The Chime of Eons - The Dark Eldar

We are the masters of the shadowed sky. Not for us a grubbing crawl through the mud and filth of battle. Leave that to the lesser races. We shall only set foot upon the soil these vermin call home in order to place our bladed heels on their throats.

- Archon Vraesque Malidrach of the Kabal of the Flayed Skull

I will never forget what I saw at Obsidian Station. The bones of five thousand brave men lay scattered about the winding corridors. Their blood was slick upon the walls and floors of the dormitories. Their innards were hung from control panels like grotesque decorations of some insane celebration. But not a single skull was to be found; taken as sick trophies by these despicable attackers.

- Inquisitor Absolvus

The scions of the Dark City would never admit that the unceasing hunger at their core is what drives them to such heights of cruelty. Instead, they maintain that they act only upon their own desires. Some have even managed to convince themselves of this. In truth, unless our cousins in the webway feed upon a constant diet of extreme emotion they will slowly wither away, leaving naught but a soulless husk. We of the craftworlds deny all such urges, and in doing so become less than ourselves. Perhaps it is those that we left to perish are the lucky ones.

- Spiritseer Iyanna Arienal




We began the Chime of Eons with the Eldar, and (aside from a smattering of neutral and planet cards that we must cover for completeness) we end with Eldar again. Not the Craftworld Eldar, however, but the Dark Eldar of Comorragh, an altogether different culture and people.

I will admit openly here – this was once one of my least favourite factions in the wargame. While the Craftworld Eldar have always appealed to me, with their ancient culture, their witchcraft and their rightful superiority, its also been the case that the primary part of their appeal to me is their dignity of self denial and self control, and the sense of sacrifice and noble bearing in the face of extinction. The Dark Eldar just didn’t strike a chord with me as much, and indeed I’ve often seem them as being ridiculously “grimdark”, over the top in their evil for evil’s sake and underdeveloped in their fiction. I also took objection to their aesthetics on multiple levels, and in short, never liked them much.
The Dark Eldar were introduced in 1998, three years ahead of the Tau, and were one of the first real shake-ups of the fictional background of the lore of 40k that I personally encountered.

My initial reaction against them was visceral horror of the wrong sort… How dare they mess with my precious Eldar? How dare they compromise their fiction? Reading the codex and seeing the miniatures deepened this disgust for me, for various reasons. The kabalite warriors were ugly, as if someone had messed up an eldar sculpt and put blades and spikes on the armour. The dark lance was a bright lance with a “dark” label added on to impress angsty teenagers. This was just dark elves in space, and I felt at the time that 40k had only just moved past being “Warhammer in Space” and that this was a step in the wrong direction, design wise. When I saw the special character Kruella the Vile I winced at the terrible pun: I wanted to know why was there a 101 Dalmatians reference in 40k, and I hypocritically condemned the lowbrow humour, despite myself having painted an Eldar warlord I had dubbed Lon’don of the Even Standard.

Some other things about this faction have also worried me. As with the Dark Elves in Warhammer, the Dark Eldar too often seem to be the 40k faction of choice of those who want their women in genre games to be pale, anorexic-thin and with bare midriffs as their "armour". However, this is evened up with pale, anorexic-thin MALE dark eldar with bare midriffs, and the reasons for their skimpy dress are justified in-fiction. This makes the game less offensive to my default feminist sensitivities than I might have thought, and now I actually view the faction as one of the more feminist-positive ones: you can have female soldiers and generals who are the equal or better of the male ones, and gender is no barrier to power or protagonist status. Actually the Dark Eldar miniature range better represents female soldiers than any other.

But 1998 was a long time ago, and the game has changed and grown immeasurably since then, and despite my resistance, so have I. If anything my objections to the appearances of female Dark Eldar in some artwork have grown a little stronger, but my other concerns have faded. The miniature range has matured, with a less male-gaze driven depiction of the wych cults, and I’m actually old enough now to miss the puerile humour of younger years, and to see the fun in making everything ridiculously grimdark for its own sake.

It is now hard to imagine a 40k where Dark Eldar aren’t part of the mythos. Their fiction has grown distinct from that of the Eldar: it’s become clearer what their motivations are, and what their society looks like. Their miniatures have improved considerably, with pretty much every model in the range receiving an aesthetic makeover.

Whereas the first Talos made me think “what the hell is that supposed to be?” the newer one made me say out loud “I want one.”

And I do have one (ok, I had one though I broke it badly when it fell out of a window), along with a small force of Dark Eldar. The second wave re-envisioning of the faction won me over, and I now like them as much as I like my Craftworld Eldar.
In the wargame, those who love the Dark Eldar may be attracted to them for many reasons. For many, I suspect it’s the aesthetic appeal of the miniatures and the desire to go for something a bit different, purposefully selecting an army list that is less popular than the others. Others may be drawn to the “glass cannon” nature of the force: they’re powerful in attack, incredibly mobile, but also extremely fragile. Others enjoy the fictional background, and the idea that the Dark Eldar are the “true” Eldar… more on this later!
In the LCG, especially with the design decisions made, it seems likely Dark Eldar fans will be in a similar niche. We’re already looking at a faction that is tricksy, aggressive and the choice of those players who want to play something less obvious. They are already as divisive in the LCG as they were in the wargame, with some singing their praises as the strongest of factions, and some condemning them as the weakest.

That the Dark Eldar in the LCG is rapidly emerging as the faction of “choke strategies” has already endeared them to me.
That is to say, in the LCG as well as the wargame, I’m no longer a Dark Eldar hater.

I’m now very much a Dark Eldar fan!




THE DARK ELDAR
The Dark Eldar Faction Meta-Fluff Score: 5/5

“Eladrith Ynneas” (translated as “eldar of darkness”), was a term coined by Asdrubael Vect in self-description of his people. As current supreme Archon of the Dark Eldar city of Commorragh, and as perhaps one of only a handful of his people who remembers the Fall of the Eldar first hand, he is well placed to choose their name!

It would be inaccurate, though, to think of the Craftworld Eldar as "true eldar", and the Dark Eldar as their shadowy reflections. Rather, if anything, it is the Dark Eldar who are truest to the ancient ways.

As we have described in a previous article, the ancient Eldar at their peak were a proudly arrogant people, rightfully dismissive of their lesser in the galaxy. Their society had gone far beyond the need for manual labour, no external force posed any threat, and they had long lives, immeasurable potential and the freedom to spend the centuries and millennia in pursuit of self-indulgence and pleasure.

