The "Feel" of Dark Eldar

Hellion Posts : 34 Join date : 2014-09-30

First some backstory, which I'll put in spoiler in case you guys want to get to the meat of this question.

Backstory:

What I want to try is talking about our emotional experiences while playing Dark Eldar. I'd suggest we discuss the army as a whole before we start discussing individual units.

How do you want to feel when you're playing Dark Eldar? For example, do you want to feel like a slow, impervious wall that slowly crushes your enemy into the ground? Would you like to feel like a super-fast, nimble army that never gets caught but falls apart when trapped? Should you be able to avoid damage, or mitigate it? Should your outgoing damage be steady and reliable, or come in huge, sporadic explosions?

How do you want your opponent to feel when facing Dark Eldar? Do you want your opponents to feel cautious, as though any unpredictable thing could happen? Would you rather they feel afraid, disgusted by the macabre and nightmarish? Should your cannon lines make them run for cover, a hail of danger that must be avoided or mitigated? And finally...

How do you feel the Dark Eldar army accomplishes, or fails to accomplish, this emotional feedback? How and where does it fail to provide the feeling you're looking for?

Once we've established a general consensus on what experience the Dark Eldar should be providing, I'll start steering the conversation towards how the army can accomplish this while also maintaining a unique composition that differentiates itself from other armies.

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sat Jul 11 2015, 22:39

I want my dark Eldar to have a unique way of harming my opponent. Dark Eldar Strike fear and terror into the hearts of our enemies. They need to die of fear, left crippled. Problem is, that space Marines are immune to anything. So it's basically worthless...

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sat Jul 11 2015, 22:59

Rotten Deadite wrote:

First some backstory, which I'll put in spoiler in case you guys want to get to the meat of this question.

Backstory:

What I want to try is talking about our emotional experiences while playing Dark Eldar. I'd suggest we discuss the army as a whole before we start discussing individual units.

Off the top of my head, I had two thoughts. The first was that if you want DE to feel unique, you should start with the game mechanics no one else has: Combat Drugs and Power from Pain. Making those more integral to the army, and play a bigger role for them, would definitely make the army stand out more.

My second thought was that I don't think the army SHOULD feel unique. One of the things I really (and I mean REALLY) love about the Eldar is that they are all Eldar. No matter how much it may horrify one side to admit, or disgust the other, at the end of the day, deep down they're the same. It's the real tragedy of their race, and if we're going to talk about building them up to be unique, I'd rather do it with a focus of making Eldar, Harlequins, and Dark Eldar all feel like different facets of the same stone. Unique in their perspective, but undeniably similar.

Quote :: How do you want to feel when you're playing Dark Eldar? For example, do you want to feel like a slow, impervious wall that slowly crushes your enemy into the ground? Would you like to feel like a super-fast, nimble army that never gets caught but falls apart when trapped? Should you be able to avoid damage, or mitigate it? Should your outgoing damage be steady and reliable, or come in huge, sporadic explosions?

First off, Dark Eldar (for me) come in two flavors that are radically different in this regard: kabal/cult units, and coven units. The bulk of the DE, the kabal/cult choices, I love feeling the glass hammer aspect with. I like doing big damage, but being unable to take it in return. I want my damage output to remain marginally the same (increasing a little as Power from Pain affects it throughout the game), and my defense to increase a little more as time goes on (from PfP).

I really like front-loading my damage. I like knowing by the end of turn 2 how the game is likely to go. I like knowing that I either have it in the bag, or that I need to hunt for an opportunity for a comeback, because I've screwed the pooch. If I win, I want it to either be a shut-out or a last-minute victory. I also derive a perverse pleasure from getting my ass kicked all across the board, and then winning from mission scenarios anyway. (Dark Eldar, in the fluff, excel at this, and it's something I think fits the army very well.)

Coven units, on the other hand, I want to be slower and more resilient (although not as slow, and not as heavily armored as Imperium units, f'rex). I like the Frankenstein, Hellraiser-y feel of this part of the army, and I want that maintained. I like feeling like their units and formations are unique fleshstitched monstrosities, and I like being able to take a boatload of punishment and keep coming with them.

