Just an honest question, are the Dark eldar a big enough group to warrant being their own faction in 40k? Because all I have ever heard of them is that they've got one city in the webway, and don't do alot other than raid other factions, I'm not saying this because I've got any personal problem with them, simply because I want to know more about them.
Well, Commarragh may be called a city but really it is far bigger than anything else that could possibly called a city - I think the codex calls it "to the largest imperial hives as a mountain is to a mound of termites". Add to that the fact that some of their raids cart away entire populations of worlds....
There is even fluff that tells of them purposefully waging war with the nid's just to get their hands on genetic materiel to manipulate.
Indeed, Commoragh fills an indeterminate space within the webway. It is somewhere in size between a mountain range and a planet but has no real dimensions or restrictions - only that everything in it must be brought from outside.
They are a faction though in that, however limited their numbers or selfish their motives, they have access to the entire Galaxy through the webway. They can theoretically appear anywhere and fight anyone so there is equal justification to fight Dark Eldar as Orks.
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Isn't there Shaadom aswell as Commoragh? Which suggests the Dark Eldar are a bit more widespread than just one physics defying hellhole.
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You could easily argue that ordinary Eldar aren't appropriate for a faction given that one of their major themes is that they are rare and dwindling. Or that the Tau aren't appropriate given how tiny they are.Originally Posted by Menthak
...or a mere 1 million and change in total space marines... not to mention any given chapter by themselves...
One could technically ask that about the Grey Knights, or any of the Space Marines...
With 5th edition's fluff they seem to have really amped up in scope and power from what I remember of the earlier days (at least with the pre-5th edition codex and fluff they seemed more a minor irritant than they are now) - although they still seem to be hamstrung by internal strife and disunity to compensate for the increased scope (the same way the Orks, Necrons, and Imperium are hampered by disunity and internal strife. Nowadays it seems like only the Tyranids and the tau have any sort of unity or cohesion, and only the 'nids that seem to be in a position to do something significant about it...)
Of course, a fair bit of this 'increased scope' could be due to all the slave labour and minions they have. I remember mention of 'billions' (or more) of inhabitants in Cormorragh, but it's not clear whether or not its Dark Eldar or slave populations, or both. (Although to be fair, with craftworlds seeming to have hundreds of thousands or millions per world depending on source, and at least scores or hundreds of craftworlds existing in the galaxy in all probability, billions of eldar do not seem improbable in the least...)
Well, Jes Goodwin has stated that some of the more powerful Kabals rival Craftworlds in population, so we only really call Commorragh a city to get across the idea of what it is, rather than it being a planet. On all other counts, "city" doesn't come close to describing what Commorragh is. For a start, it's spread across the entire Webway, rather than being one single location. Secondly, as others have said, the sheer size of it can't be fully comprehended. There are, at the very least, just as many Dark Eldar, if not more, than there are Craftworlders.
Put in perspective, I would estimate there are probably more people in a large Dark Eldar Kabal than the entire Tau Empire.
That they are a declining people doesn't mean they have less in numbers than another, non-declining people.
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Actually Craftworld Eldar are declining, it is not states to my knowledge that Dark Eldar are declining. Indeed in the developer round table videos Jes Goodwin says they have a much higher birth rate and they can bring people back from the dead.
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I agree that the only Eldar faction that is declining are the craftworld variety (though declining may not mean population numbers alone, but that's for another thread). Exodites are hard to say, I view them as static for the most part. I'd say the Dark Kin are capable of growing, but they have a high rate of attrition due to their 'culture'. Any growth would be slow, at least compared to humans.
Also I would agree they are more of a faction in 40k than the Tau, who have a smaller military presence and only influence a small backwater portion of the galaxy. Marines as a whole are a galactic faction, but any individual chapter is just too small to count.
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Indeed. In fact I think the Dark Eldar are an increasing population, or at the very least a massive and stable one.