Such freedom could have led to utopia, but instead it magnified the flaws of the Eldar psyche. Seeking sensation and staving off ennui, the Ancient Eldar turned to increasing perversity, with their bored and near-immortal minds needing the most extreme of stimuli to trigger even a flicker of interest.

Some turned away, and these were named the Exodites, fleeing to the distant reaches of the galaxy in order to lives of ascetic simplicity. In a way, these were extremists in their own right, another sort of madness manifested through self-denial.

Others realised a little later that society was sick to the core, and they built the Craftworlds, seeking to start again in their spaceborne homes, far from the homeworlds.

The vast majority did not realise or acknowledge that society was going wrong, but of that majority a serendipitous few were destined to survive the Fall nonetheless. At the time of the Fall, there were some amongst the Eldar who were working and dwelling within the Webway – a skein of tunnels, paths and channels through the surface of warpspace, that current galactic civilisations attribute to Eldar construction, but which were actually the creation of the legendary Old Ones in an even earlier eras.

These Eldar were exploring the Webway's myriad paths, and with the miracles of Ancient Eldar engineering had carved out realms and outposts within that realm, for the purposes of trade and as waypoints for galactic travel. The largest of these domains was Port Commorragh, established around M18 as the primary nexus of the Webway.

Hidden away as it was, and beyond the control of what little rule of law the Eldar had, it became a haven for illicit trade and secret conspiracies. In fact, in many ways, Commorragh was a microcosm of the old Eldar realm as a whole, its flaws magnified in intensity and then concentrated into a relatively small area.

When the great cataclysm of The Fall occurred, the majority of the Eldar population died instantly, consumed by the psychic shockwave of the birth of the Chaos God Slaanesh.

The distant Exodite colonies were safest, too far both in distance and in psychology from the ancient eldar to be effected. Most of the Craftworlds had gotten far enough away to survive as well, but some were pulled back by the gravitational and warp-vortex forces of the newly formed Eye of Terror. Even those Craftworlds that survived felt the death of their homeworlds, and that psychic trauma would never be forgotten, guiding them towards their current path of seeking redemption, atonement and survival.

Commorragh, meanwhile, was safely nestled away and barely noticed the tumultuous events of realspace. While it was true that the Webway links to the old Eldar realm were shattered, and waves of warp-energy twisted and devastated vast swathes of the Webway, Commorragh itself was so deep within its tunnels that the Fall of the Eldar seemed very distant indeed.
The Craftworld Eldar, who had escaped but felt the psychic shock of the Fall, realised how close they had come to damnation. Their society was restructured around avoiding repeating this error, and in fleeing She Who Thirsts. They created the Infinity Circuits, the Eldar Paths and waystones, and since that time have voluntarily suppressed their own Eldar natures for the sake of survival and penance.
The Exodites took a similar path, though they merely continued their simplified lifestyles, and bound the spirits of their dead to their World Spirits, essentially an infinity circuit within the crystal geology of their planetary homes.

The Eldar of Comorragh, guilty yet unpunished of the same sins that caused The Fall, faced the event with denial of responsibility, and at first did not change their ways at all. They maintained the old ways of the ancient Eldar, their own arrogance assuming that they had been spared cataclysm because of their inherent superiority rather than because of sheer blind luck.
With time, though, they began to realise the existence of She Who Thirsts, and realised that on death their souls were being consumed by Her. They could not take the same path as the Craftworld Eldar: no Dark Eldar would be able to trust his descendants and peers to respect and protect their spirit stones or an infinity circuit. Nor did they want to: they had never turned from the ways of the ancient Eldar and did not have the sense of repentance to adopt the Eldar Path.
Instead, they realised that the best way to avoid a hellish afterlife is simply… not to die!

The Dark Eldar learnt means to devour souls, and thus extend their lifespan indefinitely. Pain and anguish would heighten the “flavour” and the power of these souls, and thus Dark Eldar society evolved into a new form: one dedicated to preserving individual immortality at the cost of the souls of others.

At first the Dark City (as Commorragh rapidly became known) tore itself apart with infighting, as Eldar hunted Eldar, seeking to capture and devour each other’s souls. The hierarchical structure of the old nobility started to fracture, and soul hunting gangs and cults took their place - the antecedents of the Dark Eldar Kabals.

As the Kabals started to establish a new world order, they also aimed their society's aggression outwards, with realspace raids providing captured victims to bring back to Commorragh. It is still dangerous to walk the darkened streets of Commorragh without bodyguards for fear of being ambushed, but the majority of the city’s energy is diverted towards raiding realspace.
Commorragh is a culture centred around the taking of captive souls, and of extracting maximum fear and pain from them before consuming them. Their economy is slave based, as no dark eldar wants to concern himself with menial tasks when he could be hunting down the soul feast that will keep death at bay a little longer. Their technology is still recognisably Eldar but also geared towards their particular goals and environment – they strike fast with open topped skimmers, snare captives with hooks, webs, nets, snares and paralysing poisons, then withdraw quickly to return their prizes to the Dark City. Many of their weapons are designed for the maximum infliction of pain, as even on the battlefield a Dark Eldar warrior can be invigorated by the suffering of their enemies. Their cruelty and spitefulness is more borne of their natures rather than necessity, however, and their culture of self-interest, of betrayal and conspiracies and of absolute devotion to their own desires and ambitions is also nothing less a manifestation of the ways of the Ancient Eldar.
So… where does this take us with the LCG?
We want a faction that is all about the fast raid. They should be aggressive but fragile, able to deal a lot of damage with high mobility, high range and high speed, but also liable to crumble in the face of enemy fire.

We want a faction that is not interested in holding territory, but rather in getting in and out fast. In terms of the LCG rules set, this likely means a faction that is most comfortable with a train of units moving in and out of HQ, targeting a planet (probably the first one) then retreating en masse. Dark Eldar don’t garrison!

We want a faction that knows the power of pain and fear. Shock tactics, psychological attacks and torture are needed.

We want to see the grotesquery that accompanies the Dark Eldar to war: we don’t necessarily need to see all of them straight away, but the clean and bright weaponry and troops of the Craftworld Eldar have no place here: we need an emphasis on the almost organic warp-fuelled horror-based tech of the Dark Eldar.

We want small numbers generally, with an emphasis of quality over quantity.

In these goals, FFG has succeeded!

We’re definitely beholding a real fluff success, with clever design themes running through the faction cards that enhance the core themes of the fiction. Significant command struggle weakness discourages garrisoning with Dark Eldar army units, while events nicely represent the psychological game, and emergent play showcases the highly aggressive nature of the faction.

Resource and card choke mechanics are thematic too, as they reduce the scale of the game: the Dark Eldar aren’t ones to take on massive armies head on, so by making it a game of fewer and smaller units each side, it feels more like a Dark Eldar engagement.