Quote :: How do you want your opponent to feel when facing Dark Eldar? Do you want your opponents to feel cautious, as though any unpredictable thing could happen? Would you rather they feel afraid, disgusted by the macabre and nightmarish? Should your cannon lines make them run for cover, a hail of danger that must be avoided or mitigated? And finally...

By the top of turn 3, I want my opponent to have just as good of an idea of how the game is progressing as I do. I want my opponents to understand the effects of PfP as much as I do, and I want them to fear destroying my units out of worry of making me stronger. I want the potential for late-game turn arounds to be strong, so even when they're winning they're still worrying about turns 5 and 6.

Quote :: How do you feel the Dark Eldar army accomplishes, or fails to accomplish, this emotional feedback? How and where does it fail to provide the feeling you're looking for?

I like the current PfP better than the old one. I know it isn't as EXCITING, but it's better. I would like for it to do more. I would also like it, like Instinctive Behavior, to have different flavors (Kabal, Cult, and Coven) and consequently, different tables. I think a greater reliance on the Power from Pain rule would enhance the unique flair of the army.

I'd also like a greater emphasis on the recklessness of the Dark Eldar, which I think might be easy to do if the PfP rule was affected by your own units being destroyed.

(My suggested thought, off the top of my head, would be to have a PfP table, and tokens like we used to have. At the beginning of every turn, and every time any friendly or enemy non-vehicle unit is destroyed, you get to distribute a PfP token. That seems very complicated, though.)

I like our ability to Deep Strike everywhere, and wish more characters had access to Webway Portals, or ways to mitigate Deep Strike (Move Through Cover, etc).

I wish that our HQs had more options to make them more unique. Either that, or bring back the unique characters that added so much flavor to the army. I feel the same about Covens. I LOVE the Latest Experiment rules, as well as the formation rules, which I think give that mad sciencey vibe very well.

That's just me spitballing, though.

Hellion Posts : 34 Join date : 2014-09-30

CptMetal wrote:: I want my dark Eldar to have a unique way of harming my opponent. Dark Eldar Strike fear and terror into the hearts of our enemies. They need to die of fear, left crippled. Problem is, that space Marines are immune to anything. So it's basically worthless...

When you talk about "fear," do you think that should be reflected directly in a game mechanic, or in other words, leadership tests?

Or do you think that fear should be a more ephemeral, or less direct thing, like the way... well... I guess like the way everybody fears a high D-strength Eldar army? Not in a balance sort of way, but in a "if those guys get their hands on me, I'm boned" kind of way?

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sun Jul 12 2015, 00:41

I would definitely appreciate the fear reflected in game mechanics. Preferably if the game mechanics generated real life fear...

Hellion Posts : 34 Join date : 2014-09-30

Hmm. In retrospect, I think my first post came across a little snooty. Just in case: sorry.

I'd like to clarify how I think an army uses rules to differentiate itself from other armies in 40k or other strategy games. These are rules that generally enable an army to perform a certain way without simply raising or lowering numbers.

CWE Combat Focus is an obvious one. Being able to Move, Shoot, and then Run makes CWE feel nimble and fast, and provides them much-needed survivability beyond the crude (design-wise) method of cover, armor, and invulnerable saves. (Also, why don't Dark Eldar have that? Meh, don't get me started)

Tau Marker Lights is another rule that works well. The ability to negate or reduce one unit's offensive ranged abilities in order to buff another's. This enhances the famous Tau gunline without resorting to simple statistical manipulation.

The Ork rule "Mob Rule," which allows the leader of a mob of normally low (ish) Leadership Orks to shoot one of them, keeping the unit from fleeing at the cost of a few of their members.

Actually Orks have quite a few of these rules. Even their formations, like the Green Tide, are thematically unique and colorful. In this respect, they're a very well-designed army. Oh man, that "don't push that button" rule? Good stuff.

Chaos Daemons have the Winds of Change rule, which not only registers, in a big way, the presence of the army in a game, but also acts exactly the way you'd expect a chaos army to act: unpredictably. Daemonic Instability works in the same way; in rare, random cases it's either really great or super bad.

