Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I was wondering how often the dark eldar use slave armies in the fluff. I know they have gladiatorial arenas where slaves fight each other, but do they ever happen to use slaves in lieu of putting their own forces in danger during raids? If so, do they trust the slaves to bring their own support such as heavy weapons, tanks, and air support or would they only put them out there as bodies to soak up firepower? I would think that implants and explosive collars would keep individuals in line, and enforcers among the ranks (such as would replace commissars if the slaves were of the imperium) would make control easier, but would it be enough to trust such a large military force with the means to really do damage?

I'm loving the idea of this fluff to bring better infantry weapons to my IG lists and give the DE units some heavy support, and the allies matrix having them in a desperate alliance would support slaves fighting for their very survival even at the hands of those that enslaved them while the slavers keep an eye out for a knife in their backs. The biggest curiosities to me are for the support roles because I would hate to be unfluffy if I decide to go with this list, even if it means leaving the russ behind.

To answer your questions in order...
There is no fluff mentioning, but as long as they had some sort of escort alongside them they should be good.
No.
I imagine that their main purpose would be like many dark eldar weapons, psychological warfare. Before you even get to shoot at any dark eldar you have to cut through hundreds or thousands of your own species.

If you really care about justifying it and want HS stuff I suggest you just state that the guardsmen were manipulated by the Dark Eldar. They may be pasty rapists, but they are still Eldar and still have the same assholish blood flowing through their veins.

They don't.

It's considered a rare honour to go on a realspace raid.

DE don't wage war in the conventional sense (with armies).

I can see them coercing humans into furthering their aims on occasion though..

I recommend drugs. Drugs and mindrape.

There was a cool episode of Outer Limits once where soldiers were injected with a serum and issued with a helmet that made them see "the enemy" as a hideous monster. Yet said enemy was just another human faction using the same injections and helmets to get their soldiers to fight without mercy. Big twist.

Maybe you can pull some inspirations from this. Like, make it so that the Guardsmen are so flying rodent gak insane that they think the Dark Eldar are their friends. Sadism doesn't always have to come in a physical form, after all. And really, look what the Dark Eldar are doing in their normal army list already. Have you seen the "Pain Engine"?

No Dark Eldar would arm slaves and use them for battle when he could be in the midst of the slaughter himself. Using puppet forces through manipulation, coercion or bribery sounds more like it. How many humans will know about (or care about) the difference between Eldar and Dark Eldar anyway?

And desperation, fear and terror all work too. When things are so bad that teaming up with the (Dark) Eldar looks like the sensible course of action you know it has to be bad.

Spetulhu wrote:No Dark Eldar would arm slaves and use them for battle when he could be in the midst of the slaughter himself. Using puppet forces through manipulation, coercion or bribery sounds more like it. How many humans will know about (or care about) the difference between Eldar and Dark Eldar anyway?

And desperation, fear and terror all work too. When things are so bad that teaming up with the (Dark) Eldar looks like the sensible course of action you know it has to be bad.

How many humans would listen to either one instead of shooting them on sight? Also, Dark Eldar may like battle, but they also enjoy tormenting their prey, and what better way to do that then force the enemy to kill their own. Hell I could see them going to great lengths to make it that much worse for those they are fighting, perhaps some sort of holographic masks for the human slaves that projects the face of someone the enemy knows personally. Wouldn't be the strangest tech they have when you consider that they have swords that turn you into raisins and a virus that turns you into glass.

Spetulhu wrote:No Dark Eldar would arm slaves and use them for battle when he could be in the midst of the slaughter himself.

But they can be. Using slave armies just enables them to raid even bigger targets.

Just throw in a line about how this one cabal is rather small and doesn't have a lot of resources and voilá. Even the Codex says that Grotesques are not always fashioned just from enslaved Dark Eldar, so that'd be a tie-in opportunity.