The heavy emphasis on stealing power is excellent too: as Commorragh only exists through theft of souls and energy, it is very thematic to have this be the faction that steals resources and card advantage.
We have a faction that plays exactly like we want it to, so much so that a very slight misfire on the Alliance Wheel doesn’t stop this being a 5/5 faction for meta-fluffiness.

This being the end of the wheel, we’ve actually already commented on the alliances. Briefly:

Craftworld Eldar are family, and thus not only possible allies, but also probably the only faction who will consider alliance with Dark Eldar. Though their philosophies are almost diametrically opposed, cooperation is possible, just like a Tory / Liberal Democrat coalition government (with apologies to those outside of the UK for the local metaphor there). Both factions revere the same God of Murder and War, and both are descended from the same historical crucible, and defined by their fallen status.

Um... the eldar factions, that is, not the political parties! Though actually...

Chaos makes less sense, and is just about feasible if interests overlap (one soul for you, one for me, and so on), but it is fear of She Who Thirsts that drives the Dark Eldar psyche. This is the only very minor fluff weak point, as an alliance between Dark Eldar and chaos seems almost less likely than one between Dark Eldar and most any faction. A different perspective to my own might argue that the sharing of captured souls is enough to allow brief allowance, however, and so its not enough to bring the score down.

Generally though, any weakness in alliance depiction compensated for by the amazing emergent play experiences of both alliances. An eldar alliance has the craftworld brethren holding back, playing the support game from afar while letting their more aggressive dark brethren harvest souls on the front line. Its entirely fluffy, as this is the roles you expect them to adopt: not working side by side, but playing to their strengths and each thinking they have the better half of the deal. The chaos alliance works too, as its so fragile that it can’t sustain for long. A sheer orgy of bloodletting is the only way for this deck and this alliance to work, hoping to break the enemy’s spirit before the long term strategic and logistical weaknesses of this fragile pact cause defeat.

That’s not to say the cards of the faction are perfect in fluff: we’ll come to those! As a faction as a whole, however, this is the fluffiest experience of ALL the seven factions.


SIGNATURE CARDS

Packmaster Kith (Core Set)
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

This is another new Warlord, with no previous existence in the fiction. The wargame fanboy in me is slightly sad about this, as I really want to see first tier formerly established signature characters in this game, for the sheer joy of seeing them translated into LCG form. I want to see Lelith Hesperax, Asdrubael Vect, Drazhar and Urien Rakarth! I even don’t mind if we hit the second tier, and get El’uriaq, Vorsch or Aestra Khromys. What I had no particular desire to see was a new character.

Still, we cannot deny that FFG has as much right to add to the mythos as any Black Library author or Codex writer, so long as the addition is consistent with the fluff and a true enhancement of existing lore. When this is done well (see Murder Cogitator from last article, as a great example) it can actively add to the depth and complexity of the setting, and be better than a representation of that which already exists.

Kith is one such card.

The Wych Cults are a power bloc in Commorragh separate to the primary power of the Kabals, born of the pleasure cults that were found through the last days of the ancient Eldar empire. While Kabals are engaged in the primary goal of collecting souls and gaining political power, the Wych Cults are obsessed with the mastery of the art of combat and murder.

Wyches are devoted to the perfection of fighting technique, with an especial emphasis on drawing out their duels to inflict maximum pain on an opponent, and to make them look as clumsy as possible relative to a Wych’s perfect athleticism. Their skill earns them fame and wealth in the Coliseums (sic), and also as mercenaries for the kabals in the field of war. Their murders are offered up to Khaine, the Bloody Handed God, who is one of only two gods of the Eldar pantheon to have survived the Fall.

It is perhaps telling that it is the Craftworld Eldar who receive the favour of Khaine in the form of the Bloody Handed Avatars that will sometimes join them in battle, while the Dark Eldar do not receive that god's grace in this way. Mention this to a wych, however, and she will remind you that they are Khaine's brides, and extend the pain and duration of your death to pay for your insult.

A Succubus is a high ranking member in this female dominated cults, with her place earned not only by the politics and intrigues that all ambitious Dark Eldar must engage in but also by her sheer combat skill and gladiatorial successes. Physical conditioning and eldar grace means they are both beautiful and deadly. Three succubi will rule each Wych Cult, but only one of the three will ever hold true power.

Kith is shown here is wearing the traditional wychsuit, a piece of clothing that looks to be utterly impractical and ridiculous as battle gear, but is actually justified in the fluff as being not battlefield gear at all, but rather the gladiatorial accoutrement of the wyches, leaving sections deliberately unarmoured to sate a crowd’s lust for bloody injuries and to allow for the athleticism of performers. This wargear actually tells you a lot about the Wych Cult as a whole: battle is a performance, an arrogant ritual dedication to their own prowess and a devotion to their god of murder.

Whats notable, interesting and fully in line with fluff here is that Kith lacks the Beastmaster trait that her signature squad possesses. This is actually sensible: the beastmasters are a male-dominated subcult, but ultimately one subservient to the female-dominated hierarchy. Kith then is no a beastmaster, but a mistress of beastmasters!

The emergent play of her ability represents the Dark Eldar style of war well: hitting hard in combat, but then withdrawing en masse to HQ. Its less fluffy when Khymera are left scattered around various planets, but as they often become suboptimal In this circumstance this nicely reflects the callous disregard with which Kith might see her underlings, especially ones as lowly as mere warp beasts.


Kith’s Khymeramasters (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

As we mentioned, the Beastmasters are a wych sub-cult, who do not fight in the arenas themselves but rather are tasked with capturing Khymerae for the coliseum battles. As the flavour text implies, they will engage on dream-quests where they hunt down these beasts in the spirit realm (read: a controlled techno-shamanic ritual that allows access to the Warp) and draw them back into realspace. The Khymerae themselves are just one of the dream creatures that Beastmasters can capture, though they are the most numerous and common.

The equipment depicted is all as expected, from the skyboards and packmaster whips, to the ritual tattoos and masks that in fact are sonic emitters and pheromone traps that allow direction of the beasts.

What I like best about this card is their name: Kith’s Khymeramasters implies a definite hierarchy, where they are masters of those beasts beneath them but subservient to their Succubus – as things should be!

What I’m not so keen on here is their mildly disproportionate toughness, and the fact that their art and flavour text suggests a pack of Khymerae, while the token card and the emergent play normally results in just one or at best a small number of Khymera tokens.
An interesting thing about the Beastmasters in lore is that many of their trappings seem to be those of sorcerer-mystics, that is psykers.

