Bring back the SLAVES!

The best part about a real space raid is the delicious delicious presents we get to take home!

 I have been injecting myself with fluff faster than a reaver on hypex and when I came across the taking slaves rules in the first codex, a dark thought crossed my mind.  I know that many deldar players use fluff and other mind games at the table and partially for fun, so I divised a fun rule about taking slaves.

" Any time an enemy model flees close combat because of a failed morale check, on a 4+ they are taken as a slave. "

 Similar to the original rules which do the same thing rolling per model on morale or sweeping advance situations.  Only the fight phase because we have our hooks and blades in them.

 Slaves aren't really for points or anything, but I like the idea of borrowing models from your close friends and returning them with a friendly 'paint upgrade' or something like that if they were down for it.

 Otherwise, I am currently just keeping a tally marker for how many of my friends units are enslaved and currently being tortured in the dark city.

 What do you think about bringing back slave rules?  For fun or perhaps adding some extra flavor or an overarching rule for the Dark Eldar?  Perhaps the final phase of Power from pain in the 6th or 7th turn and it has a benefit??

 Interested to hear old stories of slaving back in the days as well if you have any good memories.  As a rookie archon myself, I feel like I missed the raider on this one.  Thanks!

I woukld love to see them come back. And in the current rules, it would make a lot of sense for them to represent getting Command points back. Some armies have ways to gain CP back, and a slaving mechanic would do that very nicely for us.

Great idea. It would be nice to have that along with some of our more fear-based abilities too. Late game rerolls and stratagems when previously thought they were gone? Dark Eldar are late game beasts as the pain flows freely and taking a slave or two would be great.

Every slave taken has the potential to yield vital information as they are tortured on the battlefield, after each round in which you claim one or more slaves, roll on the table below:

1-3 Slaves: Roll a 6+ to gain 1 CP
4-6 Slaves: Roll a 5+ to gain 1 CP
7+ Slaves: Roll a 4+ to gain 1 CP or 6 to gain 2 CP

How does that look?

Looks Good Red Magician.

Alternative option:
Each slave generates a token that can be spent when you spend a command point. On a 4+ the command point is not expended. on a 6+ neither the slave nor the command point is expended.

Cool idea, but I don't think you could convince people to hand over their models. Maybe tokens?

Just place the slaves in a separate place to keep track of who is being taken

Squidmaster wrote:

I woukld love to see them come back. And in the current rules, it would make a lot of sense for them to represent getting Command points back. Some armies have ways to gain CP back, and a slaving mechanic would do that very nicely for us.

I would also love a similar mechanic, but I think that it would be tough to create a mechanic that would be even only roughly good against all armies. Allow me to elaborate:
1) Leadership shenanigans: Custodes, Grey Knights, Vehicles, and other low-model count armies are almost or in some cases actually immune
2) Killing things: Impossible to strike a balance between the above armies being unlikely to generate anything significant, but not completely unbeatable against horde armies. Even if it was based off of inflicting wounds rather than killing models, vehicles would still be immune (I shudder to think at the fluff-crime it would be for a Leman Russ to be taken prisoner. Not the occupants, but the tank itself)(But they're torturing the machine spirit! [weak laughter]), and models with strong saves would still make the game mechanic tilted in favor of fighting hordes.

The only options I see left are making it totally random, or based on the turn count as well.

These are also the same kinds of problems that hamstrings the Power from Pain rule, which is why in my Fandex I've brought back the old pain token system, only this time its based off of attacking units rather than actually killing them out-right, which rewards alpha-striking and aggression, something I think most Drukhari players can get behind.

"Everytime you destroy a unit either by moral casualties, or by killing it in CC, you gain a slave token. "

Those tokens can be expended to activate the following abilities :

- "The soothing agony" : target DE unit gains a +1 bonus to its inured to pain rolls until the end of turn.

- "The blood craze" : target Cult unit gains +1 A until the end of turn.

- "Shields of living flesh" : when target Kabal unit suffers a casualty, lose a slave token instead.

- "Fueling the unholy creations" : for each token spent, target Coven unit gains a +3 bonus to its charge distance until the end of turn.

Losses from morale are increased by D3, as the Drukhari seize slaves amongst the panicked foe.

Hordes like IG are more likely to fail, but less likely to care much about D3 models. If on the rare occasion you make something like custodes fail, it would hurt them.

Perhaps a vehicle upgrade for Raiders?
Slave Cages (10 Points): Roll a die whenever an enemy model is killed or flees from morale within 6" of a RAIDER with this upgrade. On a 6+, the model is captured instead, granting you a command point.

TheBaconPope wrote:

Perhaps a vehicle upgrade for Raiders?
Slave Cages (10 Points): Roll a die whenever an enemy model is killed or flees from morale within 6" of a RAIDER with this upgrade. On a 6+, the model is captured instead, granting you a command point.

"Bell of the lost souls: When a raider got slaves, every ennemy model 12'' away get a -1 malus to leadership. When the raider is destroyed, the unit who destroyed the raider must make a morale test at -1"

I like the idea of it being on a ship. I kind of imagined that they pull them into the webway or maybe hook them onto those hooked chains most units have attached to them.

-1 to speed for a unit that has slaves or something like that.

Lots of great ideas flowing.

WAAAYYY back in 3rd edition, when splinter weapons were described as being poisoned, but were S3 instead, I would tell my opponents that their troops were not really dead, just poisoned and waiting helplessly for my Dark Eldar to collect them and take them back to Commorragh. One of my opponents insisted that his troops were shooting themselves instead of waiting to be captured by my troops. I thought that was pretty fluffy, showing the terror that led to the "Don't let them take you alive!" advice.

As far as slave cages, I took some HO scale iron fence railings, and added them to the sides of a couple of my old school Raiders. Even though my conversion skills are not that great, everyone still got the basic idea. Unfortunately, my opponents seemed to take especial delight in killing those Raiders as fast as they could.

Lord Klar Kashton wrote:

As far as slave cages, I took some HO scale iron fence railings, and added them to the sides of a couple of my old school Raiders.  Even though my conversion skills are not that great, everyone still got the basic idea.  Unfortunately, my opponents seemed to take especial delight in killing those Raiders as fast as they could.

"Have you ever heard the tragedy of Lord Kashton the cool?"
"No."
"I thought not, it's not a story the marine players would tell you."