Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Dark Eldar Fluff Highlights


I picked up my copy of the DE codex over the weekend but only sat down to read it last night. I know that lots of people have already written indepth tactical analyses of the book so I won't be doing that. What I HAVEN'T been hearing so much about is the new fluff found in the book which... y'know... actually gives us Dark Eldar fluff, an unprecedented feat.

So here are some of the highlights that I've found in the book so far:

  • The Dark Eldar, and particularly the Haemonculi, treat death as a past time. If you're rich enough you can get completely regrown from even a single hand, and Haemonculi are apparently effectively immortal.
  • Asdrubael Vect's favorite weapon: Imperial Cruiser. No, seriously- he's used one to annihilate an entire section of Commoragh that was in rebellion via warp core breach and manipulated at least a dozen Astartes strike cruisers to mount an attack on Commoragh, often using their ships as battering rams.
  • Asdrubael Vect's second favorite weapon: black hole.
  • Lady Malys' favorite weapon: an Ork Waagh!
  • Duke Sliscus' favorite ride: your flagship
  • It is whispered that Incubi can even be trusted to keep their word.
  • Fabius Bile learned his arts from the Haemonculi
  • Two Dark Eldar cabals once allied with Iyanden to fight off an Ork Waagh! post-Tyranid invasion. When asked why they did it they said that the Eldar's angsty necromancy made them smile.
  • After a Haemonculi coven invades an Imperial world the remaining citizenry begin worshipping them after they leave, even fighting against the Imperial rescue fleet because they fear the fleshmongers more than Imperial retribution.
My favorite bit of fluff though, like in the Tyranid book, deals with the Tau. The little blue buggers seem to be getting the lion's share of important new fluff in the latests crop of codexes, which makes sense given their dynamic nature. Hopefully it will lead to a lot more cool models and units when their book finally comes out... Anyway, this piece picks up right after Hive Fleet Gorgon's invasion but the Tau are still surrounded by another Hive Fleet. So, being the Tau, they start drawing increasingly more vicious bounty hunters, mercenaries and aliens into their forces to fight off the invading bugs. One warlord they hire is an alien calling himself Urien Rakarth. Hilarity ensues as the price that he asks is simply a "cultural exchange" of 77 Tau of each caste in addition to 7 Ethereals so that their cultures can learn more about one another. You can guess what happens next...

There's a lot more good fluff in the book, but those were what really stuck out to me. What is your favorite piece of background for the True Kin?

*Image from Games-Workshop

4 comments:

CounterFett said...

That Tau story is awesome. The best thing about it is that it fits right in with how they think.

grumhelden said...

I just loved the Tau stuff, it was the part that had the best ring of truth to it. The climax to the whole Malys using the Waaagh as a hammer thing was just asinine.

Hmm...Tau just get better and better lol.

Max said...

Yeah, the Malys climax was a bit... anticlimactic. But then again, as usual, whoever is the star of the codex can do (almost) no wrong.

Gyre said...

My favorite part is the description of politics and the changes in Dark Eldar leadership. In fact, I liked almost all of it besides the Tau (I really just hate the Tau in general). The codex contains everything the old one SHOULD have had. It has history, it has internal divisions, it has different gangs and it has hints for future directions.