I think Dark Eldar have a few rules that differentiate our army from others. Combat Drugs is almost great, but it really just boils down to a random stat boost that is so unpredictable that some players don't consider it an advantage. And I think that at one point our vehicles were quite fast (optionally, if you buy Aethersails), but as other armies receive codex updates that feeling of blistering speed doesn't seem to have lasted.

Jimsolo wrote:: Off the top of my head, I had two thoughts. The first was that if you want DE to feel unique, you should start with the game mechanics no one else has: Combat Drugs and Power from Pain. Making those more integral to the army, and play a bigger role for them, would definitely make the army stand out more.

I agree, actually. I think those are two great starting points, and excellent rules that aren't currently fully exploited by the GW design team.

Jimsolo wrote:: My second thought was that I don't think the army SHOULD feel unique. One of the things I really (and I mean REALLY) love about the Eldar is that they are all Eldar. No matter how much it may horrify one side to admit, or disgust the other, at the end of the day, deep down they're the same. It's the real tragedy of their race, and if we're going to talk about building them up to be unique, I'd rather do it with a focus of making Eldar, Harlequins, and Dark Eldar all feel like different facets of the same stone. Unique in their perspective, but undeniably similar.

That's a perceptive observation, and one that I haven't really considered. Maybe if we start talking about specific rules we could try manipulating CWE-specific rules into something more Dark Eldar? Something tainted, so to speak. Using our previous example, perhaps we could change Combat Focus somehow. Quick and probably not a great suggestion: mix it into Power From Pain?

Jimsolo wrote:: First off, Dark Eldar (for me) come in two flavors that are radically different in this regard: kabal/cult units, and coven units. The bulk of the DE, the kabal/cult choices, I love feeling the glass hammer aspect with. I like doing big damage, but being unable to take it in return. I want my damage output to remain marginally the same (increasing a little as Power from Pain affects it throughout the game), and my defense to increase a little more as time goes on (from PfP).

So, if I can paraphrase: You want your opponent to respect or even fear your initial strike, but if they weather that first blow, the hunter becomes the hunted, so to speak.

Jimsolo wrote:: I really like front-loading my damage. I like knowing by the end of turn 2 how the game is likely to go. I like knowing that I either have it in the bag, or that I need to hunt for an opportunity for a comeback, because I've screwed the pooch. If I win, I want it to either be a shut-out or a last-minute victory. I also derive a perverse pleasure from getting my ass kicked all across the board, and then winning from mission scenarios anyway. (Dark Eldar, in the fluff, excel at this, and it's something I think fits the army very well.)

Not that this is relevant to the discussion, but do you think that most gamers enjoy that sensation of the "prolonged loss?" It's been my (not scientific) observation that most players prefer to lose as few models as possible, even if it means playing stunted or less than offensively powerful army configurations. I'd argue that many of GW's scenarios favor this kind of tough-to-kill army as well. A player's invested both the money for the models, the time to paint them, and the time to show up and set up before the game is decided. Perhaps this is why they dislike watching their army die, even if they still win the game?

Jimsolo wrote:: Coven units, on the other hand, I want to be slower and more resilient (although not as slow, and not as heavily armored as Imperium units, f'rex). I like the Frankenstein, Hellraiser-y feel of this part of the army, and I want that maintained. I like feeling like their units and formations are unique fleshstitched monstrosities, and I like being able to take a boatload of punishment and keep coming with them.

Let me see if I understand: You'd like an army that's split between fast / powerful / flimsy and tough / monstrous/ slow, but with no crossover between the two? As in, no units that are fast and tough, or powerful and slow?

Jimsolo wrote:: I'd also like a greater emphasis on the recklessness of the Dark Eldar, which I think might be easy to do if the PfP rule was affected by your own units being destroyed.

Actually, I think that's an excellent idea. And thematically it makes sense - why shouldn't the Dark Eldar benefit from the pain of their own people?

Jimsolo wrote:: I like our ability to Deep Strike everywhere, and wish more characters had access to Webway Portals, or ways to mitigate Deep Strike (Move Through Cover, etc).

