Raider

Fast and sleek, the Raider ensures that its passengers are never short on BDSM accessories such as spikes, chains, and hooks.

The Raider is the primary Dark Eldar troop transport and is the most common component of Dark Eldar raiding parties. It also looks like a mini flying Chinese Junk with more spiky bits thrown in. Unfortunately, like most DE vehicles Raiders have the armor consistency of wet cardboard so they rely almost completely on speed and evasion to limit their exposure to enemy fire. Being so lightweight and maneuverable, the Raider epitomizes the Dark Eldar doctrine of speed over durability. The Raider provides a raiding party with exceptional speed and some extra firepower, and even a bit of melee in a pinch, but it does not excel if forced to perform as anything but a fast strike transport. Use the Raider to maintain tactical initiative by ensuring that your warriors are always where they need to be.

The current model of the Raider, shown in the picture to the right, is the 2nd iteration of the Raider model kit. It may or may not be superior to the original version, depending on your preference.

Overview

Unlike the lumbering vehicles of the human Imperium, a Raider does not carry its passengers within heavily armored Ceramite shells. Instead, these skimmers are twisted imitations of the gliding, anti-gravity pleasure yachts once common on the homeworlds of the ancient Eldar empire, modified to enhance their speed and fitted with blade-sharp fins and jagged keels to slice apart any foes. Whether you are facing melee units or a shooty army from hell, the Raider ensures that you can swiftly deliver your army's power to critical points on the battlefield. Unfortunately the light construction of these vehicles means that Raiders can get quickly shanked by enemy firepower if they are not properly deployed.

The primary motive power for a Raider comes from its compact, air-breathing jet turbine engines. The transport is held aloft by anti-gravity emitters built into the vehicle's ventral ribbing. This technology allows a Raider to skim even the most rugged terrain at an extraordinarily rapid speed. Raiders are commonly adorned with the severed body parts of past victims which further enhances the aesthetic of a vehicle that is being used by merciless raiders. In terms of function every Raider has certain basic features and weaponry in common, including a repulsor keelblade manned by a talented steersman, Aethersails to harness the multidimensional shear energies that flow from the Webway portal from which they emerge, and a prow-mounted heavy weapon, usually either a Dark Lance or a Disintegrator. The curved hull of every Raider possesses sweeping fairings and its metal deck is pierced through with tessellating designs intended to lessen the skimmer's weight and increase its speed, while also giving its passengers harness points to hook on to. Secondary armaments include Sickle-blades, Electroshock Rams and Splinter Rifle racks. The Raider has a passenger capacity of 10 Dark Eldar warriors of various types, whether they are drawn from a Kabal, a Wych Cult, a Haemonculi Coven or from one of the various mercenary Dark Eldar groups of the Dark City. Once the foe has been vanquished, enemy survivors are lashed, chained, or simply impaled (still living) upon the Raider's trophy hooks.

Before you ask, no, the Dark Eldar warriors riding on the Raider are not safely secured in individual crash seats with 5-point harnesses. Instead they typically hang on using little more than a chain, a hook, and their own sense of balance (and you thought Orks were psycho). If you can imagine a group of human civilians huddling in fear in some rubble at the easy, circling approach of a Raider, its dark-armored warriors leering with literal hunger at their prey while mocking them cruel gestures and catcalls, followed by the moment of terror-filled anticipation just before the warriors jump off to begin the slaughter, then you have an idea of how the Dark Eldar do.