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As the title says, who do you think are the dirtiest/most devious/cunning fighters/faction in 40k universe, and can you name a few examples?

My vote goes to Dark Eldar. Their lore is full of underhanded tricks.

Night lords and Alpha legion come close.

"If we were ever ordered to assault another Legion, we would virus bomb their recruitment worlds; slaughter their serfs and slaves; poison their gene-seed repositories and spend the next dozen decades watching them die slow, humiliating deaths. Night after night, raid after raid, we'd overwhelm stragglers from their fleets and bleach their skulls to hang from our armour, until none remained." -Jago Sevatarion, Night Lords

Now that's a great example.

Alpha Legion or Dark Eldar

Broly wrote:
As the title says, who do you think are the dirtiest/most devious/cunning fighters/faction in 40k universe, and can you name a few examples?

My vote goes to Dark Eldar. Their lore is full of underhanded tricks.

Night lords and Alpha legion come close.

"If we were ever ordered to assault another Legion, we would virus bomb their recruitment worlds; slaughter their serfs and slaves; poison their gene-seed repositories and spend the next dozen decades watching them die slow, humiliating deaths. Night after night, raid after raid, we'd overwhelm stragglers from their fleets and bleach their skulls to hang from our armour, until none remained." -Jago Sevatarion, Night Lords

Now that's a great example.

Meh. Night Lords are edgy posers. Just sabotage their Gellar Fields.

Tzeentch - The god of dirty fighting and underhandedness.

Eldar with their super cheat scat bikes and Wraith Knights. Theh have farseers telling the publisher how to write their op rules .

Dark Eldar by far. They once got an entire world to kill itself out of fear.

Dark Eldar definitely, they basically got a world eaten by the Tyranids so they could get some new beasties for the Wych Cult arenas. Also, as Iron_Captain said, they basically made an entire world kill themselves out of fear.

In fluff, either Dark Eldar or Eldar. Dark Eldar are pretty damn underhanded, but the fact that Eldar have bs futuresight means they can pretty much turn any battle into a win for them.

Necrons... They sleep around like old men until you step on their lawn... Then its all Clint Eastwood on your arse. Plus. pre-wardian C'tan were brutal

Tau - because they deny their opponents the right and most honorable form of combat, hand-to-hand. Standing back and shooting you from a distance, what could be more dirty?

Either Night Lords or Dark Eldar. At least Alpha Legion has the common courtesy to actually kill you instead of playing so many mind games on you that you butcher your entire family and then off yourself.

Craftworld Eldar.

Fighting Dirty is their very hat.

While the Dark Eldar may be dicks and like mind games, they never deliberately said, when challenged to a duel, "Lets you and him fight."

The only reason some of you have picked answers other then Aplha Legion is because you've been manipulated to think that by the Alpha Legion's misdirection.

What is a "dirty tactic?" Is it "dirty" to kill someone who doesn't know you're there? Or do you mean "cause suffering?"

If so, then it's the Imperial Navy, using Exterminatus. In-game, that would be whichever unit has the biggest D pie-plate.

The Death Korps, you try digging trenches and stay clean after that.

Probably the Imperium, because it is such a large body, that covers the range of every possible combination of belief, concept, technology and martial philosophy, that there is bound to be a group, whether it's some minor Assassin Temple, some weird off-shoot Ecclesiarchal Cult, some unheard-of Space Marine Chapter or some specialist IG Regiment, or whatever, that out-sneaks the Alpha Legion, out-terrors the Nightlords, and out-pervs the Dark Eldar.

 Psienesis wrote:
Probably the Imperium, because it is such a large body, that covers the range of every possible combination of belief, concept, technology and martial philosophy, that there is bound to be a group, whether it's some minor Assassin Temple, some weird off-shoot Ecclesiarchal Cult, some unheard-of Space Marine Chapter or some specialist IG Regiment, or whatever, that out-sneaks the Alpha Legion, out-terrors the Nightlords, and out-pervs the Dark Eldar.

out-perving the Dark Eldar literally means going full-on Slaanesh. Getting that rap-ey and torture-ey will invariably lead to Slaanesh worship; the Dark Eldar just do it in order to keep Slaanesh from NOMing them.

And? I mean, the Space Wolves out-BftBG the World-Eaters, and aren't yet Khornate, so there's a trick to it somewhere.

 Psienesis wrote:
And? I mean, the Space Wolves out-BftBG the World-Eaters, and aren't yet Khornate, so there's a trick to it somewhere.

Contrary to common belief, the Space Wolves don't go straight-up melee rape in the actual fluff. There are Great Companies that go straight-up melee rape (the Company of Harald Deathwolf comes to mind), but, at the same time, there are Great Companies that go straight-up tank spam (Ironwolves), there are Companies that go full-on Ravenguard (Sons of Morkai), full-on Imperial Fists (Stormwolves), and probably every other combat method out there.

Khorne is the god of warfare, bloodshed and violence. He is not strictly a melee-only god.

 Psienesis wrote:
Khorne is the god of warfare, bloodshed and violence. He is not strictly a melee-only god.

And the Space Wolves spend their days spacefaring (this is actually one of the bigger aspects of their character in Champions of Fenris), drinking, partying, bonding with their packmates, etc. They aren't just creatures of war; they're 3-dimensional people with complex character and diverse traits and attributes (though the wolf wolfborn the deathwolf meme has been seriously over-emphasized to the point of blotting out most of the Space Wolves' character in the eyes of most).

The feasting and revelry is a reflection of their down-time between battles. They are ultra-fictionalized Vikings. They kill, they feast, and they feth. That is all there is to life as a Space Wolf.

Guess what? Khornates do much the same thing in their various Warrior Lodges and Martial Societies and such. It is not murderdeathkill 100% of the time.

And, same with the Dark Eldar, it is not rapemurderdrugs 100% of the time, either. They do things other than rapemurderdrugs.

Therefore, one can be a member of some special secret Imperial group that out-pervs the Dark Eldar without going full Slaanesh. You never go full Slaanesh.

Dark Eldar or Imperium, if they don't win they go full tantrum mode and exterminatus the shet out of them

Death Guard... Chemical weapons, exploding puss heads, heck even being near then can kill you... Plus plague zombies..

Orks.

They are filthy. Not enough of them use perfume squigs.

It really depends on how you look at it. Dark Elder have the most malicious dirty tricks, while Tau have the most well intentioned dirty tricks.

Dark Eldar. A DE Archon is, to quote the Muppet's Christmas Carol, "the undisputed master of the underhanded deed."

 Jimsolo wrote:
Dark Eldar. A DE Archon is, to quote the Muppet's Christmas Carol, "the undisputed master of the underhanded deed."

Yes... but a Craftworld Eldar farseer is the undisputed master of the deed that someone else did for him.

 Furyou Miko wrote:

 Jimsolo wrote:
Dark Eldar. A DE Archon is, to quote the Muppet's Christmas Carol, "the undisputed master of the underhanded deed."

Yes... but a Craftworld Eldar farseer is the undisputed master of the deed that someone else did for him.

Eldar Farseers should be a meme

Don't necrons get a mention because of their chronomancy shenanigans?