Dark Eldar Special Rules Summery

[dubhgilla]

I've just started to play Dark Eldar and while I really enjoy them its quite hard work explaining their special rules. DE rules are spread out through the original rulebook Armada and the 2010 FAQ. So I made this quick list the give to opponents so they can glance through it while we play. I post it here to hopefully help out any future DE players or people interested in the extremely fun fleet to play.
Hopefully its all correct and I posted it in the right forum.

Dark Eldar in a nutshell

Movement: They do not need to move. Their cruisers have no minimum movement distance before being able to turn and they may automatically pass Come to New Heading special orders. Dark Eldar are unable to use the burn retros special order.

Weapons Batteries: Found on all Dark Eldar craft, these weapons always count as closing

Phantom Lances: These are the Dark Eldar equivalent to the standard lance type weapon found among the lesser races. It operates differently in that rather than simply inflicting 1 hit on a die roll of 4+, it scores 1 hit if a 4 is rolled and 2 hits if 5+ is rolled.

Attack Craft: Just like other Eldar, their fighters are only hit by turrets on ships (when providing cover for a bomber wave) on 6, and when engaging enemy ordinance, they may remain in play on a die roll of 4+.

Bombers: Only intercepted by defensive turrets on a roll of 6

Torpedoes: Only intercepted by defensive turrets on a roll of 6.
Re-rolls to hit.
Leech Torpedo when it hits an enemy ship, instead of causing a point of damage, it automatically causes a critical hit. Instead of rolling on the critical hits table, the ship simply loses 10cm from its speed.

Slavebringer: Only intercepted by defensive turrets on a roll of 6
Assault boats get a +1 to their Hit and Run attack roll.
Additionally, Dark Eldar commanders may instead of rolling on the H&R table, choose to instead gain 10 victory points as the crew of the Slavebringer concentrates on taking slaves from the enemy crew. As per the FAQ 2010 if 30 points or more victory points are collected from Slavetaking any escort sized vessel is destroyed. Brace saves may be taken against slave taking.

Impaler Modules: An oversized Assault boat.
Only intercepted by defensive turrets on a roll of 6
When engaging by enemy ordinance they may remain in play on a die roll of 4.
When making a hit and run attack on a d6 roll of a 1 the boarders are defeated and the module cannot be used for the rest of the game. On a 2-6 the Impaler causes a critical hit on 2d6 on the critical hits table.
Dark Eldar commanders may instead of rolling on crit table, choose to instead gain 30 victory points as the crew of the Slavebringer concentrates on taking slaves from the enemy crew. As per the FAQ 2010 if 30 points or more victory points are collected from Slave taking any escort sized vessel is destroyed. Brace saves may be taken against slave taking.
Boarding Actions: +1 in the first round -1 in all subsequent rounds .

Shadowfields: Against attacks which use the gunnery table they cause a column shift to the right. (In addition to other shifts can’t go beyond far right).
Against any other form of attack they give a shadowfield saving throw of a 2+ but a blast marker is placed. Yes that means lance, torpedoes, Nova Cannon, Ramming, Teleport attack, ordnance hits (bomber), hit and run raids, boarding actions.
It does not save against blast markers, celestial phenomena and exploding ships.

No Turrets: Eldar have no turrets. Enemy bombers gain no bonus against turrets from escorting fighters.

I should also point out some of this is a cut and paste from this great tactica here
http://www.freewebs.com/zhaimorenn/bfgdarkeldartactica.htm

[Mallich]

Thanks for posting this. It's always nice to see the Dark Eldar getting some love. 

The following all assumes that you're using the 2010 FAQ.

Assault boats get a +1 to their Hit and Run attack roll.

A FAQ later extended this bonus to teleport attacks as well (all hit and runs other than the Impalers').

Additionally, Dark Eldar commanders may instead of rolling on the H&R table, choose to instead gain 10 victory points as the crew of the Slavebringer concentrates on taking slaves from the enemy crew. As per the FAQ 2010 if 30 points or more victory points are collected from Slavetaking any escort sized vessel is destroyed. Brace saves may be taken against slave taking.

