From a Fluff perspective and a Gameplay perspective should Dark Eldar have Titans?

[Gridlock]

Since the Tau are getting their own Titan or at least something akain to it.
I was wondering if you look at it from a fluff perspective and from a gameplay/tabletop perspective should the Dark Eldar have access to their own version of the Titan?

In my opinion i would have to say No both from a fluff perspective and a gameplay/tabletop perspective.

This has to do with the way The Dark Eldar are portrayed as a raiding force in and out, before the enemy even knows you are there.
While the titan is powerful i just don´t see it zipping around the battlefield alongside raiders, venoms and all the other vehicles the Dark Eldar usually deploy in a raid.

From a gameplay perspective i don´t see the use either a titan is a fire magnet, you put that thing on the battlefield and you will see every unit of the opponent directing their fire against it.
Now normally the Titan can take a few hits, before it becomes a problem.
However here´s where another problem enters, if there is one thing all Dark Eldar have in common it´s that their armor is about as effective as wet cardboard and i really doubt their Titan would be any different.
Now if the chase would you really want to pay the cost of a titan if it´s something that will die in the first turn after a few shoots?
I am thinking most serious tabletop players would say HELL NO!

Instead what i think, both from a fluff perceptive and a gameplay perspective would be more up the Dark Eldar´s ally, would be a formation or specialized ammunition of sorts.
Something small enough to be carried on a Ravager and individually wouldn´t seem like much of a threat, but once combined it would be devastating.
Kinda like the thousand cuts metaphor, individually they are nothing to worry about but a thousand of them can make the target bleed to death.

But that is just my opinion what is yours do you think that the Dark Eldar should have a Titan of their own?

[AnEnemy]

The Haemonculae would surely be able to whip something up thats Titan sized. Eldar Titans are already fast so your whole speed argument doesn't really add up.

Moot point since DE don't sell well enough for GW to make them a large kit. Pretty sure the Voidraven bombed.

[LCS]

The Haemonculae would surely be able to whip something up thats Titan sized. Eldar Titans are already fast so your whole speed argument doesn't really add up.

Moot point since DE don't sell well enough for GW to make them a large kit. Pretty sure the Voidraven bombed.

The Voidraven bombed because they took a unit that was decent, and then made it worse with a Codex update. The model, just like the Razorwing, is sweet. The rules suck. The latest DE Codex is a textbook example of GW's marketing strategy: take what's good and sells, make it worse/the same. Take what was bad and didn't sell, make it better. Only with the DE book, they took what was good and make them bad, what was mediocre got left mediocre, and then took what was bad and made them mediocre. Almost everyone I talk to likes the DE models, they just agree the rules are bad.

[Andrew Thomas]

I say yes, but not a giant robot. A GMC, like a 40K version of the Hell Pit Abomination, that has a lot of innate survivability, and lots of bad stuff in store for whatever poor fools get killed by it. Doesn't need to be a Swiss-Army Knife, but rather a scalpel that can cut out the things that give the Dark Eldar trouble: Vehicles, and High-Strength shooting.

[Arkhan Land]

I think some sort of long snakelike being would be cool like the size of the heirophants body but slithering maybe two variants one more bio-one more machine

[LCS]

I think some sort of long snakelike being would be cool like the size of the heirophants body but slithering maybe two variants one more bio-one more machine

Yeah that would be cool, some kind of GMC other than a humanoid walker. Maybe some of kind of hunched over creature that walks on multiple legs? Something more organic than a dude in a really big suit.

[0rph3u5]

Maybe not a Titan but something akin to the Manta would be most probable, and the way I would like a Dark Eldar Superheavy to go...

But of course there are lots of ways to go:

- a Titan for DE faction does not have to be an Eldar invention by itself, Commoragh acts like beacon for all the "living floatsam" of the Webway by all accounts, so it might be possible that other alien races come there and hire out their skills and tech, like the Sslyth do

- while the DE repressed their psykic gift there are feats of empathic "magic" in their fluff, most notable the ability to regenerate/revuninate through the death and suffering of others - while said suffering maybe precious ressource I don't see how some crafty DE might not use it for building with some sort of wraithbone derivate (btw were did soul seeker ammunition and xenofex grenades go???)