I agree, I think a Deep Strike army is a good way to differentiate the Dark Eldar. It plays to the "fearful" theme because there's no telling from where we're going to strike. Opponents even have to physically play in a fearful way, by putting their backs against a wall, or circling the wagons, so to speak.

Jimsolo wrote:: I wish that our HQs had more options to make them more unique. Either that, or bring back the unique characters that added so much flavor to the army.

Yes, I think we all miss Vect Wink

Hellion Posts : 79 Join date : 2014-05-28

I play coven units so I want my opponent to feel mortified that he didn't bring enough guns to outright destroy my force. My grotesques hit his lines of defense and watch as the turns continue they turn into engines of destruction. My pain engine providing area denial and heading them into avenues of death.

Hellion Posts : 73 Join date : 2015-07-01

I want my dark eldar to be like ghosts. Shots at them should be like shooting smoke. Like the villain in a horror movie they should be half seen, barely a whisper. ..then they are suddenly the in all their dark majesty...The enemy freezes in terror and is cut apart or dragged away in chains.

how can we manifest a taking prisoners rule? Perhaps of a transport tank shocks a fleeing unit they are captured in the chainsnares and we add a pfp...or gain a victory point.

As for the strike from shadow...maybe lots of deep strike...outflank...infiltrate...and of course shrouded. How about shrouded 4+ on turn 1...dropping by one each turn as the pfp increases.

and for mandrake. ..allow them to redeploy into actual shadows on the board

Wych Posts : 915 Join date : 2015-05-01

Part of the problem with the current feel of the faction is that they really bleached a lot of the fluff out of the rules. Just by adding in aspects of the fluff to make them more the terror they are supposed to be would help me. I play Kabal/Cult and I don't mind the glass cannon aspect, actually I was aware of that when I picked it up. But we are also supposed to be these terrors in the night.

Rules that reflected the fluff definitely would help me "feel" more like the Dark Eldar. I like the idea Jimsolo came up with where we get some kind of boon for pain inflicted on our units.

Just looking at the fluff for some of the units there could be rules put in to make them a bit different then other factions without changing the way they play to drastically. For instance our flyers, both have details in their fluff that are not reflected in the actual rules. Some examples:

In the description of the Razorwing Jetfighter, it says that the engine make a horrifying noise that instill fear in the defenders. So why doesn't the Razorwing have the fear special rule. It is super sonic so it has to move 18 in. placing an importance on positioning to get it be in place to make a difference when needed but Dark Eldar are about positioning.

The description of the Voidraven Bomber says that it is a stealth bomber, approaching their targets undetected. Why not give it a rule that makes it immune to intercept and skyfire on the turn it comes onto the board?

How about making some fear effect for the Dark Eldar not just effect Ld, how about making it so that a particular type of fear is instill that decreases WS, BS, or Number of attacks as the enemy feels anxiety fighting against these monstrous beings or the thought of what is going to happen to them if they are taken alive. The fear has clouded their thinking and reflexes not made them panic and likely to break.

Edit: We are also supposed to be fast yet we can't move our ravagers that much as they take a penalty for it. This definitely detracts from the concept of the Dark Eldar for me. To further protray our speed without giving us the Battlefocus CWE have just allow our wyches to charge on the turn they deepstrike, they are agile gladiators after all and in some cases ever pit themselves against the Harlequins in special competitions.

I know I didn't answer your questions but I wasn't really sure how to answer them properly and thus instead ended up on this rant. I also apologize for any butchery of the English language I might have done, I don't seem capable of typing properly today.

Hellion Posts : 34 Join date : 2014-09-30

CurstAlchemist wrote:: Rules that reflected the fluff definitely would help me "feel" more like the Dark Eldar.

This is entirely the motivation for this thread. Eventually, I'd like for us to write... Well, not to write rules that make the Dark Eldar more "competitive" or even anything as nebulous as "fun," but rather rules that play to the elements of Dark Eldar fluff that differentiate them from other armies, CWE included.

CurstAlchemist wrote:: In the description of the Razorwing Jetfighter, it says that the engine make a horrifying noise that instill fear in the defenders. So why doesn't the Razorwing have the fear special rule. It is super sonic so it has to move 18 in meaning an importance in positioning to get it be in place to make a difference when needed but Dark Eldar are about positioning.