Dark Eldar society – unlikely that of their Craftworld brethren – is actively hostile to the idea of psykers. Despite the equal psychic potential of the Dark Eldar, their malice and hedonism driven path means that they cannot afford to exercise psychic powers, for fear of drawing the attention of She Who Thirsts. Dream Quests to capture Warp Beasts are about as close to sorcerous / shamanic traditions that we see the Dark Eldar engaging in, and even then it is an approach that is mostly dependent on technology rather than mysticism.


Khymera
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

We’ll discuss the token card here rather than in non-loyal cards, as it seems the most appropriate place.

As you’re no doubt tiring of me hearing, my small complaint is that this card and many like it should have been pluralised. The other small complaint is that while the Creature trait is great, this should also likely have had a Daemon or Spirit trait to reflect its warp-born origins. This isn’t a big thing though, as the wargame also treats them as ordinary beasts despite their background fiction.

That very minor bit of negativity aside, this card is otherwise excellent in its fluff depiction. You have here a unit that is hard hitting but fragile, that appears unexpectedly to reflect its speed, and which normally comes into play where you expect it – next to Kith or a Khymeramaster. Also, its excellent that they suffer in the face of area effect attacks, and that a warpstorm will sweep them back en masse into the immaterium.
As a fun aside, its worth noting that the Dark Eldar have a weird warped Greek-Roman-Italian classical theme going on with a lot of their units, perhaps as an attempt to make them resonate with myths of the underworld.

Commarragh itself is likely a linguistic echo of the Italian Camorra crime syndicates with its pyramidal structure, drug dealing and ruthless reputation. Khymera, meanwhile, is clearly derived from Chimera, a Greek mythological beast with a goat, dragon and lion head, and a snake tail. While Khymerae don’t have this exact form, the mish-mash of beasts creating monstrous appearance theme remains, and chimerical has come to mean unreal, phantasmal or dream-like, which fits with the dream-realm origins of these beasts.
Compare and contrast this to the Egyptian and Celtic themes that underpin the Craftworld Eldar, and then look at the views of these ancient civilisations seen from the perspective of modern British culture. The Egyptians and Celts are revered elder civlisations with the wisdom of forgotten times, a mythic cycle of strange gods and knowledge of lost magic. The Roman Empire, on the other hand, is known for its military brutality, slave taking, blood rituals and decadence! The positive British view of the Roman Empire exists as well, but this is taken in fiction by the Greco-Roman noble soldier stylings of the Ultramarines.

In a way 40k is very much a manifestation of many of the British stereotypes of historical civilizations: not necessarily accurate portrayals, but rather how the average British schoolboy will see these places and times. This is something we'll come back to when we hit Ragnar Blackmane and the Space Wolves a few weeks from now!


Khymera Den (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

The effect here more or less makes sense, as it might suggest logistical support in handling the Khymerae, or it might represent a warp-refuge where Khymerae are trained to return to, ready to be deployed again.

Nicer though is the emergent effect, that has a great pack of Khymerae hitting like thunder when the support is used, and has a natural gathering effect on the pack.

Pact of the Haemonculi (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 5/5

Coming back to the real life mythical roots of Dark Eldar fiction, we have the haemonculi, who seem to borrow their name from the myth of the homunculus, a miniature but fully formed human, though this time the myth is one that is associated with the medical theory of preformationism and the alchemical writings of Paracelsus.
Why Games Workshop chose this word isn’t 100% clear, but my assumption is that its likely the association of the word with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, though it seems misplaced here, as the homunculus was the monster, not the experimenter. This is a nicely ironic reflection of the usual pop culture mistake of taking the creator's name to be the monster's name!
Coming back to the fiction of 40k, the Haemonculus is a chirugeon-scientist, whose specialised field is pain. They are artisans of the flesh, and artists of agony, capable of twisting the bodies and minds of captives into monstrous forms. Partially this is for the practical purpose of drawing power from pain – the Dark Eldar raison d’être. A larger part, however, is the near religious devotion to cruelty, sadism and pain in its own right.

The Haemonculi Covens represent the third pillar of Dark Eldar society, between the Wych cults and the Kabals. Whilst the least directly powerful, they are most likely the powers behind the thrones, and indeed the ancestors and antecedents of the haemonculi were the masters of the pre-Fall Eldar empire.

This card is a superb representation of the pacts that might be made between an ambitious Dark Eldar and the ancient homunculi, and is fluff-consistent on many levels.

First, it shows that the haemonculi themselves generally don’t raid for souls and victims, instead letting the wyches and kabals do this dangerous work. Though you might see a haemonculus on the battlefield on occasion, their natural home is their laboratories.

Second, this card is wonderful in emergent play that it encourages a Dark Eldar player to decide which of his followers are expendable, and then to send them to the haemonculi as a tithe. You can imagine kith calling in one of her khymeramasters...

“Ah, my dearest and truest servant: I see you have returned from your dream quest and brought me a fine khymera. And you have completed your assault on the human lines, and suffered injuries in the line of duty. You deserve a reward – take this message to my ally Urien Rakarth, and he will have something waiting for you. Mwahahahaha!
“No? Running away? Ah well… Daughters, bring him to me!”

The cost is fluffy, and the effect is too. In response to the provision of a new subject, the Homunculus lends his political support and ancient cunning to the warlord’s cause. New options present themselves, enemy weaknesses are discussed and strengths negated. None of this is consistent though and the random draw of cards might be of no use at all, as Haemonculi are dark eldar, and the dark eldar are nothing if not capricious!


Agonizer of Bren (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

An Agoniser is a weapon that normally takes the form of a whip or gauntlet, but which is intended to attach itself to a target’s nervous system, sadistically incapacitating them with waves of pain. This is a typically Dark Eldar weapon, in that its effectiveness is measured in how much suffering it can inflict, rather than how efficient it is in winning battles.

Without the “of Bren” suffix, an everyday Agoniser whip would have been an insufficiently unique weapon to justify its own card, but with this there is the suggestion this is a unique artifact.

It is not entirely clear why the weapon gets more effective when you own more Khymerae, and even less clear why they don’t even need to be at the same planet. Also, its odd that you can give this whip to an army unit but not to Kith, though from a game design point of view this is undoubtedly a good thing.

While this works well as a game card, the fluff narrative it evokes isn’t terribly coherent.



LOYAL CARDS

Its almost an inherent contradiction to say Loyal Dark Eldar, as this is a race that thrives on and rewards treachery. In this case, lets read “loyal” as “too arrogant or specialised to be in the service of anyone but a Dark Eldar warlord”, and it all makes sense!