- the Incubi are still worshiping Khaine in a fashion, who is to say they don't have some kind of Avatar stashed away, they can awake; and considering how different Incubi are from Aspct Warriors the rules that apply tp the Craftworld Avatars may not apply to an Incubi version (the Incubi are less detached from the bloodsjed then CWE using their war-masks, so the echo of primal murderous nature of Khaine as well as the feedback to it might be greater) [note: Khaine is the entety for Divine Interventions for both Eldar and Dark Eldar in Apo]
(btw who is to say that Adharra Reborn isn't a giant rage monster? the duels with Khadras are never fleshed out and Path of Incubi, while explaining Adharra's fate, isn't explicit about his form - a giant form might acutally work with the thematic level of the difference between Adharra (the killer) and Khadras (the patient hunter) and express it in physical terms - add to that that Adharra's ledgend is the one of the "fall phoenix in the light of Chaos", there might actually be the element of Adharra being (semi-)daemonic)

- Speaking of godlike beings spawned from the Dark Eldar psyche: the Dark Eldar psyche is grounded through their desire to cheat Slaamesh and the eventual eternal torture of their souls, while that is very close to ultimate greed (a domain of Slaanesh) - getting just one more day of life for yourself is worth destroying others - isn't there another emotional state nearby ... not Desperation and the Fear of Death as both are domains of Nurgle ... that could apply to Dark Eldar psyche? An existential dread, spawned the existence of Slaanesh, that there is no void, no utter nothingness, no not-being for Dark Eldar anymore. That state could attract some powerful empathetic parasite, like the Medusae but bigger, to the orbit of the Dark Eldar, which like the Medusae could be made to serve
(note: I really like this idea, it features heavily in my own Kabal's* fluff, mostly because its the reversal of the human existencial dread that there is utter nothingness - which in 40k terms would relate back to Nurgle)
* The Kabal of Eternal Silence, former old-Eldar prison wardens who became cut-off during the fall... you can probably see where this going through the ages ;)

- and speaking of cosmic horrors, did we ever get to know what Kheradruakh the Decapitator was up to in 5th Ed. Dex?

[Charon]

It is a moot point to discuss really.
While in the background DE did not lose hard in the cataclysm and are still sitting on a pile of pre-fall tech, they do not even manage to twin link their weapons.
In a society of murderers and keenly trained murderer soliders a craftworld potter with a shotgun is equally trained and moves even faster.
The Voidraven in DE society is only a dreaded weapon because in the entire millenia of kabal warfare nobody bothered to "invent" an anti-air gun.

So no. No titan for us as we are the Eldar whacky sidekick cab drivers.

[Fueldrop]

Dark Eldar are not soldiers, they're raiders. Titans are weapons of war. You cannot enslave someone who's been stood on by a titan.

Additionally, large scale destruction is bad for raiders as it removes stuff that could be stolen. Precision damage is the go. Haywire is awesome, as it leaves the target and crew intact to be picked up later. Strength D? There's nothing left to loot.

[Charon]

Void Mine? Scatterfield Missiles? Doesn't let you loot a whole lot of stuff either.
Also if your target is heavily defended you need something to break these defence. You are not like "oh... ok.. I guess we just go home now and forget about that".
The current solution is: "Wait a second I call our pansy cousins to crack that door open"

[Fueldrop]

Void Mine? Scatterfield Missiles? Doesn't let you loot a whole lot of stuff either.
Also if your target is heavily defended you need something to break these defence. You are not like "oh... ok.. I guess we just go home now and forget about that".
The current solution is: "Wait a second I call our pansy cousins to crack that door open"

Void mine = Lance. Blast.
That is wrong in every way imaginable. I mean... HOW?!?
Missiles... yeah, you have a point there.

If the target is behind heavy fortifications, go for an easier target or failing that webway in. Going after a fortification is a very poor risk/reward ratio most of the time.

The problem isn't that the DE need titans. It's that the DE need firepower period.

[Charon]

Going after a fortification is a very poor risk/reward ratio most of the time.

I have yet to see a "Dark Eldar vs unarmed imperial Civillians" battle report.

[Fueldrop]

I have yet to see a "Dark Eldar vs unarmed imperial Civillians" battle report.

The Imperium hides them. Propaganda, you know.

[Jewelfox]

I'm personally imagining a giant floating Dark Eldar pirate ship. Like Jabba's sail barge or something. A dropship with onboard repair facilities, torture dungeons, and platforms to launch fighters from or have raiders rappel off of.

I don't play Dark Eldar, though. <_>

[Path Walker]

Any time the Dark Eldar are caught in a real fight, its the exception rather than the rule.

[Gridlock]

I'm personally imagining a giant floating Dark Eldar pirate ship. Like Jabba's sail barge or something. A dropship with onboard repair facilities, torture dungeons, and platforms to launch fighters from or have raiders rappel off of.

I don't play Dark Eldar, though. <_>

You did see how easy it was blown up right? All Luke had to do was aim a single shoot at it and it basically blew up.
That´s pretty much Dark Eldar in a nutshell they don´t have the armor to shrug off heavy weapons fire.
This is one of the reason why Dark Eldar stay as close to cover as possible, because once the Dark Eldar gets out in the open, they will be turned into shish kebab by the enemy weapons.
Now imagine a huge thing like a jabba´s ship showing t´s face on the battle field, it´s guns glinting meaninglessly, the sound of scream and cruel laughter promising unfathomable torment to anyone caught by it...
And now imagine every cannon turning the opponent has turning against it, because it´s too huge to get into cover and it has almost no armor to speak of, turning it into scrap metal before it even get´s to fire a single shot.
Yeah....guess we will never see those points again.