Perhaps they decided that the Hemlock already had something like that, so they decided not to give it to the Razorwing in the interests of making it something different from the CWE equivalent. I'm not saying that was a good move, of course.

CurstAlchemist wrote:: The description of the Voidraven Bomber says that it is a stealth fighter, approaching undetected. Why not give it a rule that makes it immune to intercept and skyfire on the turn it comes onto the board?

Probably because you could fly it on the board one turn, then fly it off the next and you just got one round of shooting from an otherwise invulnerable model. It's too open to exploit. Um, unless you mean that even units with Skyfire have to fire at BS1? That seems a little less crazy.

CurstAlchemist wrote:: How about making some fear effect for the Dark Eldar not just effect Ld, how about making it so that a particular type of fear is instill that decreases WS, BS, or Number of attacks as the enemy feels anxiety fighting against these monstrous beings or the thought of what is going to happen to them if they are taken alive. The fear has clouded their thinking and reflexes not made them panic and likely to break.

That's certainly a strong recommendation. We could call it something like "Terror" instead of "Fear." ATSKNF unfortunately tends to nullify these kinds of things (if you're literal about the term) but I don't think anything would differentiate the Dark Eldar stronger than if they were the only army that could put Fear (or Fear-like effects) into the hearts of even the mighty Space Marines.

CurstAlchemist wrote:: I know I didn't answer your questions but I wasn't really sure how to answer them properly and thus instead ended up on this rant. I also apologize for any butchery of the English language I might have done, I don't seem capable of typing properly today.

That's okay, I knew we'd have a few rounds of people getting things off their chest Wink

Give it a think, and try to imagine the way the Dark Eldar should feel from the other end of the table - from your opponent's point of view.

When the Dark Kin materialize out of the mists, giving form to shadow and horror, what would you want your opponent's reactions to be? Hide his troops in the corner? Throw out an otherwise sound strategy, like alpha-strikes or long-ranged bombardment?

Put another way: If we want our enemies to favor Ignores Cover weapons, they should do so because our Cover Saves are borderline insane. It would simulate the real-world tactic of carpet bombs, explosives, flamers, and other wide-area "spray and pray" panic tactics. "Forget precision, just FIRE EVERYTHING!"

Here's another idea: Mandrakes have the equivalent of the Necron Veil of Darkness, but with a twist. Instead of allowing the Mandrakes to Deep-Strike and attack another unit that has just arrived, allow the Mandrakes to materialize and attack any unit that wanders near cover on the Dark Eldar player's half of the board. This way, none of our opponents could anticipate where the mysterious Mandrakes are hiding, and we could simulate the fluff of avoiding dark corners and narrow passageways a little closer.

Hellion Posts : 34 Join date : 2014-09-30

daveyo wrote:: how can we manifest a taking prisoners rule? Perhaps of a transport tank shocks a fleeing unit they are captured in the chainsnares and we add a pfp...or gain a victory point.

That's an interesting point to work on: how would a player avoid becoming "enslaved" by the Dark Eldar, whatever that mechanic ends up being? Would you want to purposefully keep clear of certain Dark Eldar units, namely the slave masters? Keeping out of range certainly does a fair job of simulating fear.

Maybe we should've started with a more broad topic? "Aside from Leadership tests, how do you simulate fear in a wargame?" Avoiding units, or rather having rules that encourage your opponent to voluntarily run away from your units is a good start. I've always enjoyed that moment when you challenge your opponent's character and he refuses to accept the challenge Smile

Nothing says "Nope" more than when he gets that look in his eyes, that "I don't want any of THAT" look.

Wych Posts : 915 Join date : 2015-05-01

Rotten Deadite wrote:: Probably because you could fly it on the board one turn, then fly it off the next and you just got one round of shooting from an otherwise invulnerable model. It's too open to exploit. Um, unless you mean that even units with Skyfire have to fire at BS1? That seems a little less crazy.

What I meant was that the skyfire rule is ignored, not that they can't opt to shoot at it. In my mind it is, the computer can't track it so we are attempting to shoot it down manually.

