Depraved and piratical, the Dark Eldar or Drukhari in their own language are a plague on the Imperium.

This document serves to analyse what is known about their 10th edition preview rules and what to expect and to prepare to counter and repel these vile xenos!

This it Warhammer 40,000 and I am Zak Ludick... let's see what these xenos can do!

Eye Candy

Usually, you will find that the Drukhari forces to be numerous and fast and that they can inflict a lot of damage suddenly. They also die suddenly...

... but they like the pain...

Army Rule - Power from Pain

With the Power from Pain Army rule, you can make your units better for a brief period of time by using Pain tokens. Depending on the army size, the Dark Eldar start with a number of Pain Tokens. They also gain pain tokens from destroying enemy units and when an enemy unit fails a Battle-Shock test.

There Pain Tokens can accumulate but the Drukhari can chew through them really fast since they use a Pain Token to do the following:

Each PHASE they can expend a Pain token on a unit (as many as they want throughout the army) to gain buffs till the end of the phase. Let me put it in turn order:

Movement Phase: Re-Roll Advance Rolls
Shooting Phase: Re-Roll to Hit
Charge Phase: Re-Roll Charge Rolls
Fight Phase: Re-Roll to Hit

These are amazing buff. In a 2000pts game (Strike Force) you start with only 3 Pain Tokens... in a big army, this is not much. Destroying units will sometimes be easy and sometimes hard. I will assume they will have a way of making enemies fail Battle-Shock tests like the Tyranids do to force more Pain Tokens from the enemy.

The army will, however, likely have certain units that allow you to start or gain additional Pain Tokens

Detachment Rule - Realspace Raiders

The Detachment Rule for Realspace Raiders is exactly that, rewarding you for Diversity, you start with an additional pain token for having one of each of the three factions within the Drukhari race.

Up to Three pain tokens can be gained this way.

Unit Spotlight - Venom

A Venom is what i call a Card-board box with knives attached to it! But such is the Dark Eldar way.

This vehicle is a transport of up to 6 models who can shoot freely from the vehicle (Firing Deck 6) and can re-embark at the end of the Fight Phase if the whole unit is within 6" of the Venom. Strike and redeploy! Rather flexible and can be somewhat lethal... if only it was not made from sheet metal...

T6 and W6 with a 4+ save does not inspire confidence in me and I am glad I do not play this faction!

The only good thing that this vehicle has that MIGHT save its bacon is the Stealth rule, meaning that there is a -1 to Hit penalty when shooting at it... Of course there are also units who ignore that.

Unit Spotlight - Kabalite Warriors

Kabalite Warriors are a Battleline unit for the Dark Eldar that have a medium toughness and very decent shooting weaponry. They have good Objective Control and give you the ability to get "Sticky Objectives".

Nothing much to say here till we see points costs.

Weapon Spotlight - Twin Drukhari Haywire Blaster

This looks like it will be the tail weapon on a Drukhari Talos.

2 shots, hitting on 4+. Anti-Vehicle 4+ and Devastating wounds means that on a 4+ it will cause mortal wounds against vehicles (6+ on everything else). Without a good BS value I can only assume that when the time comes, a Pain Token will be used to give this weapon re-rolls to Hit. In which case it has a fair chance at dealing 6 mortal wounds to a vehicle.

Weapon Spotlight - Lelith's Blades

8 Attacks with Sustained Hits 2 meaning on a 6 she scores 3 hits and wounding Infantry on 2+ she will be able to put a flurry of blows and wounds into any target!

Lelith Hesperax is the top Wych Cult leader/gladiator and has always been super scary!

Stratagem Spotlight - Alliance of Agony

Not a bad Strat. You do need to have all 3 units alive and on the board so I guess I can disable it by making sure one out of the three dies and the Dark Eldar can't keep all of them out of harm's way.

When done, it also costs a CP and then all three units are Empowered (through Pain) for that phase... I am not too scared there. Perhaps they will use it on the turn all three units have charged and are about to Fight. That would be killer...

So my course of action is easy! Kill one of the three! (I vote Wyches) lol

Thank you for reading!

Cheers!
@zakludick

Hive South Africa

Source of Pictures