When and why did our faction symbol change?

This is such a minor thing, but it's bugging the hell out of me, especially given the appearance of the Merch store. Basically, for most of the last few decades, the Dark Eldar symbol has been this:



Yet over the last few years, we've started to get advertised with the Black Heart symbol instead:



The changeover seemed to happen around the time of 8th, when we got labelled "Drukhari".

So I guess my core question is... why did this change happen? Was it to draw a larger distinction between the faction's time as "Dark Eldar" and its new-ish incarnation as "Drukhari"? Was it to symbolise Vect's greater control over Commorragh? Somebody at GW just forgetting what the original symbol was?

Answers on a postcard, please.

Also curious about this, is Vect that dominant to push that onto other Kabals? i doubt so, especially with how independent other Archons are.

Would you look at that....

Totally didnt notice the change.

You need to spend more time in the Arena and less time inspecting what the fool Mon'keigh are doing. Let the fool Chattle Races do as they please

Uramael wrote:

Also curious about this, is Vect that dominant to push that onto other Kabals? i doubt so, especially with how independent other Archons are.

Yes he is.

That's a shame because I prefer the old symbol.

But then, I also don't play Black Heart.

I'm assuming they lost the rights to it as it completely disappeared out of the blue one day.

Lol, wouldn't that be perfect XD

I'm guessing it was solely to differentiate it a bit more.
The old one, whilst great, was also very simple and still basically an eldar rune. To the uninitiated, those just browsing the symbols to see what is what, it might be easy to confuse it for a generic eldar thing, or even Harlequin. A bit like how Chaos Marines and Chaos Daemons are sometimes hard to tell apart from symbols alone, because theey same damn one in a different colour.
Thats my best guess anyway.

I think it probably has something to do with the army aesthetic revamp in 7th.
The old symbol is perfect for the old aesthetic, but seems a bit strange with the new models around.
The Black Heart symbol is a lot more curvy, just like the new army aesthetic.

But why they decided to use the Black Heart symbol, instead of inventing a new one for a general use... That seems strange to me too. Sure, Vect is the supreme overlord of Commorragh, but this could cause some ambiguity in iconography...

Lol, also remember that <Tau Sept> <Tau Empire> exists. Not everything makes the most sense in our Sci-Fi Space Magic game