Sunday, July 01, 2018

Anachronistic 40k: Dark Eldar

The first Codex: Dark Eldar. 
Hello, and welcome to our retrospective on the Dark Eldar. In particular we are going to look at the original launch from 1998. Yes, this year will mark the 20th anniversary of the fiendish cousins to the Craftworld Eldar. Twenty years!


Karandras art by Mark Gibbons. 
The launch of the 3rd Edition of Warhammer 40,000 was an exciting time. It was the reveal of a faction that had been subtly hinted at for many years. Particularly in the 2nd Edition Codex: Eldar's entry for Karandras the Striking Scorpian Phoenix Lord. The entry speaks of how the founder and first Striking Scorpion was Arhra the father of the Scorpion Shrine, not Karandras (the guy GW actually produced a model of), and that Arhra had turned to chaos and was said to have gone into the webway. The Codex had a lot to say about individual Eldar who turn to Chaos, and how they are the ultimate outsiders and pariahs to their Craftworld dwelling kin, but nothing to indicate an actual faction.

 Since the very basic concept of Warhammer 40,000 was that it was a Sci-fi adaptation of Warhamer Fantasy (the Empire = Imperium, Dwarves = Squats, High Elves = Eldar, etc.) It made sense from a meta perspective that the Dark Eldar = Dark Elves.  But that was all we had. Unless you went back to the earliest releases for Rogue Trader where you could find that a Dark Elf Space Trooper had been released. But clearly whatever vision (assuming there was one beyond sculptor's whimsy) there was for that range was set aside.

The first Rogue Trader minis. Find out more at Rogue Heresy.

Almost ten years later, in the waning months of 40K 2nd edition, a few images appeared on the rumor site called Portent that claimed to be Dark Eldar miniatures under development. "The Dark Eldar?"* That sounded awesome! Who were these Dark Eldar?  They were weird, gangly, spikey things with a strong hint of menace. While those minis were ugly, and ultimately unreleased, they did give rise to a mountain of discussion, speculation and rumors. Going by the lore established in White Dwarf 127**, and later updated in Codex: Eldar, most people assumed that they were evil Eldar that were aligned with Slaanesh, Slaaneshi Eldar if you will, and there were many conversations posted online by fans of the idea as well as painting competitions, tournaments and even printed in White Dwarf.

White Dwarf #127; my copy looks just as well-worn!


 The speculation, rumors and theories continued until the ultimate rumor was unleashed on the world. And that was that the Dark Eldar would be featured in the 3rd Edition starter box! This rumor turned out to be very true.

The back if the 3rd ed starter box.

When the box arrived we dove into the lavish new rulebook (before if fell appart) and sought out the Dark Eldar info. And, even though there was some cool illustrations, there wasn't much info. Their weapons had surprisingly simple names like Blaster, Shredder, etc. and didn't feel very Eldar-like. The background text mostly focused on the idea that they were pirates who conducted slave raids and enjoyed gladitorial combat.
A lot.
And that they "got off" on pain.
Also a lot.
And they seemed to have a like for razors, spikes and gimp suits ...perhaps a bit too much.

But nothing to indicate that they were the "Slaaneshi Eldar" the community had speculated that they were. Well, maybe the gimp suits. Indeed, their models were also shockingly plain when compared to their Craftworld counterparts with not a Mark of Slaanesh (or any chaos icon) anywhere in sight.

The standard Dark Eldar trooper: Warriors.
As an aside: I don't think I was the only one that thought that the Warriors were, to some loose degree, designed to resemble The Shredder from TMNT comics and cartoons. The paint schemes the design studio chose didn't exactly dispel that notion. The Reaver and Raider pilots resembled the Foot Ninjas also. They even have a weapon THAT's  called a Shredder. It's weird, and I have nothing to back this theory up that there was any intent by the sculptors in anyway beyond a coincidental design gestalt. But I can't help but see it.

Much of the line was designed and sculpted by Chris Fitzpatrick and Gary Morely. And compared to the energetic spot illustrations in Codex: Dark Eldar, too many of these models have not aged well at all. Too many of them are static and stiff. The worst violators here are arguably the Scourges.

We can fly if we believe hard enough! 

At the time the Wyches seemed exciting and vibrant, but then there wasn't a lot of scantly clad gladitorial warrior women miniatures to really compare them against in those days. However, when compared to the current Jes Goodwin sculpts they are just awkward and stupid looking. The worst transgressions, in my opinion, being the metal riders that were sold as the Reaver Jetbike Squardron.

Squatting at higb speed.

Another prime example of the illustration being vastly superior to the finished model has got to be Kruellagh the Vile.

Kruellagh the Vile illustration.
The model of Kruellagh. 

