Voidravens, Characters & Codices: Dark Eldar Week 2!
September 25, 2014 by crew
Following on from my article last week about the first wave of Dark Eldar, I take a look at the new pre-orders and what is to potentially come this weekend, via the shadowy Dark Eldar corners of the internet.
Last Weeks Release
Last weekend we saw the release of a bundle kit, Horrors of the Dark City, a plastic Wrack kit and a new Haemonculi model.
Sadly, no financial saving is to be made on the Horrors of Dark City bundle purchase but if rules stand from old codex to new codex, the taking of a Haemonculi allows Wracks to be troop choices, therefore in terms of potential expansion from this bundle, there is a lot of room to spread. Having two dedicated transport raiders is also a great part of the bundle as it gives different ways of playing the force - do you zoom around the board with the dark lance and the odd Haemonculi gun choices, do you deep strike to get the Haemonculi into combat range, or do you leave the wracks out of the raiders, and use the Pain Engine as a Parasite engine to dish out pain tokens and beef up your units. By old codex standards, with all potential upgrades, it comes in at a 500pt force. Great to start learning with or just to beef up the existing armies. I only have one unit of Wracks and one Pain Engine, so would totally go for this if I didn’t already have four raiders.
The plastic Wrack kit is a great idea. Roughly the same cost as the old finecast box, high quality plastic as opposed to bendy finecast and interchangeable and customisable model options all mark up towards a decent box. You can make your Acothyst model stand out with the customisable heads and something called an Ossefactor which sounds like a new torturous piece of war gear. Having the ability to build the wracks into the raider pilot or gunner seems cool, but in doing so, you’re removing a body from the unit composition. For my raiders, I haven’t added the crew members and to signify which unit is in which raider I place one from the unit, usually the specialist weapon model or the Acothyst.
I do like the look of the new Haemonculi model and overjoyed it is indeed plastic, but I have a soft spot for the old Haemonculi model so I hope they will still run with those too, even with my comments last week regarding the delicacies and flexibilities of the models.
A New Wave of Pain
The image I have seen the most floating about is the new Voidraven Bomber. I am very excited about this. I think it looks great, if a bit cumbersome for a Dark Eldar ship. I predict there will be some fabulous conversion jobs in the coming weeks with this model and they excite me even more. I haven’t yet fallen to shiny-ship-syndrome, but only time will tell.
The potential psychic cards I was so worried about appear to be Dark Eldar objective cards and combat drug cards. With so much extra information as a Dark Eldar player to hold in your head mid-game - which unit has this many pain tokens, which units carry combat drugs, has this pain token moved to another unit, I certainly predict a heavy sale on the Datacards.
I have seen three images in relation to what could be new character models; whether they will arrive next week or in the last waves it is as yet to be seen.
From one of the codex release, an image of a character called Khadys Abrahak, could well be a new type of Archon, a helmeted figure with a banner on it’s back and a figure donned in Incubi armour and wielding a double handed sword. I have no clue as to what the figure with the banner is; the helmet on the figure points me towards a character for Wyches but the armour suggests otherwise. Regardless of this fact, I think it looks awesome, has something of the Dark Elf Corsair about it. The Incubi-esque figure could be a model for Vect. The image could also suggest Vect with a retinue of Incubi.
Finally, the new codex artwork is incredible. It is only right that an Archon adorns the front page and that the figure is in a lithe and agile combat stance, as opposed to the last edition where the Archon stood purveying his surroundings.
I am not one to go in for buying limited edition codices. I haven’t really seen the validity of them or got excited about them or even considered buying one since the Lizardman book (I was fortunate enough to hold the design teams copy under strict observation at Games Day 2013 after much discussion! - I don’t even own a single Lizardman figurine, that’s how amazing I thought it was) but the images of the limited edition codex are testing my wallet strings to breaking point. Additionally within this image are what like pull-out pain tokens to use, to signify which units have them. Obviously proxy tokens for any discerning gamer could be picked up pretty cheaply, but it’s a great extra thing to fold into the purchase of a limited edition set.
Once again, I find myself tapping my foot impatiently for Friday Night. I hope my expectations are met with great aplomb from Games Workshop - last week we got a taster, this week we get the main course.
Dark Eldar Art by Niel Roberts
If you would like to write an article for Beasts of War then please contact me at [email protected]
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Great write up, however people continue to make wrong assumptions with the new Archon model being shown in several dozen places online. It is not a new special character, is has been proven to be a clampack plastic kit like most other generic characters in 6th/7th edition. The models shown in this article are created using bits from other kits. The head and banner pole are from the reaver jetbike and kabalite warrior kits respectively. The Splinter pistol is from the wych kit. The spear arm is from the raider kit. The archon with incubi, is not a Vect model.… Read more »
“though the WD leaks have proven that the arms continue to be swappable with the other dark eldar arm options, which has always been one of my favorite aspects of the model range”
I love this about DE! The last ravager I built I had lost the arms for one of the gunners so I did a little splicing and swapping and he is now holding a massive dark lance in one hand in a very Rambo fashion while pointing ahead. The versatility is so incredibly cool and makes kitting out custom HQs a breeze.
Shouldnt they wear more armour if they hope to get close enough to use those swords?
You’re confusing common sense with 40k again 😉
It just has an enormous amount of stuff that doesnt make sense … even if its meant to be goth in space it would be alot cooler and easier to relate to if it had some of the realism and beleivability from the fluff baked in. 2nd edition had it right with shooting being alot deadlier, overwatch for example not just being a gimmick but actually something that had your opponent thinking twice about charging your gun toting warriors wearing only underwear and carrying hand weapons.
I agree with @cpauls1 on this. You’re criticising 40k for not being something that it’s not trying to be @hatamoto . 40k is not and has never pretended to be realistic hard sci fi. If you want hard sci fi, this just isn’t the game you should be playing. 40k is more like Star Wars for goths 🙂
The truth is its using old fantasy mechanics, its all in the system being outdated .. fluffwise the universe is giving the wibe of being hard sci-fi sometimes. Thats what id like to see it develop towards.
No arguments about the rules being old, but 40k began as Warhammer Fantasy in space. If it occasionally smells of hard sci-fi, it’s only because, like all good fantasy, it has one foot in reality to keep it grounded. Let’s not forget we’re arguing about the how realistic the space elves are.
Might I suggest that if you like 40k fluff and prefer things a bit less fantasy, then Horus Heresy might be worth a look? You still have people striding around with chainswords though.
It could just be that 40k isn’t your game and you’d be much happier playing something else.
Im not arguing how realistic space elves are, they could very well exist and doesnt defy reason. Im specifically targeting the over emphasis on melee.. if its just as effective as shooting, why are soldiers even carrying guns? The fluff atleast tries to explain these things, making melee situational, just wish they could have the rules explain it a bit better as well. Do you think if they made a serious 40k movie you would see 20 dark eldar storm 10 marines head on and still have 4 guys in melee at the end? No the eldar would be using… Read more »
The background however, writes Wracks as modified and mutilated beings to the point their gnarled skin provides roughly as much protection as flak armour – and these beings actually welcome pain and injury, both inflicting and inflicted upon themselves.
They also serve scientist-torturers who have mastered ‘death’ and can’t really die… they’re not very interested our modern outlook of warfare.
Awesome stuff 🙂
I hope that new DE Archon kit has some options in it like SM Captain has because that would help bringing some extra variety to each build.
Masochists united! All theu need now is a hairdryer…
Sad to see the resin Haemonculi is now gone.
Absolute idiots. Sheer, shocking stupidity – do they even play the f*cking game?
Good new models though.