Just had to mention this.

My mob just finished "Rejoice for You are True" last night.

They killed Theodosia with a few well placed manstopper shots, followed by a puch to the groin that chain RF'd into 40-odd points of damage. After cleaning up the rest of the Serrated Query operatives (includinging disabling a rank 7 assassin I added in as part of a tie in to an earlier plot) and going through the lab, the cell was getting ready to leave. They were packing up the evidence when one of them added,

"oh yeah, I'm taking that Theodosia guy."

"Why?"

"We may need the spare parts."

DocIII said:

Ha! I see I'm not the only one with unrepentant 'thugs' for players! What can you do?

from france

easy answer you can 't it s a unique made custom build . it s like "haute couture" you can duplicate but not uses spare parts.

We live Caputred Theo.

And then got his head mounted back from the Inquisitor as a trophy.

The player running that one had to work a bit to figure out how to reward us for live capping a guy who was trying not to be.

the 8 spider said:

I just thought their reasoning was funny. Besides at the rank my players have hit (high 7, low 8) Theodosia's "custom" cybernetics as written aren't much of a bubble on the power curve.

You were running it with them at that strength?!

You do know you're gonna end up capping them out more then likely by the end of the book, right?

Hehehe, I've done this before for the same reason in Shadowrun. Only it was a player's body that I salvaged for parts.

Kylen said:

Campaign's been running since DH was released so characters are pretty advanced. Rank 8 has about 4,000 or 5,000 XP to get to the end of it, so I'm not so worried about them capping out before I get my hands on Acension. Besides, since these missions have been so easy for them I've been giving out less XP than Purge recommends.

Just started Shades on Twilight. The acolytes fought Dark Eldar once before in a previous mission (I used Shades DE stats) and my players thought the DE were chumps back then. I'm pretty sure they'll cut through them even easier now unless I give the Crimson Woe boys a serious power boost.

DocIII said:

I personally added +2 to the damage of all Splinter weapons, and then gave the Dark Eldar a few special weapons (a Splinter Cannon, a Blaster and a Shredder) during the final battle in Shades on Twilight. Oh, and they had Dodge trained as well. That was more than sufficient at the time, though I'd be inclined to make more tweaks these days (add Sprint, a few Heightened Senses talents, Concealment and Silent Move and things like that). Giving them poisons (if you've got the Dark Heresy Games Master's Kit, the poison rules in there give you plenty of options)

Numbers, preparation and tactics, aside from equipment, should do the trick, though. Give the Dark Eldar vehicles (lightly-armoured, high-speed grav vehicles) or a position where they can raid and ambush and hit-and-run from to their twisted hearts' content. They're piratical raiders, not a standing army, so they should fight as such. They also want to inflict pain and misery and suffering; death is too easy to inflict, and over too swiftly, so poisons and other tools that incapacitate or render incapable rather than killing are preferable. Having them attack from flickering webway gates and frequently retreat to regroup is a good way to keep things moving without getting the Dark Eldar bogged down in a firefight.

Other kinds of Dark Eldar are a good bet as well. Wyches are a good one - lightning-fast melee combatants armed with strange weaponry - as are Mandrakes. Mandrakes in particular are quite appropriate for Shades on Twilight, as their fleeting, shadow-like nature, and their tendency to attack and vanish are excellent for inducing paranoia. Taking a normal Dark Eldar statline, maybe upping WS a little, and adding Assassin's Strike, Crippling Strike, Step Aside, Dodge +20 and the Phase trait (their exact nature is largely unknown; making them able to become incorporeal is a matter of the effect - having them able to literally vanish from a fight is the desired end result here) creates something vicious and elusive that can harry even an experienced group.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Have you made up any rules for Splinter Cannon, Blaster and Shredder already?

After our current adventure I also plan to use Shades of Twilight (just when my players expect to have a short downtime). I also added +2 to the damage of the Splinter weapons so far, added the Dodge Skill for all Dark Eldar (they are quick aliens after all) and thought about giving the Tearing ability to all Splinter Weapons even when not firing on full-auto or to discount armour when they score a hit with a natural roll of 01-09.

The Haemonculus got a Scissorhand so far instead of his mono sword, but I only ruled it to be a best quality mono sword with the Toxic ability. I also thought of giving him a Stinger instead of a Splinter Pistol, but have no better rules for it then a Toxic Needle Pistol.

Wyches and Mandrakes are a little too cartoony for my liking though (and rather misplaced on a Space Hulk somehow).

I also added +2 to the damage of the Splinter weapons so far, added the Dodge Skill for all Dark Eldar (they are quick aliens after all) and thought about giving the Tearing ability to all Splinter Weapons even when not firing on full-auto or to discount armour when they score a hit with a natural roll of 01-09.

I'd consider using Storm weapon rules for them. They're supposed to fire massive amounts of ammo after all.

Luthor Harkon said:

Somewhere, yes. Can't find them at the moment. If I locate them, I'll post them.

Luthor Harkon said:

The Haemonculus in the actual scenario has a Destructor (depicted as a toxic flamer with 1d10 AP), which is a fairly vicious weapon in its own right. I'd avoid using a Stinger, mainly because their ammo makes people explode, and that is seldom easy to survive... instant-kill weapons tend to be difficult to include because they're so unpredictable (they either do nothing, or they annihilate characters utterly).