 As if the punny name wasn't a harbinger of disappointment already, imagine setting that miniature up to take on Abaddon the Despoiler, or Commander Dante or whomever. At least this miniature's bent leg is raised! Too many of the metal miniatures in this range had bent legs that were supposed to either imply a battle stance or a run but instead appear as if they are about to fall or break a leg. Also, too many people have painted this model to appear to be nearly naked as opposed to being in a bodysuit, which for some baffling reason really works against this one.

I know it seems as if I'm picking on these models, (because I am!) however not all of these Dark Eldar models were bad. Indeed, there are some clear winners that I feel do stand the test of time and some of these I will be keeping in my incorporated Dark Eldar force.

The Talos Pain Engine, in my opinion, is still freak'n awesome and I will happily use it today.

Talos, still can bring the pain.
The original Incubi, despite some models having the weird bent legs, still look impressive over all. However the two Incubi bodyguards from Asdrubael Vect's Raider are the best in the range. I almost considered bitz ordering them from GW Mail Order back in the day, but somehow  resisted it (OK, I was poor) and I was bummed that I did.

Original Incubi
The crowning achievement of the entire range was Asdrubael Vect and his Raider. It was a very impressive model, and concept, in it's day. So much so that current Dark Eldar players can not help but wonder and dream as to what an updated version of this would be like.

The one and only, Asrubael Vect

The original Lelith Hesperax is definitely the best Wyche from the old line, and the only thing keeping this model from being used today is that the current Juan Diez scuplt is indisputably superior.
The original Lelith...does grass grow on Commorragh?

But the winner from the original range has got to go to Drazhar. The bad-ass of the demi-knives and leader of the Incubi is the only miniature from the original range that survived the 2010 revamp and is still in production to this day.

Drazhar.

The original Codex: Dark Eldar really didn't expand too much on their background hardly at all. Were they the Pirate Outcasts as defined by the 2nd edition Codex: Eldar? It sure did seem so. Were they in any way associated witb Chaos? There was no evidence to support that. There was a lot of description about the city of Commorragh and it's arenas but only hints about it's origins and why the Dark Eldar were the way they were. We know they lived in the webway, a place Arhra was said to have hidden in, but no mention of Arhra depite the Incubi clearly having design similarities to the Striking Scorpions.

The Dr TSG and I interviewed Rick Priestly at the Baltimore Games Day in '99, for a fanzine we were working on, and we had asked him "Who are the Slaaneshi Eldar?" To which he responded: "The Dark Eldar are the Slaaneshi Eldar." We looked at each other in a baffled confusion and asked him to explain this to us as we saw no connection to this in the Dark Eldar Codex. He almost seemed disappointed that this didn't seem obvious. He blamed this on the abridged format they were using for 3rd edition as they wanted a fairly low cost buy-in for those existing players upset that their 2nd ed books were now invalidated (gee, where was that attitude for 6th and 7th ed?). As a result, the overly explained essay-like prose of the 2nd ed books were replaced by sidebars and innuendo. He went on to explain the Dark Eldar's relationship with Slaanesh and their Eldar kin to us. Had we published that interview at that time we may have had a heck of a scoop on our hands but regrettably the fanzine never came to fruition. Maybe one day, if we can find a micro-cassette player, we'll finally transcribe that interview.

It would be 12 long years before the Dark Eldar would get a new Codex and an updated model range. The new range would be headed up by Jess Goodwin who oversaw the project. And the back ground would be updated by Phil Kelly who, thankfully, would answer some of the nagging mysteries of the Dark Eldar and actually establish, codified if you will, a real working background for them. Thank goodness!

Codex Dark Eldar (5th Edition).

* After speaking to a few of my friends we tend to think that the Dark Eldar were mentioned in passing in another Codex during the 2nd ed Codex run. If this is so, does anyone recall what and where this was? Leave a comment if you know!

**Edit: I originally cited this as White Dwarf #126! Guess I was ahead of myself!

All of the images in the post are Copyright Games Workshop Ltd. and are used here for the purposes of review and not as a challenge to their individual copyrights. 

4 comments:

Merijn said...

"I know it seems as if I picking on these models, (because I am!)"

And quite rightly too. It think the old Dark Elder range has the distinction of being the worst one GW ever sold. But that makes the gems in this collection all the more beautiful. Thanks for the write-up, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

(Kym) + Warburton + (Classic40K) said...

Great article--very interesting.

WestRider said...

A real blast from the past here. You got almost all the Models I liked from the range, but I also liked the Reaver Jetbikes. Not the riders, you're right that those are terrible, but I always thought the bikes themselves were pretty cool. And I'm definitely disappointed that they dropped the Tormenter Helm concept for the Incubi. That gave them a really unique presence on the tabletop.

neverness said...

Oh, but I adore the Reaver jetbikes, so much so that I have been incorporating them into my current Dark Eldar army. See my posts from June 2018 for the recent work that I have done.