Quote :: Give it a think, and try to imagine the way the Dark Eldar should feel from the other end of the table - from your opponent's point of view.

When the Dark Kin materialize out of the mists, giving form to shadow and horror, what would you want your opponent's reactions to be? Hide his troops in the corner? Throw out an otherwise sound strategy, like alpha-strikes or long-ranged bombardment?

Well I would like that to think, wow that is scary, burn it with fire before it can hurt me and in the case of Coven, that thing is scary run away and bring in a Volkite Carronade to destroy it. (Sorry I've been looking at traveling down the evil path of thinking about collecting a Horus Heresy Era Legion recently...)

One thing I don't want is for us to become overpowered and my oponent to say, damn it he is playing Dark Eldar, I don't want to play that OP codex.

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sun Jul 12 2015, 06:24

Im more of a glass cannon kinda guy, not too into coven units. I wish we had morenof the cannon part of that description.

Night fighting! When I think of how my dark eldar thematically perform a raiding party, its always at night (unless I roll a 1,2, or 3) In my head though, its always nighttime, even if the rules don't reflect it. How about some type of detachment or something that garentees night fighting turn one, the you roll each turn. On a 4+, it remains nighttime. You could theoretically have an entire game/battle at night!

The other thing I see my dark eldar doing is assaulting. Getting in close and enjoying the sport of hunting. Almost like the movie predetor. We are safisticated beings that want to get up close and personal, not shoot from a safe distance. Wyches and incubi both need to be good enough that EVERYONE fields them.

Hekatrix Posts : 1392 Join date : 2015-06-21

Didn't the Night Lords have a special rule that allows them to have nightfighting through to turn 3 in 30,000? Could we get something like that?

How about weapons that inflict night on enemy targets?

Wych Posts : 918 Join date : 2014-09-08

Quote :: How do you want to feel when you're playing Dark Eldar?

I want to feel fast and precise. I want to feel like im able to pick the opponents army apart bit by bit while having to change positions fast. Everything stationary would feel wrong and should be punished.
I want to feel like I have to be always on the move, constantly attacking and retreating.
Coven shoudl be different. A walking wall of abominations which can endure high volume of fire.

Quote :: How do you want your opponent to feel when facing Dark Eldar?

Vulnerable. Like no position is really safe. He should also have the feeling that if he manages to catch me he can break me.

Quote :: How do you feel the Dark Eldar army accomplishes, or fails to accomplish, this emotional feedback? How and where does it fail to provide the feeling you're looking for?

It doesnt. It gives you the illusion of speed due to their models but in reality a "sleek and agile venom" is just as fast as a Leman russ battle tank. Furthermore speed provides no benefits. You are not harder to hit. The whole Raider, Surprise and Technology theme seems odd when there is no way to reliably have the initiative. Also why bother with a Nightsheild generator when an imperial guard camo net is way better?

Kabalite Warrior Posts : 125 Join date : 2015-06-02

Speaking from the perspective of a primarily Cult player:

I want to feel reckless.

To be Dark Eldar is to suffer. Their souls are constantly being stripped away by Slaanesh. To avoid eternal torment, they need to tear souls away from realspace and then come home to stabbing a prisoner while feeling a mix of sadism and worthlessness, that they can do nothing to escape their own doom at the hands of She-Who-Thirsts.

If they die, the haemonculi simply regenerate them. Death has no meaning to them, and existence is a constant struggle to avoid the most horrid of ends in the Warp. They're desperate to harvest souls to stave off their fate, and hold the hatred that comes from knowing they're more intelligent than the backwards humans and Orks, more freethinking than the forces of Chaos who simply serve their betters, and not so prudish and obsessed with lying to themselves about their nature as their craftworld kin are. It's no wonder they're driven by arrogance and hatred, and no wonder that those who grow tired of the endless centuries and millennia hand themselves over the haemonculi to do with as they will, just so that their minds can finally have a moment's peace. Others drown out knowledge of their fate by aspiring to positions of power and lording themselves over all else, like Vect.

