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 Bobthehero wrote:

Ironclad Warlord wrote:
Given the authority based culture they have killing their leadership is probably the best bet. So the Night Lords would sweep in during the NIGHT of course kill the officer and in the day the DKOK would be easy prey.

Or fail utterly because the DKoK saw it coming, and used their officers as bait.

...because the DKoK saw it coming, and killed their oficers beforehand! Oh, wait...

Works too

BlaxicanX wrote:There's more to "fear" than simply "I'm scared for my safety". There's also the confusion aspect of it, the doubt, the lack of security or confidence in victory.

Those are the aspects of fear that even Space Marines aren't immune to, and it's something that forces such as the Night Lords and the Dark Eldar excel at exploiting.

I completely hate that most of the posters in this thread are still chipping in after having this explained in a real basic way.

vaktathi, I mean.

koooaei wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

Ironclad Warlord wrote:
Given the authority based culture they have killing their leadership is probably the best bet. So the Night Lords would sweep in during the NIGHT of course kill the officer and in the day the DKOK would be easy prey.

Or fail utterly because the DKoK saw it coming, and used their officers as bait.

...because the DKoK saw it coming, and killed their oficers beforehand! Oh, wait...

Perfect. Yes.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Ironclad Warlord wrote:
I think they'd decide to find somewhere else to raid. Despite their many faults I imagine that the DKOK are indispensable for fighting enemies that are just too dreadful or too weird like the Emperors children(or could possibly tempt them into slaanesh worship) when Astarte's are unavailable.

The same way they'd fight other relatively stoic enemies, like other Space Marines or Tyranids or the like. They resort to more typical military tactics.

That said, typically I'd imagine that anything the DKoK is involved in isn't something the Dark Eldar want to deal with just on general principle, the DKoK aren't deployed to conflicts where raiding and slave harvesting are going to reap great rewards, and heavily entrenched siege lines and armored battlegroups aren't suitable targets for the Dark Eldar way of war. They'd probably just look elsewhere at places that might actually have something to offer, or attack more vulnerable supply lines and pillage from them.

 Bobthehero wrote:
A bit.

Sure the 158th broke during the Siege, but that's about the only regiment that did so, in 18 years, its quite impressive, imo.

Especially considering the kind of stuff that happened to the 19th Siege regiment...

It wasn't even the entire regiment, it was a single assault wave that ran back to its positions after being caught out in the open under pre-sighted artillery and couldn't see their enemy. It just happened that their retreat threw the rest of the regiments actions into disarray.

EDIT: also, keep in mind in Dead Men Walking, not all the troops involved were DKoK troops, there were the off-world DKoK, and the militia trained up by the DKoK to support them.

I just wanted to point out that I really enjoyed that story, very grimdark with no win for the imperium even though they were the main characters.

Indeed, it was the most "40k" book I'd ever read, and a great DKoK story.

Life sucks and then you die...the classic 40k tale

 Exergy wrote:
Tyranids are the ones that seem to me the DE would not enjoy fighting. Mindless synapse creatures.

Actually the DE don't mind fighting Tyranids either. They capture them for experiments and use in the arenas of the Dark City.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
Tyranids are the ones that seem to me the DE would not enjoy fighting. Mindless synapse creatures.

Actually the DE don't mind fighting Tyranids either. They capture them for experiments and use in the arenas of the Dark City.

But, crucially, torturing them just isn't the same.

The Deathwatch supposedly have some invisible Tyranids contained in a vault in one of their watch-stations. I suspect they are keeping these to one-up the Dark Eldar.

 Psienesis wrote:
The Deathwatch supposedly have some invisible Tyranids contained in a vault in one of their watch-stations. I suspect they are keeping these to one-up the Dark Eldar.

They also created plant tyranids too.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
Tyranids are the ones that seem to me the DE would not enjoy fighting. Mindless synapse creatures.

Actually the DE don't mind fighting Tyranids either. They capture them for experiments and use in the arenas of the Dark City.

But, crucially, torturing them just isn't the same.