Black Heart Ravager (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

Kabals are the default political, economic and social groupings of the Dark Eldar, part members club, part conspiracy and part affiliation. Because of the militaristic nature of Dark Eldar society the main activity of the Kabals is warfare, both in the internecine Kabal vs Kabal conflicts within Commorragh and in the realspace raids to claim souls and slaves.

Generally speaking its every Kabal for itself and the Dark City traditionally sees new Kabals forming and old ones being destroyed with high turnover. Members of Kabals are answerable to the Kabal hierarchy, which reaches its summit with the Kabal’s Archon, who is answerable to no law and can act without consequence, save for suffering the vengeance of those he wrongs or falling prey to the ambitions of those who would take his place!

The Kabal of the Black Heart is at present the largest and most powerful Kabal, and is also the dominant political force in Commorragh at present. Their leader, Asdrubael Vect, claims to have been responsible for the founding of Commorragh itself, says he is the creator of the Kabal system and that he directly witnessed the death of the Eldar empire and the birth of She Who Thirsts.

Whether this is truth or revisionist history is unclear – what is known is that he was born a lowly slave and climbed the ladder the power the hard way, and that around M35 that he engineered events to have the Imperium of Man attack Commorragh, achieving his position of dominance during the ensuing chaos and power vacuum. It is actually almost certainly a lie that he founded the Dark City (as this doesn’t really gel with him being a slave in it) and knowing the nature of Vect and the Dark Eldar, its likely he has twisted the truth to suit his own propaganda needs.

Asdrubael Vect (and through his patronage the Kabal of the Black Heart) are now the closest thing to rulers that the Dark City has. It is his favour rather than his destruction that most lesser Archons vie for, though these are tumultuous times, and should he die there will likely be a civil war of immense proportions.

The Ravager Gunship is a fast skimmer vehicle built on the same chassis as the far more common Raider craft. Armed with Dark Lances (armour piercing “darkness lasers”) or heavy Disintegrator Cannons (anti heavy infantry weapons that fire blasts of destabilising subatomic matter) they are characteristically highly mobile heavily armed firebases that are nonetheless somewhat fragile in the face of enemy fire.

2/2/5 Flying seems the wrong stats here, as these aren’t true flyers and are more heavily geared to offence than resilience, and a lack of Mobile and Ranged is odd as well. The ability is very nice, however, representing either the fear that these shock-and-awe skimmers induce, or their ability to drive off enemy tanks and infantry by sheer threat of their firepower.


Murder of Razorwings (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

Used by the Dark Eldar beastmasters, the Razorwings are swift, carnivorous avians.

The stats here are good, and their disruptive effect being represented by a discard is a decent abstraction.

Overall, the mechanic also lends itself well to the metafluffiness of the Dark Eldar play experience, as it tends to make battles smaller in scale with fewer units around – i.e. more typical of a Dark Eldar raid.


Raid (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

Part of me wants to say that there isn’t a need for a card called “Raid”, as raiding is almost the entirety of the Dark Eldar way of war.

Still, the effect is fluffy, the art is wonderful and the effect on how Dark Eldar decks play makes for a faction that feels like Dark Eldar in the way the cards turn.

Suffering (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

The art here looks to depict a Dark Angels scout (though the chapter icon is somewhat stylised, its still recognisably their heraldry) who is being pierced by multiple blades. The flavour text presented is wonderful, exactly encapsulating what the Dark Eldar are about, the chosen traits are well placed and the game effect is very much a Dark Eldar one. Kill you? No, they want to hurt you.

As there’s not much more to say about the card, lets go on a slight tangent and mention Urien Rakarth, the source of the quote! I could tell you about his endless resurrections, his role as master of The Prophets of the Flesh Coven, but we’ll save that lore in case Rakarth is ever presented as a Dark Eldar Warlord (and he’s my personal bet for the warlord of the at-time-of-writing as yet unrevealed War Pack 6 of the Warlord cycle).

No, instead let me just point out that Rakarth is an oddly common surname in GW lore. There’s Urien Rakarth, of course, but also Beastmaster Rakarth who was a long ago Dark Elf miniature for Warhammer fantasy battles, then appeared again with different fluff in the Warhammer: Age of Reckoning computer game, and there’s Hubris Rakarth, captain of the Bloodbowl team the Darkside Cowboys. Personal headcanon? ALL THE SAME PERSON.

Or maybe not.


Syren Zythlex (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

Though this is another new character to the fiction, there’s still a little we can say about this card.

The first thing is that some readers might not have realised is that Syren is her title, not her name.

Wych squads tend to be led by the most skilled of their number, who is dubbed a Hekatrix, who is both a leader and a high priestess in the cult. Sometimes these elite individuals will band together to form a unit of Hekatrix Bloodbrides, and this squad in turn will be led by a Syren.

Thus as a commander of squad leaders within an organisation of combat-fanatics, Zythlex could be said to be on the same level of skill as, say, an Ultramarines Company Captain like Sicarius!

Of course, whereas a space marine captain’s goal might be to win wars, a Syren’s only goal is the perfecting the gladiatorial dance of wych-combat. To see enemies suffering and humiliated, and unable to lay even the slightest scratch on the mockingly exposed and unarmoured form of the wyches is the goal, and military objectives are a secondary consideration. A Syren isn't suited to be a Warlord card then, but as a unique special character with a strong in game ability, is very well placed.

That in mind, this is a very well-fluffed card. 2-icon command is appropriate, and her ability to exhaust arriving opponents means that as long as she is prepared (read: the first at a planet) she can be impossible to lay a finger on for the opening moments of combat, able to land choice blows herself, then able to retreat from battle before war proper begins. This is very much an ideal of the Dark Eldar style of war.

If I have one objection, its not in the abilities of the card nor its stats, but in the artwork.

A warning here: Some gamers feel that any feminist agenda has no place in gaming discussion, many feel its blown out of proportion, and a distinct minority respond to any mention of feminism with unbridled hatred. If you don’t like discussion of these topics, skip to the next card entry. At the risks of making myself very unpopular, I’m going to state my opinion here anyway…

Whilst earlier this article I justified the appearance of wyches as being consistent with their gladiatorial role, I find the art of Syren Zythlex goes a little too far down the road of suffering from male gaze and unrealistic expectations of female body image for the previously given justifications. We have presented art an anorexically thin figure (yes, even for an elf) whose head is wider than her waist, with exposed flesh and her breasts pushed centre-frame. We have someone is supposedly an elite warrior with no muscle tone at all. GW has varied a lot in how it depicts female warriors, from the ridiculous (Sisters of Battle with Madonna-style boob blades) to the utterly commendable (Shadowsun, standing confident and commanding in her armour). The dark elves and dark eldar have always been the factions that have been amongst the worst line in impractical and sexualised clothing, with the weak excuse of “because elf” trotted out.

