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as topic states how difficult would it be defeat a raid on a random world?

is it at all even possible?

Fluff-wise, it's pretty damn difficult. Dark Eldar tend to pick-and-choose their fights even more than the Eldar do. They'll generally show up to attack an unexpected area which has fairly little resistance, and provide no warning what-so-ever.. So it's pretty difficult to overcome.

Please refine your question.

What kind of world is being raided? Feral, Death, Industrial, Forge, Hive, Exodite, Maiden, Tomb?

How large is the raiding party? A Dracon and his mates? A Wych cult? A full Cabal?

Haha DE raiding a tomb world that would go well......

I imagine the dark eldar are in and out most times before a major military response can be assmbled. it's a speed thing for them, can they get in and out with their spoils before the enemy brings it's full might agaisnt them.

For example they'll raid a small city or village on a world for slaves, and it'll all be able getting out before the PDF arrives. if the dark eldar are forced to stick around for a prolonged period of time chances are they'll lose.

Just like any raiding force really

It's all subjective. The biggest Kabals are more than capable of taking on a hive world, just there is very little to gain by doing so.
The massive casualties they would take would far outway any loot they could get.

Nigh impossible even if you fortify your world. They'll just ride in to the place least fortified, take what the way and leave before you can get them. The only way you could really beat them is either with the help of Space Marines or if you somehow got lucky and caught them with the bulk of your military forces.

DE's are too divided to attack in large armies. Their raids are small, and if they're confronted by significant defenses they break pretty quickly.

The issue is the DE are too smart to fall into that kind of situation, so they only pick undefended/lightly defended worlds. The Imperium doesn't have the resources to defend every world, only those of strategic value.

Vulkan did it single handedly with nothing more than a pair of smithing hammers slung over his shoulders. The DE have not been back to Nocturne in 10, 000 years.

The White Dwarf battle had them taking on a hive and an Imperial Guard force, but I imagine most battles like that typically don't happen. I recall another fluff battle (from the Badab War books, IIRC) where the DE had to be baited with a bunch of innocent civilians for the marines to move in and wipe them out.

Basically, they're hard to catch.

Vulkan kinda had an advantage in that, from the DEs' perspective, he came out of NO WHERE. Nocturne up to that point was easy pickings for the DE and then Vulkan's all "BAM! SURPRISE, MOTHA ****A'S!!!!" Now Nocturne is a Space Marine homeworld so... yea, it ain't easy pickings no more (not just because of the Space Marines. Vulkan trained the people to fend for themselves, IIRC)

Yeah, he had an advantage, but it remains he's still 1 person vs many, probably including things like Venoms and Raiders.

Plus, the DE in 40k have no issue raiding a Space Marine World. In fact, they raided Chogoris at the end of the HH, and that's how Jaghatai Kahn was lost, chasing them into the Webway.

TiamatRoar wrote:
Basically, they're hard to catch.

Which is why you have to look like an easy target if you want to engage them. There was a short story (somewhere) about some backwater world being raided, and one of the five Sisters of Battle guarding a shrine there decided to do something about it. She picked up a relic from the temple, dressed in skimpy clothes and let herself be captured. Then she detonated the relic (a vortex grenade) on the Archon's Raider, taking out the Dark Eldar Webway Portal which meant they were trapped on the planet. Easy pickings for the heroic Space Marines that arrived a few days later in response to the emergency signal.

What if a dark eldar was hiding in that factory right over there?

Simple buddy, I'd just raise my PP, aim and pull the trigger

Without any warning first?

Dark Eldar don't need no warning



If you got that reference you are BEAST

Anyway, if a sufficient force can be rallied then they are doomed. The White Dwarf Batreps are mostly faked, but the IG would smash them in real life. The DE would simply be sledghammered to bits by the cry of "First rank fire, Second rank fire"

Basically impossible without precognition.

Entirely because they're there to take something, not to gain long lasting control over some resource. It almost doesn't matter how many of them die in the raid, so long as they get away with some of what they came for. To them, that's a win, therefore they weren't beaten.

And they don't raid for something specific, it's more like "as many humans as we can carry". So even if a thousand of them die to steal ten people, they still stole ten people and killed a bunch more, which is all they were really there for. They won.

Not a very objective win, but certainly a subjective one.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Basically impossible without precognition.

Entirely because they're there to take something, not to gain long lasting control over some resource. It almost doesn't matter how many of them die in the raid, so long as they get away with some of what they came for. To them, that's a win, therefore they weren't beaten.

And they don't raid for something specific, it's more like "as many humans as we can carry". So even if a thousand of them die to steal ten people, they still stole ten people and killed a bunch more, which is all they were really there for. They won.

Not a very objective win, but certainly a subjective one.

Mind you, if it's a place where they might lose a thousand and get ten prisoners, they are likely to go elsewhere to begin with.

 Dannyrulx wrote:
What if a dark eldar was hiding in that factory right over there?

Simple buddy, I'd just raise my PP, aim and pull the trigger

Without any warning first?

Dark Eldar don't need no warning



If you got that reference you are BEAST

Anyway, if a sufficient force can be rallied then they are doomed. The White Dwarf Batreps are mostly faked, but the IG would smash them in real life. The DE would simply be sledghammered to bits by the cry of "First rank fire, Second rank fire"

True. If they can catch them. But Dark Eldar would probably go for the outposts to get their prisoners rather than charge a full Guard gunline.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
Basically impossible without precognition.

You don't need precognition as much as you need another rival kabal.
The codex is full of stories of DE screwing over other DE.
If your kabal has a slightly nicer view of the city than mine, you better hope I don't know when your next raid is. I may jump the gun, showing up 30 minutes ahead and bailing out right as resistance is getting mobilized. I vanish moments before you appear, and you pop in right into the center of a firefight. Surprise! You're my Rearguard.