I want to throw my forces at the enemy, knowing death means nothing to them. Knowing that they believe to the deepest part of their core there is nobody else in the galaxy who is both true to their own desires and has any shred of intelligence. They know that because they're ultimately doomed at the hands of the Dark Prince and can't change it, they're worthless - and despite that, everyone else in the galaxy is more worthless than they.

Ruleswise, I think you can represent that through models and units that become more effective as they get hurt. Succubus is down to one wound? Now she's an S6 I10 A6 monster. Maybe her dodge save even goes to 2++, who knows. Wych squad have lost 50% or more of their members? Hope your opponent enjoys them getting +2S, +1A, and +1 to their FNP. Raider blows up? The contents get some absurd +3 to their PFP table the next turn. I don't want to care whether I die, only whether I kill.

I want my opponent to feel terrified, knowing that any unit can become a monster. That he should focus all his fire and wipe the most threatening unit, trying to hide from and avoid engagement with the rest of the hypermobile army bearing down on him.

I'd also like a PFP mechanic that encourages reckless attack rather than sitting back and "charging up". Combat Drugs should be more interesting than just stat boosts - let's see some special rules. Fleshbane. Rolls to hit of a 6 inflict automatic AP2 wounds. AP4 on all attacks. Infantry get to move like Beasts instead. Maybe taking a Succubus lets you reroll your drugs too.

DE don't really accomplish that feel, other than through having open-topped skimmer transports. But there could be so much more.

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sun Jul 12 2015, 10:37

I'm really enjoying this! Great idea for a thread Rotten Deadite! Some excellent feedback here!

For me I want to feel like an evil master surgeon with a scalpel rather than a spess muhreen with a thunder hammer.

Offensively I want a wide array of potent high tech weaponry (some fear based) and elite soldiers that are at their most deadly when employed against the right victims at the right range and circumstances.

Defensively I want to use shocking speed to strike hard and then redeploy and stealth vs heavy thick armour plates.

I really wish you were GW.

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sun Jul 12 2015, 12:09

@Mharuspex that would be great. An army that feeds through suffering. That gets bonus if it inflicts pain in others or if the own squads get reduced under half their strength. That would make me feel like a hunter. Make me feel like the alpha predator. To seek pain wherever I can find it.

Hekatrix Posts : 1392 Join date : 2015-06-21

I want my Wych units to feel like deadly dancers, defeating the enemy by simply outclassing them to such a degree that fighting them in the first place was beyond foolish. And that heavy armour? why did you bother wearing it. All it does is slow you down and make you an easier target.

Hellion Posts : 73 Join date : 2015-07-01

More Web wayportals...and the return of the old portal that appears and your force deploys through it. I always imagine swarms of hellions cackling as they zoom out of the portal straight into a strafing run. I also love the stun claw concept.

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sun Jul 12 2015, 13:48

I actually prefer the new portal, although a hybrid of the two would be phenomenal!

Hellion Posts : 40 Join date : 2015-06-18

It was actually the feel of surprising your opponents with loads of tricks that pulled me in. You could say it was the overall Dukelike (That Duke, the one serpents should be called after) feel of how the dark eldar wage war (i'll paraphrase) the magnificent bastardy feel when you scatter your enemies' army, remove his prize models from the board, see his plans gone to waste, to see him reduced to frustration (And crying in the inside,a little), while you gather his characters on a bloody cliff surrounded by crackling hellions.
Lets take some examples from the old codex to show more precisely what I like about DE.
The ability of a certain currently crap unit to grab your enemy's prize IC up and fly him across the board, delivering him right into the hands of your capable archon with his power hair dryer turned up to max and his soul to the soul jerky box your archon holds. And then theres that screw-you one use template T test to shatter the grin (or arms) off that IC.
All of this, DE get while being practically independent of all chaos gods, yet hedonistic by requirement, none of that abstinence craftworld bullshit (they should really just ban psykers, or just turn them into bones for future seeing like a certain hellion).
The style, intrigue and science (we trained fabulous bile dammit). Just too goddammed good.
Besides who wouldnt want to live in a multidimensional city which rationally, bans pyskers (emprah would probably had held commoragh as the model city, unlike a certain Babylonian pysker planet.)