Even within these factions, however, there’s been the justifiable and the unjustifiable, and the well presented and the puerile. The 5th edition wych miniatures, for example, include male and female fighters in gladiatorial gear, with hair sensibly tied up and minis posed to look as if they could kick your ass in a fight. At the other extreme is some of the art of Lelith Hesperax, who is clearly designed to look as if she is striding out of a teenage boy’s wet dream. Somewhere in-between these two extremes lie design decisions like the latest mini of Lelith, who while she still looks like she’s been dressed from an S&M catalogue, is at least posed to fight and appropriately toned and muscled.

To me, the art for Syren Zythlex errs ever so slightly on the side of wrongness, depicting the character as more of an anorexic underage teenage goth in kinky leathers rather than a formidable warrior woman. Research reveals to me that the artist for this card predominantly works in a manga art style, but here in this card pool, next to artwork that has a more photo-realistic (albeit still fantasy based and exaggerated) art style, I think the heavy male gaze of this style doesn't suit the game. I'm not saying that FFG shouldn't employ him, as clearly he can draw, but I think some artistic direction to avoid the male gaze / anorexic ideal problem would be an overall positive thing for any future cards he is commissioned for.

Its not a terrible offender: in fact, there are far worse ones within GW’s own published art pieces, but over time GW has responded to criticism and modified their presentation: one need only look at the evolution of their daemonette models for this (and as daemons of lust, they have a better justification than most for over-sexualised appearance), or at the improvement in their artwork depiction over time.

However, for me Zythlex falls just – only just – into the category of fantasy art that I think our hobby is better off without.

This isn’t something I’m reflecting in the score above, just a personal observation and opinion on something I feel needs to be commented upon when it occurs.

Crusade over, now returning you to regular broadcasting!


Twisted Laboratory (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

The workplace of the Haemonculi Covens, this card makes sense in that it suggests access to their wisdom and to their scientific solutions.

My own preference is, on exhausting this support, to come up with an explanation for the solution that the haemonculi have employed on each occasion…

“Rakarth, I am troubled by this ‘Maxos’, and the way that he always seems to be the spearhead of a vast force of marines…”
“He cannot act as vanguard if he cannot communicate. Deploy this transmissions disruptor, and for good measure this muteness-inducing poison.”
“Thank you Master Haemonculus!”
“Your continued sponsorship is appreciated, Succubus. Now go, and do not disturb me till next week, I have work to be done.”


NON-LOYAL CARDS

Altar of Torment (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

Bluish hues, spikes and a reference to pain: yep, that’s a dark eldar card, definitely.

It’s quite hard to comment beyond this, as while there’s no fluff reference I can think of to Altars of Torment, Dark Eldar certainly has religious trappings to its sadism.


Archon’s Terror (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

An Archon is the leader of a Dark Eldar Kabal, and thanks to the forces of natural selection is either the most ambitious, evil and cunning Dark Eldar in the Kabal, or is an Archon soon to be usurped by his immoral betters.

This is a thematically strong card, representing well the fact that their battle tactics are driven partly by the power of psychological warfare. To spread fear through enemy ranks is exactly the sort of thing that Dark Eldar do in battle, and indeed they savour the terror of their opponent’s almost as much as their pain.

Another great thing here is the “scale shrinking” meta-effect mentioned previously, making combats smaller and more like Dark Eldar engagements.

A few criticisms though:

It’s odd that this is a non-loyal card, as you could quite easily have an Archon causing fear in the Dark Eldar’s opponent’s without the involvement of an Archon, or even of any Dark Eldar. We might also observe that there’s no Archons in the core set at all, as the default Warlord is a Succubus (the equivalent Wych Cult rank).

Also, uniqueness seems to be the only proof against psychological warfare. Being an Elite Deathwing Guard doesn’t seem to help you, nor being a fearless daemonic Heldrake or a war-addicted Goff Nob. Likewise, it seems you need as much dedication of resources to frighten off gretchin as you do space marines.

I must emphasise here again that I'm only criticising the mechanics in as far as they fail the fiction / fluff of the card's concept, and that in GAME DESIGN terms this card is perfect as it is, for reasons completely unrelated to game fiction!

Baleful Mandrake (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

Let’s get the criticism sorted first: points for effort and artwork is all we get. Flavour text tries to justify the keyword, and the art is wonderfully ominous. But no, the keyword is misplaced here, and singular/plural yada yada, and so on, and I’ll shut up about these things now.

Lets get onto the interesting bit!

Mandrakes are natives of Aelindrach, a district in Commorragh even more shadow-ridden and dangerous than the rest of the city, where the physical fabric of reality itself overlaps with the Warp, and where there is rumoured to be a portal to a realm of shadow-daemons who can freeze the soul with a mere touch.

These feared creatures have skin of shadow and hunt in the dark places, stalking then murdering their victims, and are rumoured to be able to shadow-step from one patch of darkness to another. Some think they may be dark eldar devoted to a psychotic mystic-cult with skin stained dark by warp exposure, others think they might be daemons, others that they are fear and nightmares made manifest. It may well be that they’re a bit of all three!

With their knives and blades they murder the unwary, and are feared even by the Dark Eldar for their aggression and viciousness.

In classical roots, the word Mandrake or Mandragora might refer to a plant (often associated with mystical rites) or to familiar demons, usually depicted as being miniature unbearded old men. Essentially, its not a dissimilar myth to that of the homunculus, which of course is also referenced in the dark eldar lexicon.
I’ve often wondered about the thought process of the fiction writers when they came up with the Dark Eldar background. For the Eldar, unit names were mostly in plain English, though with eldar translations occasionally mentioned and referred to. The suggestion has always been that the provided names for most alien units were the names that the Imperium (whose Low Gothic is presumed to be English, more or less) gives those units. The choice of the word Mandrake and Haemonculus suggests to me that GW were aiming to imply that these are “created” units and artificial life forms of some sort. However, it may well be that someone just liked the sound of the words and assigned them to a unit!


Beasthunter Wyches (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

This card looks to be another variation on the same theme as Packmaster Kith and Kith’s Khymeramasters. Non-loyal and a lack of the Beastmaster trait suggests that they’re lower down the hierarchy than Kith’s khymeramasters, which makes me wonder why they have a higher command rating. The game mechanic seems to suggest that they intermittently bring back khymeraw (with being tied to events not literal, but rather just an indicator that they return from the hunt at irregular intervals).