I dunno man. Tyranids might not be completely free from the pain and stress torture can inflict open an individual, animal or not. One particular Zoanthrope happily embraced its death after having both been tortured and experimented upon by Fabius Bile.

I’m sure the Dark Eldar won’t let some overgrown ape beat them at their own game. If Fabius can brake a tyranid’s will to live and fight, then so too can the Bondage elves.

 Redcruisair wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Exergy wrote:
Tyranids are the ones that seem to me the DE would not enjoy fighting. Mindless synapse creatures.

Actually the DE don't mind fighting Tyranids either. They capture them for experiments and use in the arenas of the Dark City.

But, crucially, torturing them just isn't the same.

I dunno man. Tyranids might not be completely free from the pain and stress torture can inflict open an individual, animal or not. One particular Zoanthrope happily embraced its death after having both been tortured and experimented upon by Fabius Bile.

I’m sure the Dark Eldar won’t let some overgrown ape beat them at their own game. If Fabius can brake a tyranid’s will to live and fight, then so too can the Bondage elves.

One would assume that the amount of pleasure the DE get from torturing something is directly proportional to it's level of sentience. Otherwise they would just torture dogs. Now the nonsynapse creaters are either within synapse range(torturing them will do no good as the hive mind cares not for the pain) or they are not in synapse range(like torturing a dog or monkey). The higher level nids, perhaps would be fun to torture, as they are more aware, but still the hivemind can control them.

 Psienesis wrote:
They exist to die for the Emperor.

There's a difference between being blown to pieces or shot and being flayed alive, they may be prepared for the first two but I doubt many are prepared for the third.

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They exist to die for the Emperor.

There's a difference between being blown to pieces or shot and being flayed alive, they may be prepared for the first two but I doubt many are prepared for the third.

Is there? A martyr's death is a welcome death to a Kreigsman.

 Psienesis wrote:

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They exist to die for the Emperor.

There's a difference between being blown to pieces or shot and being flayed alive, they may be prepared for the first two but I doubt many are prepared for the third.

Is there? A martyr's death is a welcome death to a Kreigsman.

There is a difference
A martyrs death and the prospect of being tortured, mutated and enhanced; turned into a flesh-bot grotesque to be let loose on your former comrades mindlessly killing them is very different.
Or having your organs harvested to replace a Chaos gladiator's wounds, trading one's vitality so a heretic may live.
Or becoming a pleasure slave for some sadistic young prince.

There are worse things than death.

You're still assuming that Kriegsmen are normal, but there's not really any evidence of that.

 Exergy wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They exist to die for the Emperor.

There's a difference between being blown to pieces or shot and being flayed alive, they may be prepared for the first two but I doubt many are prepared for the third.

Is there? A martyr's death is a welcome death to a Kreigsman.

There is a difference
A martyrs death and the prospect of being tortured, mutated and enhanced; turned into a flesh-bot grotesque to be let loose on your former comrades mindlessly killing them is very different.
Or having your organs harvested to replace a Chaos gladiator's wounds, trading one's vitality so a heretic may live.
Or becoming a pleasure slave for some sadistic young prince.

There are worse things than death.

They could also be eaten alive by Tyranids, slowly poisoned to death by Nurgle, etc. They've faced such things without any notable morale issues.

They're not normal people, they're very much mentally broken human beings.

 Exergy wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They exist to die for the Emperor.

There's a difference between being blown to pieces or shot and being flayed alive, they may be prepared for the first two but I doubt many are prepared for the third.

Is there? A martyr's death is a welcome death to a Kreigsman.

There is a difference
A martyrs death and the prospect of being tortured, mutated and enhanced; turned into a flesh-bot grotesque to be let loose on your former comrades mindlessly killing them is very different.
Or having your organs harvested to replace a Chaos gladiator's wounds, trading one's vitality so a heretic may live.
Or becoming a pleasure slave for some sadistic young prince.

There are worse things than death.

You should probably look into how the real-world martyrs were... well... martyred.

But, also, all of those fates are things that we, the readers of 40K, know about. In the Imperium? The average person doesn't know about these things. The DKOK? They can't even read. How are they ever going to learn about these fates? They're not. They're strong in their ignorance.

