8th Edition 40K Dark Eldar

Poor Dark Eldar. More unrepentantly evil than Chaos, with absolutely no redeeming morality. Even Khorne, the god of murder and blood can claim the honour of a warrior. The DEldar have no such grey area.


They were the nightmare of planets, striking without warning and faster than shadow. Pillaging and despoiling whatever scant life they could find, saving morsels of sadistic pleasure for the long trip home before banqueting in great orgies of suffering in the Commoragh arenas.


Truly a terror and trauma for anyone.


In the fluff.


On table top people claimed great respect for winning anything with these fun-loving sadists. Despite hitting like a lightning bolt they would generally fall down in a stiff breeze, even their "tanks" getting glanced to death by bolter fire.


That looks set to change, with some of the 8th Edition changes. I was going to base this post off the reveals on the Warhammer Community page, but it looks like we have a better leak from Can Hammer via Faeit212:


Blood Brides are Wyches on whatever nasty Dark Eldar version there is of steroids. Literally. The Wyches are on steroids already too. This analogy is stalling to fall apart...

Anyway, what we can see is that the Wyches are still rather weak, with Strength 3 attacks coming on a Toughness 3 body. I wouldn't expect to throw these things at Overwatch, but they make for n interesting tar pit unit. Units cannot as easily escape from these guys as they can every other uni in the game, thanks to their No Escape rule.

Frankly, these elite version of Wyches aren't all that compelling. I don't think many of these will be coming off the shelf soon.


 These Scourges on the other hand... wow!

Stupid fast, and with some of the scariest looking guns yet! Not only that, but they can Deep strike just as easily as Crisis Battlesuits. Whilst the Heat Lance doesn't have the strength of the Fusion blaster, it matches the range, meaning solid melts damage on the drop in.

We also see Haywire here, with some Keyword shenanigans as promised. Vehicles will now take extra damage in addition to whatever else you roll.


Power from Pain has ha a revamp, getting that Feel No Pain bonus right off the bat, as opposed to having to wait for a turn. It doesn't get any better than 6+, but I can garauntee Homunculi will bet there to buff that out a bit!

So, are Dark Eldar better now?

Um... kind of?

Their poison seems to work well against all monstrous creatures now, but a 4+ to wound is still only half a chance. Splinter Cannons becoming Rapid Fire means they're certainly more mobile, but that has just crippled the range on Venom gunships.

Whilst everything else seems good, it pales in comparison to what other armies are getting. Army-wide Feel No Pain sounds great until the Necrons pop up with their new Reanimation protocols, literally summoning dead things back to life throughout the entire game, unless you wipe out the whole unit.

The rest of the Power from Pain buffs also wilt in front of other bonuses. A recent Khorne leak showed Berserkers hitting twice in combat. That's not two attacks, I mean they get to fight twice in combat!

The reason for collecting Dark Eldar stays pretty much the same as it always has. The models are some of the best in the line up, and they're very satisfying to get a victory with. Just don't expect that victory to come easy.

But then again, you Dark Eldar players get Power from that Pain!

Until next time!


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Comments

  1. I'll have to pick up the xeno indexes but I started playing DE in 2001 and saw they did not fit the fluff and went raider spam. Stopped playing them because I felt kinda bad for even Blood Angels when I got to go first. With characters able to buy their own transports now and the force charts allowing even numbers of HQ's and troops I could see a whole new era of raider spam. The raiders are a bit tougher and more expensive but the troop cost went down and naked characters can get them so who need wargear when they have a darklance on thier taxi?

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    1. Thanks for commenting! Yeah, I entirely agree. Dark Lances even count as Assault if mounted on a vehicle, meaning that the Raiders can move and shoot without penalty.

      I think I'm okay with that though. I like the idea of Dark Eldar armies being some evil and twisted version of a pleasure cruise flotilla!

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