Luthor Harkon said:

It's a Dark Eldar raiding party. Conceivably, any tools the Dark Eldar have at their disposal are viable, so I don't see how they're misplaced. Mandrakes take work to present well, but there's a section in the second Word Bearers novel, Dark Disciple, that uses them really well - they're more akin to living shadows than flesh-and-blood enemies, lurking around their foes and striking quickly before receding again, difficult to pin down and difficult to fight. Keeping accurate description to a minimum, they could really help to enhance the horror aspects of Shades on Twilight.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

That would be great.

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Yes, I know, but the Destructor (I will try to use it to blind Brother Agramor...) is a one shot weapon if I remember correctly and I thought about giving him some kind of pistol as a back-up weapon. Maybe a Shredder is better than a Stinger, as the reasons you mentioned are indeed a problem...

N0-1_H3r3 said:

I only know the TT miniatures and do not like them. I just thought half naked goth elves looking like Xena are misplaced on 'my' dystopic Space Hulk. I want 'my' Dark Eldar to be brooding, vile, enigmatic and deadly aliens and not the aforementioned nerd's dream.

Your description of the Mandrakes seem intriguing though...

Luthor Harkon said:

It's not 1 shot, but it does have a clip of 1 and a reload of 3 full action, so it's as good as. I'd forgotten that, so I see your point.

Regarding Agamorr... he's only really involved towards the end of the scenario's final fight anyway, so he can be largely ignored in regards to that big fight except as a plot device to end the confrontation (under normal circumstances, when the tide is turned against the group and it looks like they might all die).

Luthor Harkon said:

One thing to remember is that the Dark Eldar model range is a generally poor one - that being the main reason why GW are apparently redoing the entire range from scratch. It's preferable, then, to distil character archetypes to their purest core concepts, rather than relying on the frankly hit-and-miss depictions of the miniatures range. So you get sadistic cultist-gladiators (Wyches) and warp-tainted living shadows (Mandrakes), whether or not the models are any good.

Other ideas, depending on how drastically you want to change things, would be replacing the Haemonculus with something deadlier - a Dracon (a lower-ranking leader) with a bodyguard of Incubi (conceptually, heavily-armoured traitor Aspect Warriors who fight for the highest bidder). Using the Dracon lets you pick and choose strange and nasty equipment and provides an extremely deadly melee combatant, as do the Incubi (they're comparable to Aspect Warriors, so WS 50-60 is easily justified, with large, deadly power weapons and solid armour).

I'm not able to find my original notes for the other Dark Eldar weapons I translated across from 40k, but going from memory, the Shredder was 60m range, S/-/-, 2d10+6 R, Pen 0, Tearing, Blast (deadly anti-personnel weapon, not so great vs armour), while the Blaster was 40m range, S/-/-, 3d10+4 E, Pen 8 (nasty short-ranged anti-tank gun). The Splinter Cannon was, IIRC, 90m range, S/3/10, 1d10+6 R, Pen 5, Tearing or something like that. Clip and Reload values, I can't remember, but the rest should be a decent start to work with.

Last night my players got the Luminous and the Daemonica and said, "Why would we wait around to fight the dark eldar? Let's just eject in the escape pods now and vox the Navy to go ahead and blow the thing up early."

If they are still friendly with one of the ghosts (specifically the one who called them), have that ghost explain that it takes a few minutes for the pod to boot up to properly save the party's fundaments, and that they NEED to hold the eldar off or they will probably destroy the pods.

Luthor Harkon said:

Firstly, what is TT?

Secondly...What? The way I've always read Dark Eldar are to be Drow with out the Emo/Brooding. They are creatures of excess, and of vile perversions. Bondage gear as armor, maybe not. But armor made of sharp implements of hurt and pain should be the norm.

Kylen: TableTop. In this instance, it means stuff from base Warhammer 40k.

The Dark Eldar are in general need of a massive overhaul, which GW are getting around to, by all indications.

You are right about the lack of Emo, though. They don't cut themselves, they cut everyone else. They cackle with sadistic glee while they do it, too.

Remember, the Dark Eldar are the ones who follow the path of obsessive decadence, hedonism, sadism, and general lack of empathy that caused Slaanesh to be born.

DocIII said:

Did they forget where they were, then?

The Blackship is in the middle of the Space Hulk. The only way they can get out using the escape pods is by waiting until the Hulk is breaking up under the bombardment from the Imperial Navy (as explained by the ghost of Adorjin's former Acolyte when he mentions the escape pods). Otherwise you're firing the escape pods straight into several billion tonnes of compressed metal, rock and warp-stuff, which is bad for survival.

In my campaign, when finally taken down, Theo was driven over the edge of Ambulon on the front of an out of control Ambulon Cetus (a many legged, rugged, walker truck I made up, also a pun) and disappeared in a fireball on the wastland hundreds of meters below.

And still some of players thought he'd survived.

Face Eater said:

Hee, hee! That just means that you have instilled in them the DH-appropriate amount of paranoia. Good job!