This week I’ve been reading over the new Dark Eldar codex. These are some of my first impressions. As a side note, I was not super familiar with previous editions of the codex, so much of it was new to me.

Cover

GW definitely goes up and down on the quality of its codex covers. Marines have generally been ok, if a little staid. Blood Angels were terrible—boring scene, poor technical execution (proportions, body angles, etc.). Skaven were solid, as is the Dark Eldar cover. It well conveys the feeling of a horde of killers oozing out of a sudden, inky darkness exploding over their target.

Models

By and large the new model range is excellent, and a vast improvement over the previous models. The Mandrakes in particular stand out. Previously a pretty stupid looking collection of generic Dark Eldar looking figures in gratuitous gimp suits, now they’re exciting and original. The models fit in really well with the fluff of shadow beings able to appear at will out of the darkness, and I really like them a lot. I’m also a big fan of the new Reavers, which have a much more exciting style, rider pose, and dynamism than previous jetbikes and bikes.

Other new models for the army are all also pretty good. They look much more serious and original than the previous line. Of note, they have a lot of edges, like the plating on their armor, and other details that I think many people will be able to paint up very nicely without much difficulty. The artwork for the units without models also looks good, so I’m looking forward to those being released. Artwork for Scourges, Wracks, and Grotesques in particular all look great, so I’m excited to see how those models come out.

I got a chance to check some models out in person at Redcap’s the other day, and a couple more things stood out that you can’t tell from the book or website. One is their scale; the models are small, very thin and lithe. The height still doesn’t match up correct for Space Marines to actually be eight foot tall warriors, but the body proportions look a lot more in scale. The Dark Eldar are notably thinner than Imperial Guardsmen. When you look at these guys it definitely makes sense that they’re all Toughness 3.

The other thing the GW pictures don’t convey is the number of options available. There are a good number of leg stances and enough poseability that even the large units have enough variety. Most notably though, the boxes seem to have a ton of heads in them. From the website it looks like all the Wyches have long hair, all the Kabalites the tall helmets, and so on. I haven’t seen sprues, but from the assembled models Adam at Redcap’s had, it looks like you actually have a bunch of options in each box. Enough to make most of a unit with hair or the blank face masks—which I love—or the revised, much improved helmets in the Kabalite case. Pretty cool, and a potential way to help differentiate units.

Fluff & Book

The codex book is well done. There’s a good amount of fluff. Coming at it unfamiliar to the faction, I was happy with the quality and quantity of background material. It’s slightly difficult to imagine how such a race continues to function, but that’s true of most of the 40k factions and well within tolerable bounds for suspension of disbelief. Small touches along those lines though were well appreciated, e.g., discussion about there being small amounts of Dark Eldar procreation but most being bioengineered. There are also some good incidents highlighted, e.g., a crazy Salamanders assault into the heart of Commorragh itself to retrieve a captured ship. Although it’s somewhat sad that this is worth noting, the editing in the book seems to be on par with the recent books and much better than the previous editions. I only caught a couple cases of extraneous or missing words in the fluff. Similar to the Blood Angels book, a lot of of the black and white artwork is dark and lacking in contrast, but it’s workable. I guess that fits the mood, but a lot of the detail and quality would carry through better if it was lightened a touch & the contrast raised.

Rules

Obviously I’ll have to see the new units at work to really get a feel for them. However, my purely text-based take on them is definitely favorable. In particular, they have a lot of special rules and powers that bring a different feel and style to the army, without any of the angry and confused “WTF?!?!” that the Blood Angels book engenders. For example, Pain Tokens and the ability of many units to gain buffs such as Feel No Pain as they kill units is a new, interesting mechanic, fits in well with the fluff, and brings something novel to the faction without seeming terribly over the top. Nearly every unit has a special rule or ability, so it could be a confusing army to play against the first couple times, but for now I’m excited to see how they work out.

It’s not obvious from the text that there are any particularly terrible units in the book. Almost all seem to present interesting options. Reading through at first it’s almost discouraging because many units have a ton of close combat attacks and many others have a bunch of great shooting attacks. But, it’s not clear how to interpret that given the low Strength and Toughness of the units.

Consider Lelith Hesperax, a stone cold killer. Every model against her loses one attack, to a minimum of one, because of her blades and barbed hair. She also has a 4+ Invulnerable, buffed to 3+ in close combat and her attacks ignore Armor Saves. On top of that she’sWS 9, BS 9, Initiative 9 (!) with 4 base attacks, plus a bonus for two close combat weapons, plus she gets an extra attack for each point by which her weapon skill beats the highest weapon skill in base-to-base with her. So, against a typical Tactical Squad she’s going to drop 11 attacks on the charge. But she’s strength 3. So, on average against MEQs 7.33 of those attacks will hit (11 attacks times 3+ to hit), and 2.44 of those will wound (7.33 hits times 5+ to wound), so she’s basically looking at 2 or 3 dead Marines. That’s pretty good, but it’s not over the top either. For 175 points she seems… probably reasonable? Maybe even fairly touchy to use, given that she doesn’t have shooting abilities and only a typical Invulnerable against shooting for an HQ, though she’s also likely to have Feel No Pain from a Pain Token. So, Lelith’s the fastest and the best, even more than the most powerful demons, but she’s ultimately a small humanoid. A lot of units are like that, though even less clear. A ton of attacks, powerful abilities, but all seemingly likely to be balanced out by relative weakness and fragility.

I gather there are probably better HQ choices in the book because of their other abilities, e.g., Vect’s 50% odds to Seize the Initiative, but Lelith highlights how I felt reading many of the writeups. At first I thought “Wow, that’s a ridiculous number of attacks and high stats!” Then I remembered she’s only S3 T3. I assume and hope the other crazy abilities balance out similarly. For example, it’s harder to evaluate, but the Dark Eldar definitely have some extreme mobility. Reavers can move 36 inches and get a 3+ Turboboost save! But they’re only Toughness 4 with the buff from their bike. It definitely comes across as a glass jaw army, with some serious aggressive capabilities but not much capacity to stand and take damage. Again though, things like Pain Tokens granting Feel No Pain change that, so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. Certainly at the moment I’m optimistic that the book is well balanced and look forward to some matches.

All pictures above are from Games Workshop, used without permission.