Coliseum Fighters (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

Skinny bikini elves. I won’t comment any further on that, as I’ve had my one rant per week allowance on that topic.
The Coliseum is a place of entertainment for Dark Eldar society, where the wych cults fight In gladiatorial duels. Its also a temple of sorts, where slaves are sacrificed in combat so that their pain can fill the gap in the dark eldar soul. Its also a training ground for the battlefield proper (though some wyches might view this to be exactly the wrong way around). Its also a place dedicated to pain and needless cruelty – two of the Dark Eldars’ favourite things.

A lack of command icons and defense-weighted stats are very appropriate to this card. Wyches are famously near impossible to lay a strike on in close combat, even if massed bolter fire does tend to put a crimp on their performances. I’d like to have seen the LCG have some distinction of assaults from firefights, and if that were the case the wyches’ defensive superiority in melee and fragility to firepower could have been represented.

In game terms, the recursion of events kind of makes sense, though only for dark eldar events, as Coliseum Fighters are full of combat tricks, masters of the dark eldar psychological warfare game, and so on, and the invigorating effect of beholding a coliseum performance is likely to inspire an Archon or Succubus to great things. Equally, a “search 6 for 1” effect would have made the same amount of sense.


Haemonculus Tormentor (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

We’ve commented on the Haemonculus Covens with the Pact of the Haemonculi card, but its also nice to see one of these chaps in the flesh, with a nicely placed Scholar trait that I hope sees some mechanical support in future cards.

The high stats for a single unit are fairly justifiable here, as every Haemonculus is an ancient and exceptional eldar.

The attack bonus that grows with investment can be read in various ways, but seems to make most sense if viewed in the context of weird beasts and creations being resourced for creation in the Tormentor’s lab, before being brought to the battle.

Hellion Gang (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

Hellions are Dark Eldar mounted on “skyboards”, and who wield hellglaives: weapons that are combination of splinter rifles and polearms.

The Flying trait is reasonable to see here, and given their fluff a better representation than the wargame manages.

The history of flying surfboards in 40k and geek culture in general is an interesting one!
Someone more broadly versed in geekery will likely find me an earlier precedent here, but as far as I’m aware it goes a little something like this:

The Amazing Spiderman #14 (July 1964) saw the introduction of the Green Goblin, a villain with the Goblin Glider as his main means of transport. Older references to flying boards might exist, but this, as far as I can tell, is the most direct inspiration of the Hellion unit, as their skyboards even look like Goblin Gliders. As we didn’t see Hellions till 1998, however, there were other events inbetween!
1986 saw the famous UK comic 2000AD publish a Judge Dredd story called The Midnight Surfer, which featured a power-board surfer called Chopper, who would go on to be one of that IP’s most popular recurring characters. Its my belief that 40k was strongly inspired by 2000AD, with both being anarchic British scifi products of the 1980s. You need only flick through the pages of the 2000AD story Nemesis The Warlock (first published 1980) to spot multiple themes that were cribbed for 40k: order vs. chaos, a dystopian human-purity obsessed Terran empire, vast hive cities, and so on. Likewise the Adeptus Arbites were clearly directly modeled on Judge Dredd with their visual style, obsession with law, guns with alternative ammunition modes and combat bikes. In fact much of the art style of Rogue Trader (Warhammer 40,000) has a strong 2000AD vibe to it.

Rogue Trader (Warhammer 40,000) came out in 1987, and right there on the equipment list was the Power-Board. This, to me, looked to be directly inspired by the Midnight Surfer comic story and a few other pieces of tech in the same rulebook looked to have been borrowed from 2000 AD as well: webber guns sounded a lot like Judge Dredd’s riot foam, for example, grav chutes sounded a lot like the ones used in 2000AD's Rogue Trooper comic.

As the 40k editions went on, power boards ceased to be mentioned, as 40k developed more of its own identity, with more emphasis on the grim horror of the setting and less on the satire and humour. When the Hellions were introduced, it was a nice nod to the previous tech mentioned in Rogue Trader 40k, as well as a confirmation of the game designers’ love of comics with the visual design referencing the Green Goblin!

Why this diversion into the history of powerboards?

Well, its pretty much what this column, The Chime of Eons is in love with. The developing universe of 40k is built on what went before, both within and without the IP.

It is pleasing when Forge World Heresy-era Imperial jetbikes echo the design of jet-bike art from the Rogue Trader book. Its wonderful when an entire race (Necrons) is developed based on a throwaway line about “the quiescent perils of the C’tan, beyond the gates of Varl” . Its even more awesome when we see Tolkein’s hobbits becoming D&D halflings then Warhammer Halflings then 40k Ratlings.
So if you ever look at Hellions and think that’s just silly, going to war on a hoverboard. Well yes, it is very very silly. But its glorious silliness with an amazing pedigree!


Hypex Injector (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

As Mr. Mackey says, drugs are bad, mmkay?

Thus, as the Dark Eldar are "mwahahaha-E-VIL", it makes narrative sense that GW has made them the faction that use drugs in combat. The fluff depiction of performance-enhancing combat drugs does have a long heritage in 40k, with the Rogue Trader book borrowing the concepts of stimm-packs, frenzon from other sources (probably 2000 AD again), and then working it into the lore of the setting by giving us doped-up Penal Legions, drug-frenzied Eversor Assassins, gas-sniffing Savlar Chem Dogs and more. However, the Dark Eldar were the first faction to put combat drugs up front and centre of their codex army list.
Hypex was first mentioned in the 5th edition Dark Eldar codex as a combat drug that increases running speed. To me, the word always makes me think of the tech company and its audio products, and I’m not sure if there’s a shared mythical root to the world, or if its just a cool selection of syllables.
As with the Beasthunters, I’m happy to assume that linking the triggered effect with the playing of dark eldar events abstractly represents a non-regular intermittent benefit that can be accessed more often by decks that are more closely aligned to Dark Eldar strategies. From a fluff point of view, I’d rather have seen it emphasise the “drugs are baaaad” aspect by having the trigger be “deal 1 damage to this unit to stand it”, akin to Nazdreg’s Flash Gitz, but I respect the game design decision to avoid “blurring the colours” (that is to avoid having factions lose the distinctness of their themes of characteristic game mechanics).

Orks get the damage-self-for-benefit cards, while the Dark Eldar get the trigger-on-playing-events thing. In a broader sense, these design decisions are fluffy and thematic, encouraging as they do reckless Orks and strategy-dependent small Dark Eldar forces. Its because of that broader view I’ll give this card a 4/5.