Procreation through conventional means is a bit rarer but then again the vast majority of all Dark Eldar are essentially 'vat grown' anyway. They can create as many warriors, male and female, as they please. They can also re-grow any Dark Eldar who has been killed, providing the being in question has some remains left and can afford the process.
As others have mentioned, if one cabal can equal a Craftworld in terms of population and resources, and if there are multiple Kabals in Commoragh alone (without looking at all the other equally vast 'satellite' Dark Eldar cities), we can say that the Dark Eldar more than qualify for faction status even before we point out that most Space Marine Chapters consist of about 1,100 to 1,500 Marine personnel (including the Chaplaincy, Techmarines, Librarius, the Commanders' honour guards, and so on).
In the current edition the Dark Eldar are one of the galaxy's great predators in fact. The Imperium and other factions are far, far more likely to come under attack from the sadistic reavers of the Dark City than they are any other Eldar force. I would go as far as to say that they are probably much more populace than the Craftworld Eldar, but are probably equal or slightly outnumbered by Craftworld Eldar and Exodite Eldar combined. We just have to wait for GW to expand on the Exodite imagery like they have the Dark Eldar, because right now it's so sparse in the contemporary imagery as to be almost non-existent.
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And I think this is exactly the point about Exodith, same as Harlequins. But if I had to name it, I'd say there are far more Dark Eldar than Craftworld Eldar.
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Unlike the Craftworlders or the Exodites, the Dark Eldar have no qualms about breeding like post-apocalyptic rabbits. Nor do they share their cousins' disliking for cloning, growth acceleration, or outright necromancy and similar population boosting practices.
That's before even taking into account the fact that they're a lot less willing to put their lives on the line for any reason whatsoever. So, yeah, I'd say that, at the very least, Dark Eldar are a very, very numerous bunch. Now, arm the entire Dark Eldar population with state of the art weaponry (dark lances, agonisers, splinter weaponry) and material, and you've got yourselves a serious threat...
Wouldn't that be in the case of the Eldar, "breeding like pre-apocalyptic rabbits"
"A small mind is easily filled with faith"
Except that Tau are rapidly advancing...
Right into oblivion!
The Dark Eldar are a threat - and a rather constant one - just due to their speed, technology, and "world-view" (or is that "galaxy-view"?). They don't seem terribly interested in total conquest or even in reclaiming the past - they're a dog chasing cars and wouldn't know what to do if they caught one.
They have a very dark fey aspect to them - they're content in their own kingdom, but damn if the outside world isn't fun. They're the Unseelie Court, the Sheeda, and the stuff of nightmares. Pray they don't take you alive, indeed.
Tau will ask you to join their cause. Orks just want to fight. Tyranids eat you. Necrons and Craftworlders might ask you to relocate or suffer the consequences (though Necrons may just as likely demand tribute or outright slaughter you instead). Chaos will ultimately corrupt everything. Dark Eldar - joy of joys - really have no set motive when they show up. Maybe they'll help you fight an enemy because it amuses them. Maybe they'll capture half your population as slaves. Maybe they'll hunt down every red-head on the planet as some sort of sick hunting game. Heck, I'd argue that you don't prepare for a Dark Eldar raid - you just pray it never happens, because there's not a good way to deal with it.
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Do they sell models?
If yes, big enough to be a faction.
The background of the Dark Eldar is somewhat amusing. They didn't exist, at all, in any form, in the fluff prior to the release of their 3rd Edition codex. It's easy for the Tau to *poof* into the universe because the fluff always said there were small xenos empires still around. The Dark Eldar, came about solely because people would show up with "Chaos Eldar" at tournaments (running the standard Eldar list, just with mutation conversions and fancy paintjobs). Games Workshop invented the Eldar as an attempt to grasp at the demographic asking why there were Dark Elves, but not Dark Eldar. It was kinda sad that they went for the extremely stupid "S&M Fetishists In Spaaaaaace" angle, and even worse that they botched the army so badly that it was horridly underpowered and the models were ugly so nobody played them.
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