It's the infighting that keeps DE in check.

Easy if you're a Guard Regiment on alert.

Nearly Impossible if you're some Agri-World farmer.

If you know they're coming, the odds of survival skyrocket. If you're a combat unit, then you got pretty good odds of winning.

If they get you by surprise...well, let's just hope the Emperor is with you.

Yeh but as it has been mentioned about a hundred times before, you WON'T be an imperial guard regiment or combat unit unless you are really looky the de don't work like that


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And the empower with you? As any space marine knows the emporer is a corpse on a thrown with incredible psykic powers and requires about 2000 psykers a day for his meal

 Ferrus mannus reborn wrote:
Yeh but as it has been mentioned about a hundred times before, you WON'T be an imperial guard regiment or combat unit unless you are really looky the de don't work like that


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And the empower with you? As any space marine knows the emporer is a corpse on a thrown with incredible psykic powers and requires about 2000 psykers a day for his meal

Heresy! How dare you question the power of the God Emperor!

Given how easily they can bypass the static defences of other races, the Dark Eldar are an absolute scurge on the galaxy and defeating them when they've attacked you is a tall order usually. If the Dark Eldar are attacking you, it usually means they have well laid plans and preparations to prevent you from even being able to resist.

The only way to get an absolute advantage on them in this scenario is to know they're coming without tipping your hand that you do in fact know that. A very difficult thing to do.

Of course, the purpose of DE attacks is to get slaves, so any action against opposing military units has the objectives of delay and distraction rather than defeating the enemy in mind. If they attack an alert Guard regiment head on, they'd get mangled more likely than not, but those are not the tactics they employ usually.

Why on earth would they be mangled versus a Guard army?

They move so fast as to make ordnance useless, and IG infantry is so outclassed not even their numbers can truly compensate.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why on earth would they be mangled versus a Guard army?

They move so fast as to make ordnance useless, and IG infantry is so outclassed not even their numbers can truly compensate.

The IG have no issue shelling their own positions to destroy the DE, and things like Hydras and Quad Guns are more than capable of blasting Raiders and Ravagers out of the sky with impunity.

It's about as difficult as dealing with a raid from any other race: it depends on the codex you're reading.

DE codex: They kill everyone resisting, capture an entire planets worth of slaves and teabag a company of Imperial Fists.

Imperial codex's: Either show up three years too late or ambush the DE and kill them all.

You get the point.

It's actually a bit wierd in that because of the ability to regenerate and the fact that it literaly takes a matter of days to grow adult DE, they are willing to absorb shocking casualties to achieve their objectives.

Only Elite forces like Incubi are slow to replace.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why on earth would they be mangled versus a Guard army?

They move so fast as to make ordnance useless, and IG infantry is so outclassed not even their numbers can truly compensate.

The IG have no issue shelling their own positions to destroy the DE, and things like Hydras and Quad Guns are more than capable of blasting Raiders and Ravagers out of the sky with impunity.

Aren't Dark Eldar supposed to be faster than Space Marines?

Between that kind of ludicrous speed, night shields, flickerfields, the fact that they usually attack at night and various other factors, I doubt the Guardsmen will land many hits at all. Not even the infantry; how do you keep your aim trained on something that moves faster than your eye can follow?

DE pretty much hard counter IG.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Why on earth would they be mangled versus a Guard army?

They move so fast as to make ordnance useless, and IG infantry is so outclassed not even their numbers can truly compensate.

The IG have no issue shelling their own positions to destroy the DE, and things like Hydras and Quad Guns are more than capable of blasting Raiders and Ravagers out of the sky with impunity.

Aren't Dark Eldar supposed to be faster than Space Marines?

Between that kind of ludicrous speed, night shields, flickerfields, the fact that they usually attack at night and various other factors, I doubt the Guardsmen will land many hits at all. Not even the infantry; how do you keep your aim trained on something that moves faster than your eye can follow?

DE pretty much hard counter IG.

Massed flak fire on the scale IG can put out will shred DE it's happened a few times in the Codex. Usually the DE just regroup to hit somewhere else and take revenge.

The Dark Eldar are described as being capable of incredible speed and agility, to the point of being able to do things like kick back thrown grenades. Their vehicles carry fields that either make them appear to flicker, making it hard to track a trajectory, or that make them appear darkened. Most of the time the enemy is chasing shadows as the Dark Eldar are simply not there when they arrive, and it may be some time before the enemy is even aware of who they are fighting. The Dark Eldar would be hitting weak and isolated positions all over, disrupting communication, and engaging in psychological warfare from the very beginning and would likely have the initiative due to having initiated the attack without any hint or warning, and having emerged from webway portals. In-universe, few non-Eldar know about the Webway, so the ability of the Dark Eldar to seemingly appear out of nowhere would be a total surprise and also terrifying.

The problem though is when it comes to actual pitched battles with armies like the Imperial Guard, there should be so much firepower being thrown up that it should be like trying to dodge rain. Each individual shot or raindrop might have a low chance of hitting, but there can be so many that there can be a point where it is physically impossible to dodge them all simply due to the lack of available space between shots. Similarly it is impossible for a human to dodge drenching rain even if they could perceive each drop moving in slow motion, simply because there is not enough space to fit a human body between all the drops no matter how you contort or twist.

A Space Marine can run 10 meters, vault a control table, and grab a man in the time it takes for that man's heart to beat once.

And Dark Eldar are even faster.

Dancing around lasfire should be easy enough.