As mentioned the DKOK are not completely fearless. What I would actually like to see is a Night Lords/Dark Eldar force face an Emperor's Children warband.

What, you want to hear them scream "TORTURE ME HARDER!" then?

 Melissia wrote:
What, you want to hear them scream "TORTURE ME HARDER!" then?

No, I just want to see The Dark Knight, Batman vs Joker in 40k :p

I think it would be interesting to see if the Night Lords could break the Emperor's Children or whether the EC would be truly fearless.

The DE would get straight on the NopeRavager to The Dark City of Feth That.

I think the EC are beyond capable of feeling fear, though if they could, they'd probably enjoy it.

 Psienesis wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:

 gianlucafiorentini123 wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
They exist to die for the Emperor.

There's a difference between being blown to pieces or shot and being flayed alive, they may be prepared for the first two but I doubt many are prepared for the third.

Is there? A martyr's death is a welcome death to a Kreigsman.

There is a difference
A martyrs death and the prospect of being tortured, mutated and enhanced; turned into a flesh-bot grotesque to be let loose on your former comrades mindlessly killing them is very different.
Or having your organs harvested to replace a Chaos gladiator's wounds, trading one's vitality so a heretic may live.
Or becoming a pleasure slave for some sadistic young prince.

There are worse things than death.

You should probably look into how the real-world martyrs were... well... martyred.

But, also, all of those fates are things that we, the readers of 40K, know about. In the Imperium? The average person doesn't know about these things. The DKOK? They can't even read. How are they ever going to learn about these fates? They're not. They're strong in their ignorance.

unless they get attacked by a group of huge, fast, strong, monstrous infantry, that look to be jumbled together of their fallen comrads. Appear to look like friends they have lost, wearing uniforms of their their regement. Sure it might take a while to sink in for lesser humans, but knowing how to read has nothing to do with it.

They might not break and run immidiately, but if they were captured after that, it might eventually sink into their thick skulls that death does not immediately await them, but a painful transformation that will have them back out on the battlefield killing their friends and participating in the rape of what they swore to protect. Even for a stupid country bumpkin, this would be somewhat disconcerting.

 Exergy wrote:


unless they get attacked by a group of huge, fast, strong, monstrous infantry, that look to be jumbled together of their fallen comrads. Appear to look like friends they have lost, wearing uniforms of their their regement. Sure it might take a while to sink in for lesser humans, but knowing how to read has nothing to do with it.

I think the "not being able to read" thing is dead, it's only mentioned in one BL book that was written before FW did their big delve into them and doesn't fit with anything else about the DKoK since then, particularly as they clearly have markings they'd need to read to interpret.

That said, the DKoK fought amongst the strongest (and strangest) of the creatures and champions of Nurgle and Khorne on Vraks and did not break or flee (though they were quite often killed to a man). If they made it through literally years of that (and the survivors shipped off to fight the nids), I'm not sure the DE weirdness will either.

 Deadshot wrote:
As mentioned the DKOK are not completely fearless. What I would actually like to see is a Night Lords/Dark Eldar force face an Emperor's Children warband.

The Dark Eldar would like deal with them as they do their own - remove all sensations from them and let them merely exist - alive but senseless...........

Night Lords might do something similar not sure.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Exergy wrote:


unless they get attacked by a group of huge, fast, strong, monstrous infantry, that look to be jumbled together of their fallen comrads. Appear to look like friends they have lost, wearing uniforms of their their regement. Sure it might take a while to sink in for lesser humans, but knowing how to read has nothing to do with it.

I think the "not being able to read" thing is dead, it's only mentioned in one BL book that was written before FW did their big delve into them and doesn't fit with anything else about the DKoK since then, particularly as they clearly have markings they'd need to read to interpret.

That said, the DKoK fought amongst the strongest (and strangest) of the creatures and champions of Nurgle and Khorne on Vraks and did not break or flee (though they were quite often killed to a man). If they made it through literally years of that (and the survivors shipped off to fight the nids), I'm not sure the DE weirdness will either.

I'm not talking about them breaking or running, they might not do that.

