)

Could you refer me to those Black Library novels? I haven't heard of what you speak of.

Rereading most of our texts, I honestly find that we largely agree on the same thing, only that we both seem to have our own interpretation of how the Webway city "Commarragh" interact with the warp and realspace works.

I still have to stand defiantly and insist on the differences on Dark Eldars and Craftworld Eldars though.

PS: Excuse my English, it's my 2nd langauge.

Yeah, after looking at your location I figured english was your second language, and it's happened before - what people have thought and what's being interprated are different.

I've had it with other people who do speak english as a first language too... as much as I like english, it's not always clearest. xD

I haven't read them yet, but I have been told that the Dark Path books have Dark Eldar Psykers in / mentioned.

I think there was something I read about 10 years ago, that referenced it, but I don't recall what.

The potential for DE Psykers is there though, and they do occur.
Most are put to death as soon as their powers manifest, but some escape commoragh.

Revisiting this.

Mandrakes are not normal parts of dark eldar society and are often bargained with for their services.

To make them useful and represent their fluff I propose the following, much of which is taken from peoples suggestions here as well.

Points= same

Selection Troops, but may not be used as compulsory selections. [to represent their services being payed for and not standard]

Stats = same

Deny the Witch [4+]

Balefire- [new rules]

Shooting profile S [4] Ap [5] assault 2 18" pinning

Assault S [as user] Ap [5]

Each rank of power from pain [1-3] improves the Ap of the balefire attack by 1, for example power from pain 1 makes the attack ap 4, power from pain 2 makes the attack ap 3.

Nightfiend - same

Upgrades:

Twisted Form : the nightfiend has a pain token, which is conferred to a unit with this upgrade.

Shadow Walkers : 20 points

The unit may deepstrike, and will not scatter if placed within 6" of any enemy unit. [new rule based on background fluff that they can appear from peoples shadows and that is why even dark eldar fear them]

Zewrath wrote:
No, their roots are from the original Eldar. The sadomachochistic behaviour, pale skin and nigth vision sight is a degeneration of their origin root. The Craftworld Eldar are different because they change their behaviour? Erhm.. no.. They protect their souls with spirit stones, ghosthelms and so on.. Physically, they haven't changed and certainly in no way the same way the Dark Eldar has changed.

The Craftworld Eldar and the Dark Eldar are both different from the "original Eldar" (from before the decline of the empire), and the Dark Eldar are closer to Eldar society as it was leading up to the Fall. Paraphrased from the 5th Edition Eldar Codex, mostly from pages 6, 7, and 20:

M18-M20: Commorragh becomes the biggest port city in the webway. Eldar civilization at this point is so successful and advanced that most Eldar have way too much free time, which ends up being a bad thing.

M19-M24: Worship of traditional Eldar gods starts dying out, and new pleasure cults start to rise up. Commorragh (and presumably other parts of the webway) are sort of outside the jurisdiction of normal government, so the webway becomes the place to go for the best raves.

M25-M30: Even the core Eldar worlds start getting into really hedonistic and evil stuff; Slaanesh starts to form in the warp. Somewhere in here the Exodites, who are specifically mentioned to be the first to flee, leave to start new colonies that live in harmony with their planets.

M30-M31: More puritanical and/or farsighted Eldar, apparently a minority by this point, band together to build Craftworlds and sail off in search of a less crazy place to live.

M31: Slaanesh is born, virtually the entire Eldar empire is plunged into the warp when the Eye of Terror forms. Most Craftworlds haven't even made it far enough away to avoid being swallowed up by Slaanesh. The webway is unaffected and the Eldar there continue to behave just as sadistically as before, but with new purpose since they realize they can feed Slaanesh the tortured souls of their captives instead of their own.


So culturally and physically the Exodites are probably the most like the ancient Eldar, living in harmony with their surroundings.

The Craftworld Eldar developed things like spirit stones and the infinity circuit after Slaanesh was born. The whole path system was developed to keep the Craftworld Eldar from sliding into depravity like the rest of the civilization. So while they still worship the old gods and maintain use of their psychic abilities, culturally they are pretty different from the "original" Eldar, and vastly different from the majority of the Eldar civilization from around M25 to M31. Physically they are probably unchanged

The Dark Eldar are the most representative of Eldar civilization from the millennia before Slaanesh was born. Their cultural lineage is pretty much an unbroken line, the main difference being the lack of psykers, and some new tricks for topping up their souls with the pain of tortured captives. Their souls, though, are corrupt through-and-through, but I don't think anyone was disputing that.

The big question now is whether there was any physical change in the Dark Eldar. The fluff doesn't seem to mention how different the Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar are physically. However, I would point out a few things:
- Eldar are very long-lived, and ten thousand years is not a long time evolutionarily speaking
- There are Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar alike who were around at or shortly after the Fall who are still alive in M41 (Eldrad, Vect)
- Dark Eldar rarely reproduce naturally anyway; they mostly get by using cloning
- all Eldar are pale-skinned (they're space elves) so this isn't really relevant
- Night vision is explained away as "spending their long lives in the shadowy labyrinth of Commorragh" (p. 25) but just spending a lot of time in dim light doesn't change how your eyes work, and this isn't mentioned anywhere else in the fluff in the codex that I can see. This is probably a rules abstraction more than anything else, showcasing the Dark Eldar's preferred method of warfare, but I suppose it could also be something they have intentionally done to themselves (gene therapy, etc, who knows). Really though, there's no excuse for any technologically advanced army in 40k to not have night vision, so I'm going to go with rules abstraction on this one.
- How the Dark Eldar lost their psychic powers is the biggest unknown (whether it was a physical change or a cultural one, I mean). I don't think the fluff makes it clear at all what happened, but since the Dark Eldar have not otherwise changed physically (and some of them were alive during the Fall, or are cloned copies of themselves), I would imagine they cut themselves off from the warp by their own choice out of self-preservation.

Near as I can tell, the Craftworld Eldar and Dark Eldar are physically not much different, with the Craftworld Eldar being unchanged and the Dark Eldar perhaps changing slightly, if they modified themselves. Culturally the Craftworld Eldar are distinctly different from the pre-Fall Eldar, while the Dark Eldar have continued on the same path that the Eldar civilization was on leading up to the Fall. Overall I would say the Exodites have changed the least, as they are the Eldar equivalent of the Amish here in America.