Incubus Warrior (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

In obsidian shrines, led by their Hierarchs, the elite Incubi engage in terrifyingly intense training regimes that see the weak and unworthy burnt as offerings to Khaine, God of War and Murder. The final trial is to kill an Eldar Aspect Warrior in single combat, and to shatter their Soul Stone and rebuild it into a Tormentor device.

Hey, we said the Eldar and Dark Eldar had the potential to be allies, not that they were bosom buddies!
Because of their shrine-training and devotion to the God of Murder, Incubi have very focused ambitions centred around martial mastery. This makes them the bodyguards of choice for needfully paranoid Archons, who can’t really trust their Kabal subordinates not to stick a knife in their back at the first opportunity. Incubi have nothing to gain from the death of their employers, and so will defend them to the best of their abilities.

If shrine training and ritual dedication to a specific form of war sounds familiar, it should do!

The Incubi are very much the dark mirror to the Aspect Warriors of the Craftworld Eldar, specifically are closely related to the Striking Scorpions aspect. Historically, each of the oldest Eldar Aspect Shrines was founded by a powerful Exarch named a Phoenix Lord. The eldar Striking Scorpions, however, are unusual in that their current Phoenix Lord Karandras was not their founder, but rather the greatest student of the Phoenix Lord Arhra, who the Eldar now call the Fallen Phoenix and who the Incubi call Dark Father. As Arhra was the first Striking Scorpion, it is likely the Incubi who are truer to his vision as an Aspect shrine of murderous aggression and martial skill, while the Craftworld Eldar who are disciples of Karandras are in fact the warped reflections of the Aspect, with that student’s predilection towards stealth and hunting, tempering the aggression of the Incubi into the patient stalking of the Scorpions.

(It’s worth noting here that the above link between Striking Scorpions and Incubi is fan speculation rather than something fully confirmed in print, but its also very strongly hinted at in Eldar and Dark Eldar sources, ans is widely accepted by fans as being almost certainly true)
This makes the Incubi a product of the Craftworld Eldar tradition, albeit one fallen to Dark Eldar ways.
In this context, high command values, high attack strength and low HP make sense, as this thematically makes them look like a Craftworld Eldar card in design. I would have liked to see this card be Loyal, however, as they’re one of the few Dark Eldar who can claim to be reliable. Elite would have made sense too, as well as some game mechanic to motivate players to keep them bodyguarding the warlord.

As we've mentioned the etymology of the Dark Eldar lexicon already, its worth observing that Incubus is simply the male form of Succubus in mythology, though the two words actually have different latin roots: incubo is a nightmare caused by a demon while succubare simply means to lie under someone in bed!


Kabalite Strike Force (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 4/5

Representing the warriors of the Kabal, this is a nicely balanced card that shows their tactical flexibility. What I like best here is the weakest feature of the card mechanically – the lack of command icons. This very much reflects the Kabalite attitude: they’re here to raid and take slaves, and won’t hang around to hold territory or garrison for you.


Power from Pain (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

It makes sense for Dark Eldar to have an event called Power From Pain, as this very literally is a feature of their battle strategy. Whether it’s the pain of their enemies nourishing them, or their own pain being used to feed their own will, the infliction and management of pain is core to their way of war.
It also makes sense to have a card that forces a sacrifice of a unit, as this reflects the Dark Eldar ways of war: high mobility, moving in fast to eliminate the weakest point in an enemy force and then withdrawing before casualties can be caused, before rinsing and repeating.
It makes less sense for that effect to be tied to this card title. Cool art, though.

Sybarite Marksman (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 3/5

There are multiple ranks in a Dark Eldar Kabal, with the Archon at the top, with his Hierarchs at his right hand and
the Dracons below them. The Archons will have Incubi as a bodyguard, while Dracons will usually keep a retinue of Trueborn (that is Dark Eldar warriors who were born conventional biological means, as opposed to the vat-spawned majority).

A Kabalite warrior, whether vat-grown halfborn or privileged trueborn, may establish a reputation in battle or politics, and be named as Sybarite of his squad. This is somewhat akin to the sergeant rank in the Space Marines or Astra Militarum, with the main difference being that a Sybarite can gain his position by killing his predecessor. In fact, promotion by assassination is frequently the norm in Kabals, and Archons are normally busy enough watching their backs against their Hierarchs to worry about the odd murder in the rank and file, so long as nobody is foolish enough to leave the Archon’s armies too thin in numbers.

Sybarites are normally armed with weapons that are shorter in range than the rest of the squad: blades and pistols of higher quality than the standard splinter rifles of the warriors. Its not inconceivable, however, that a Sybarite might choose to adopt a long ranged weapon instead.

What is odd here, however, is that we have an individual who has attained low level command through his ambitions and who typically leads a squad who has no command icons. This isn’t score-breaking though, as lack of command icons feeds the broader Dark Eldar theme well, and as previously noted, suits the personality of Kabalites.


Vile Raider (Core Set) +
Overall Fluffiness Rating: 2/5

The Raider is the primary transport of both Kabalites and Wyches, and is named for its function. As an open-top high speed skimmer, it delivers its payload of warriors to where they are needed. Its almost standard equipment for Dark Eldar infantry given its ubiquity, and while it has a little firepower it’s a fragile vehicle, designed primarily for high speed troop deployment and extraction.
Right now, its just a mobile pair of command icons that is slightly punchier but slightly less fragile than an Eldar Falcon, which is a shame as the two vehicles are so very different in their background fiction and fluff-written battlefield role.

I’m hoping that in future we’ll see the Transport trait put to good use, and at stage the fluffiness of this card will increase.


CONCLUSION

This is a great faction for the fan of those who want narrative in their LCGs. While the core set hasn’t put them in the top tier of competitive decks (as far as the collective consensus of cleverer players than me goes) they’re undoubtedly a great faction for telling a story in the mind’s eye as you play the game. You can’t help but give a little evil smile when your random discard takes out a key card, and your opponent wails in despair. You have to cackle maniacally when your swarm of khymerae swarms the battlefield, and your adversary’s only AoE unit runs screaming back to HQ in sheer terror. It makes you feel like an evil bastard when you sacrifice your own men to the Haemonculi in order to further your goals.
You play the Dark Eldar and you feel skilful, cruel, aggressive and callous.

I have to admit, playing Dark Eldar is made great fluffy fun by the Conquest LCG, and thanks to this game I like this faction more than I ever did while just a wargame fan.


Next time, an unworthy addendum to the current series of this column, as we'll visit the six neutral cards and ten planets to see if we can find any fluffiness there.