One thing that I've never fully understood is how Impalers perform slavetaking against escorts. It seems that the Impaler can either attack normally (with a chance of failing and losing the Impaler for the rest of the battle) or they could take slaves - not only destroying the escort automatically but also getting an extra 30 victory points. This interpretation suggests that there's no reason to perform a regular attack when using Impalers Vs escorts. Do I understand correctly?

You might want to re-word the leech torpedo section, mentioning that they hit automatically. Also, the -10 speed thing doesn't count as a critical hit for the purpose of "any critical hit just destroys an escort".

Dark Eldar can also try to ignore the movement effects of "celestial phenomena such as gas clouds, solar flares, etc", just like Eldar.

[dubhgilla]

This interpretation suggests that there's no reason to perform a regular attack when using Impalers Vs escorts. Do I understand correctly?

Yes that is my interpretation.

What I want to know is if they successfully brace, do the DE get the Slave taking points?

Thanks for the heads up on the leech torps and hit and run attacks!

[Zhukov]

Ah the Dark Eldar, my favorite fleet in the BFG Universe.

It seems that the Impaler can either attack normally (with a chance of failing and losing the Impaler for the rest of the battle) or they could take slaves - not only destroying the escort automatically but also getting an extra 30 victory points. This interpretation suggests that there's no reason to perform a regular attack when using Impalers Vs escorts. Do I understand correctly?

Incorrect. The slavetaking is only a replacement for the critical hit roll, not the failure roll. You can always lose an Impaler when using it. However you are right, Impalers are a devilishly good piece of alien tech. I usually have nearly all my DE escorts armed with them to go enemy escort hunting (mucho points from killing the escorts, then I get to harass the enemy capital ships and bleed more VP's. Oh the fun....).

Then of course in FAQ 2010, I managed to convince the community that cruisers needed 2x Impalers (with additional cost). Oh how much fun I've had with them since 

-Zhukov

[dubhgilla]

The slavetaking is only a replacement for the critical hit roll, not the failure roll. You can always lose an Impaler when using it.
-Zhukov

FAQ2010
"Any Escort-sized ship in addition is destroyed if 30 or more victory points are collected from it by slavetaking"

Impalers give +30 points for slave taking. So destroyed Escort?

[Zhukov]

That is correct!

We built this mechanism into the rules to represent the fluff behind the Dark Eldar. The rules as originally published didn't represent the Dark Eldar's primary goal of taking slaves when performing raids. This was one way we modified it to encourage the player to think like a Dark Eldar would.

I only hope it worked!

-Zhukov

[dubhgilla]

Slavetaking works fantastically! I'm going to put my fleet up for the Annual BFG painting contest. Really as a way of getting people to play DE. I've got a lot of attention at my gaming club for the fleet. They are really easy to convert now although they do come up a little large for escorts.

I've since tone down the red on the ships and I want to add some DE transfers to the sails.

PS  if your opponent they successfully brace, do the DE get the Slave taking points? (I'm thinking the whole attack fails).

[Mallich]

Incorrect. The slavetaking is only a replacement for the critical hit roll, not the failure roll. You can always lose an Impaler when using it.

Thanks. I'm glad to know I misinterpreted it.

@dubhgilla: The rules don't explicitly say that the Dark Eldar don't get the victory points, but I think that if the target braces then the attack has no effect (hence no VP from the attack, since "Dark Eldar gets extra victory points" is an effect).

Offtopic, I know, but:
@dubhgilla: That fleet picture is made of awesome! Will you be explaining how you built them anywhere?
I recognise some of the pieces: old reaver jetbikes for 2 of the cruisers, hellion skyboards and what looks like the end of a starcannon - or fusion gun? - mounted on the front for the most distant escorts, the new reaver's main gun as the turrets on the bottom-right escorts, and part of the new reaver's chassis for the bottom-left escorts. I don't know about the other pieces.
I like how you've made the cruiser bases much taller than the escort bases. I've never thought of using the base's height to make it easier to distinguish one ship size from the other.

EDIT: You link is broken. It should be http://www.freewebs.com/zhaimorenn/bfgdarkeldartactica.htm

[Zhukov]

PS  if your opponent successfully braces, do the DE get the Slave taking points?

No. If the opponent makes the successful BFI roll, then no points are taken.

Beautiful fleet!

-Zhukov