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sun Jul 12 2015, 18:18

Dark Eldars are evil. They are psychopaths, sadists and crual. I want to feel it while I play. I want to feel I'm just as crual as the army I play.

Put the whole winning mechanic on harvesting the enemy. The point of the raid is to take enemy alive. Dark-lancing them to death serve no purpose other that removing a dangerous unit, but grant no victory.

Dark eldars don't care of the live of their siblings. Dark eldar should be able to shoot in a unit fighting Close quarter, with a chance to inflict damage to our own troops.

When challenging an IC, if you win, you take him alive for punishment.

Explosive grotesques or wrack.

The ability to charge when you WWP, with initiative 1.

It should be a nightmare to fight. Not because the models are strongs, but because they can be everywhere. The ennemy should feel trapped. That I'm in their back, ready to kill them, or, worse, take them.

Hellion Posts : 34 Join date : 2014-09-30

Good stuff in this thread. Here's a few highlights I think are particularly useful:

Quote :: Speaking from the perspective of a primarily Cult player: I want to feel reckless.
To be Dark Eldar is to suffer. Their souls are constantly being stripped away by Slaanesh. To avoid eternal torment, they need to tear souls away from realspace and then come home to stabbing a prisoner while feeling a mix of sadism and worthlessness, that they can do nothing to escape their own doom at the hands of She-Who-Thirsts.
From <MHaruspex>

Quote :: (How do you want to feel when you're playing Dark Eldar?)
I want to feel fast and precise. I want to feel like im able to pick the opponents army apart bit by bit while having to change positions fast. Everything stationary would feel wrong and should be punished.
I want to feel like I have to be always on the move, constantly attacking and retreating.
Coven shoudl be different. A walking wall of abominations which can endure high volume of fire.
(How do you want your opponent to feel when facing Dark Eldar?)
Vulnerable. Like no position is really safe. He should also have the feeling that if he manages to catch me he can break me.
From <Klaivex Charondyr>

Quote :: I always imagine swarms of hellions cackling as they zoom out of the portal straight into a strafing run.
From <daveyo>

Quote :: It was actually the feel of surprising your opponents with loads of tricks that pulled me in. You could say it was the overall Dukelike (That Duke, the one serpents should be called after) feel of how the dark eldar wage war (i'll paraphrase) the magnificent bastardy feel when you scatter your enemies' army, remove his prize models from the board, see his plans gone to waste, to see him reduced to frustration (And crying in the inside,a little), while you gather his characters on a bloody cliff surrounded by crackling hellions.
From <iknowinewb>

Quote :: It should be a nightmare to fight. Not because the models are strongs, but because they can be everywhere. The ennemy should feel trapped. That I'm in their back, ready to kill them, or, worse, take them.
From <dumpeal>

To summarize, I think most Dark Eldar players don't want to feel invulnerable. And I think most of us aren't afraid to feel fragile. We do, however, want our opponents to be wary of getting into range of our weaponry. And some of us are looking for ways to trick our enemies, or even trap them. We want to play smart, not safe. We want fast, not durable. But we want our enemies to feel just as vulnerable as we are.

But we almost all seem to use words that carry a strong tone of fear. Words like "surprise," "nightmare, "trapped," "harvesting..."

I'd suggest we spend some time brainstorming scenarios that can take place in a wargame that might terrify our enemies. iknowinewb mentioned tearing ICs out of blobs. MHaruspex brought up the idea of unit losses contributing to that unit's PfP. And more than a few of you have mentioned capturing enemy characters.

Let's see... units that appear out of nowhere, either by deep strike or hidden, somehow? Certainly a large part of the "fear" factor is caused by units that deal out a huge amount of damage, or damage of a specific but incredibly potent variety.

What if we had some kind of ability to slap a mind-control device on ICs? Nothing terrifies a player more than having to watch his 400-point beatstick turned against him.

Subject: Re: The "Feel" of Dark Eldar Sun Jul 12 2015, 19:55

I'd be interested in a unique mechanic to showcase Dark Eldar as the scariest, most depraved thing out there: something which ignores or reduces Fearless, Stubborn, or ATSKNF, or imposes reduced penalties on them instead of letting them ignore our effects.

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