Raider

TO THE LOCAL IMPERIUM FAST FOOD DELI RESTAURANT BOYS! AND NO! WE AREN'T GOING TO BUY EMPEROR BURGERS!

The Raider is the primary Dark Eldar troop transport akin to a Rhino that is used as the main form of a Dark Eldar raid. It also looks like a mini flying Chinese Junk with more spiky bits thrown in. Like the Rhino, Raiders are the most favored vehicles of the Dark Eldar and are in use across the galaxy. Unfortunately like most DE vehicles, they have the armor consistency of wet cardboard so you gotta go fast. Lightweight and extremely maneuverable, the Raider epitomizes the Dark Eldar's belief that velocity always triumphs over durability which when it comes to think about it, is actually quite reasonable since if they can't hit you they can't hurt you. It was a design philosophy that was used a bit in real life for tanks when it was assumed that if you got hit: you were going to get penetrated, ergo the best way to survive was 'don't get hit'. That said all vehicles that tried this IRL had enough armor to ensure that small arms could not harm them. It's the defensive equivalent of being a panda, over specialization which means your good at one thing, while being rubbish everywhere else. Though since these things are actually specialist transports due to the Dark Eldar are meant to excel at hitting fast and hard, it is somewhat more reasonable trade off.

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. Unfortunately like a certain Gorgon, the grossly unprotected Eldar means that if faced against a particularly shooty enemy or one that base their entire army of ludicrous firepower the Raider along with its passengers is going to get shanked. Its best used against melee oriented armies like Orks, Tyranids or SPESS MEHREENS. But then again you could argue the exact opposite, as against ranged you want a means to get into melee faster and (somewhat) safer, and against melee you could spend the points on more firepower instead. So there's always pros and cons to bringing them.

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. All Raiders are adorned with the severed body parts of past victims which ironically resembles more like the forces of Chaos the sworn enemies of the Eldar. All have certain basic features and weaponry in common, including a repulsor keelblade manned by a talented steersman, Aethersails (Those sail like constructs that resemble Chinese Junks) to harness the multidimensional shear energies that flow from the Webway portal from which they emerge and a prow-mounted heavy weapon, usually a Dark Lance to rape infantry. The curved hull of every Raider possess sweeping fairings and its metal deck is pierced through with tessellating designs intended to lessen the skimmer's weight and increase its speed. Secondary armaments include Sickle-blades, Electroshock Rams and Splinter Rifle racks.

The Raider's primary function as mentioned is to act as a troop transport during a realspace raid and it 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, any enemy survivors are lashed or chained to the Raider or even simply impaled, still living, upon its trophy hooks.