[Fueldrop]

Very good point. Titans and Superheavies need Armour, not Cardboard.

[Charon]

And now imagine every cannon turning the opponent has turning against it, because it´s too huge to get into cover and it has almost no armor to speak of, turning it into scrap metal before it even get´s to fire a single shot.

Where is the difference to all the "ignore cover" weapons out there?
I mean seriously... Eldar are tougher (better armor, AV12), have better weapons (basically rending on all standard weapons and a lot of D weapons), are faster (Battlefocus) and have PSI powers on top of it.
And while exactly the same is true for Eldar too (mobility over heavy armor) there is no problem if they field gigantic soul driven Robots.

[hutting7]

I've voted Yes because I think we need something to compete with the other races out there, however I agree that rather than an actual "titan" it should be either a super experimental ship formation with insane weapons that can do as much damage as a titan OR a huge grotesque that a haemonculus has created. Because a haemonculus probably wouldn't make such an unwieldy creature and bring him along on raiding missions (unless it was a carnival of pain demonstration or such), maybe fluff-wise it could be like what happens at the end of Akira, a virus that is applied to a patient at the beginning of the battle that causes it to swell and mutate into a huge titan sized horror (like the Glottkin or such). It would survive by lots of wounds and like FNP/IWND haha.

[Ravingbantha]

Dark Eldar are not soldiers, they're raiders. Titans are weapons of war. You cannot enslave someone who's been stood on by a titan.

Additionally, large scale destruction is bad for raiders as it removes stuff that could be stolen. Precision damage is the go. Haywire is awesome, as it leaves the target and crew intact to be picked up later. Strength D? There's nothing left to loot.


True, but a large scale 'body grabber' could be deployed in mass body engagements would be really usefull. Something that was fast and agile, like a Revenant but focused mostly on snatching troops up. Game wise, it would have weapons that were anti-infantry focused. The weapons are not tchnically 'killing' the infantry, but rather 'snatching them up'.

[Arkhan Land]

I like that a lot, kind of like what LCS said combined with the snake thing, so long as it has a sort of bellysack/cage, essentially something the opposite of a tervigon that sort of just grabbs people and stuffs them into some sort of incapacitating storage tank, something with really high initiative, MC with high toughness, and maybe some sort of shrouding/cloaking device+lictor style rules. and then to make it a real weird one, the ability to recover "trapped" models once the thing is destroyed.
Maybe some sort of intiative test to avoid being captured so itd be proper that characters/high initiative units could avoid being grabbed but the thing would tear through yr average Militarum/Tau/Ork troops choice easily

im envisioning sort of a gangly brass scorpion with a fat butt

[madtroll]

Most of the people commenting on this thread don't know much about the Dark Eldar.

There is 40k fiction, I think it's one of the Soul Drinkers books, where the Dark Eldar occupy a city and are involved in all out siege warfare with the imperial guard. Tanks, bunkers, machine gun pits, the whole mess.

Why would raiders and slavers do that? They needed that city that's why.

Yes they are raiders, yes they are slavers, they also get involved in actual war or else there would be no reason for them to even exist in this game. Why would raiders and slavers bother fighting Space Marines when they could just leave and go find easy pickings.

Think outside the box people.

[madtroll]

The Imperium hides them. Propaganda, you know.

The point is that DE do get involved in actual war or else there is no reason for them to be in the game. Raiders and slavers would just leave and go find something easy. Cuz, as you said, risk vs reward.

[madtroll]

[delete me]

[dekinre]

i've always seen a dark eldar titan would be more like the cryx kraken but a more organic tone

[Djbz]

True, but a large scale 'body grabber' could be deployed in mass body engagements would be really useful. Something that was fast and agile, like a Revenant but focused mostly on snatching troops up. Game wise, it would have weapons that were anti-infantry focused. The weapons are not technically 'killing' the infantry, but rather 'snatching them up'.

That sounds kinda cool.
Some sort of modified webway portal to dump the victims into cells in Commorragh to be "processed" later.
Maybe with some sort of weapon filter to disarm them (can't let prisoners have guns can we?)

[Mr Mystery]

I'd say no.

Whilst I have no doubt they have the resources and knowledge to field them if they wished, it just doesn't strike me as being the Dark Eldar style.

For a start, real space raids are as much about the visceral thrill of it as they are obtaining new acquisitions. Having a honking great beauty or construct laying into the enemy takes some of the fun away. Why do that, when you can have the glory and renown of taking out the enemy super heavy support with a beautifully placed shot right in its weak point. Imagine the terror of its allies as their mightiest weapons of war are laid low with.....such style. Such panache. Such ease. See the masterful ballet of the Ravagers as they encircle the foe. Gaze in wonder at the bafflement of the enemy as their shielding is bypassed. Revel in the wanton destruction.....and don't forget to deliver the coup dé grace yourself, Mr or Miss Archon!

But hey, just my take on things :)