But no matter how strong or strange the champions of Nurgle or Khorne or the nastiness of the 'nids you can always somewhat assure yourself that they are "others" not you. That your fighting will either stop them or hurt them or at least make someone realize you died for some reason.
That you could be forced against your will to join the enemy is what might be terrifying, perhaps after the fact. I doubt many in the IoM know that any troops defeated by the 'nids will be eaten and come back as more 'nids, but in any event once eaten you will not have to witness it.

The act of being turned against your cause, being turned into a monster and then being forced to watch while your body goes out of your control slaughtering your friends is somewhat different from dying at the hands of a Daemon or being eaten by 'nids. Seeing butchery and slaughter of those you hold dear is different from being forced to commit those acts against your friends.

If one is too stupid to be scared of the prospect before the fact, one would probably be scared of it during the fact. The DE dont care when the emotion comes, only that it does, so they can feed of the emotion.



Imagine that you are captured, taken away, tortured, 'enhanced' by a haemoculus and his wracks. All the while you are thinking, "I shall die a martyr, FOR THE EMPEROR" After your surgeries are complete you are surprised to find yourself still alive but constantly in enormous pain. Soon you are led out of the haemoculus's lair in cages or chains, still in pain and confusion, but you dont care as you are convinced you are going to die a heros death. You then find yourself being loosed on the planet you were taken from. Very confused at first you think it is a time to escape, but when you try to run you find you cannot. You find yourself unable to fight the urge to march straight towards the defenses you use to man. You get shot by a few lasguns, there is pain but you are confused as to why humans are firing at you and more confused as to why you are now charging the battlements you use to command. You reach the crest of the defenses, see your comrades manning their positions, but rather than seeing smiles on their faces you see horror and anger in their eyes. A few shoot you but you shrug it off with more pain. You find yourself forced to charge right at your best friend from your squad, he fires off one more shot right before you reach him but doesnt stop you. As you crash in, your arm uncontrollably whips around cutting a huge gash in your friend. He screams, to your horror you can tell his wounds will probably kill him, but your hand twists inflicting more pain. His eyes go faint while you feel his blood splash across your face. You look up and see revulsion and more anger in your former comrades eyes as you stand above the butchered remains of your best friend. Again a force compels you to move and slaughter yet more people you once knew, and there is nothing you can do to stop it. You continue the slaughter of your former regiment for hours and find parts of your body are feeling renewed and stronger, that your new body actually enjoys killing your friends. The more you kill, the more pleasure you feel. When it is over, you are locked in a cage again and carted back to the haemoculus's lair along with some of your former platoon that was not killed, only taken out of action. Next time they will join you in the slaughter of man.

of course none of can phase you because you saw some folks died horrible deaths at the hands of a bloodthirster last year?

Trooper #5-6-93-9 wonders what this ''friend'' term means. As well as ''eyes'' and ''faces'' in the 40th millenenenium there's only gasmask.

No seriously, the scenario you describe is all fine and dandy, but the only thing the guy taken will see is the expressionless gasmask of the other Kriegsmen.

You get shot by a few lasguns, there is pain but you are confused as to why humans are firing at you and more confused as to why you are now charging the battlements you use to command. You reach the crest of the defenses, see your comrades manning their positions, but rather than seeing smiles on their faces you see horror and anger in their eyes

No, what it sees is:



Followed by a whole lotta:

 Melissia wrote:
You're still assuming that Kriegsmen are normal, but there's not really any evidence of that.

They're still biologically human. They still are subject to emotions unless they've been lobotomized, just that they have to be pushed harder than all other humans.

Irrelevant, because a lot of the way our brains work has more to do with how we're trained in life than biology.

I dont think the DKoK would be immediately broken, however The DE would certainly take some prisoners back home for experiments. They dont JUST feed off fear, they feed off pain and pleasure as well, so they would make it a long and painful martyrdom for the Korpsman. I am fairly certain the Haemys have chemicals and poisons to induce fear and terror into the Korps that no matter what the training they would not be able to resist. With that said the majority would never know fear because they are just broken individuals.

DE hate crons the most- the higher ups might have personality, but they cant experience pain or any of that so they are just useless.