Kabalite Warrior

Dark Eldar Portal

Part of a series on the: Dark Eldar Kabal Hierarchy
Dark Eldar Kabal Archon Hierarch Dracon Kabalite Trueborn Sybarite Kabalite Warrior

Kabalite Warriors are the basic soldiers of a Dark Eldar Kabal. They make up the vast majority of the soldiers in a Kabal, and perform any and all tasks too important to leave to the slaves.

Background

Kabalite Warrior

The Warriors of the Kabals form the beating heart of Dark Eldar armies. They are amongst the cruelest of their caste and always hunger for power in order to advance their station. The more vicious and ruthless a Warrior is, the better his chances of advancement within the Kabal. Only the most cunning and natural of killers could possibly survive the constant strife of the Dark City. It is this dog eat dog mindset that defines the Kabalite Warrior's way of life and ensures they are brutal yet disciplined soldiers capable of effectively raiding heavily-defended targets within Realspace.^[2b]

The most martially gifted Dark Eldar of each sector are selected to become Kabalite Warriors. Drawn from both male and female, they are tall and athletically built. They usually are drawn from the outer regions of Commorragh as opposed to the city proper, which has a less temperamental and aggressive population. The Dark Eldar will often grow new young in amniotic tubes or vats. Most of these are assigned to a life of slave labour, but a few excel enough to become a warrior in a Kabal. Even so, they are considered Half-Born.^[2b]

Despite being of seeming lower station than the nobility of High Commorragh, Kabalite Warriors are still above the likes of Hellion, Scourge, or Reaver gangs and relish in reminding the latter of this. They are not just wantonly cruel and violent to slaves or rivals, but also to the more impoverished outer populations of Commorragh which has led them to be despised in these regions.^[4]

Sybarite

The leader of a squad of Kabalite Warriors is given the title Sybarite. Like all other ranks Dark Eldar can achieve, the Sybarite is simply the best warrior in the squad, and new Sybarites are decided by warriors of a squad killing their superior officer in order to take their title. Due to the Sybarite's status, he or she usually has acquired better armour and weapons than the squad members have.^[2b]

While often acting as the mentors to new Kabalite Warriors, not a shred of loyalty is expected from other party. While Sybarites are obeyed by their troops in the battlefield, they still face the constant prospect of treachery from within their own ranks.^[2b]

Combat Use

Kabalite Warriors are frequently dispatched in squads of five to twenty soldiers including the Sybarite. This way they have the best chance of survival against smaller, but more heavily armoured enemies such as Space Marines, allowing them to drown targets in Splinter fire or team up on enemies to ensure quick resolution to melee combat.^[2a][2c]

Raider Squads

Some Kabals prefer to send smaller groups of five to ten Warriors per squad, then assigning them a Venom or Raider transport in order to make them even quicker at traversing a battlefield, giving their enemies as little time to react to the situation as possible, thus increasing and exploiting even the tiniest flaws in their defensive strategies. Only larger Kabals are able to afford the number of transports necessary for this technique.^[Help]

Equipment

The Warriors of Commorragh, like the vast majority of Dark Eldar troops, focus more on speed and strength than they do on defence. This fact is reflected in their equipment.^[2c] Few Kabalite Warriors can afford the healing services of a Haemonculus, so often prefer to utilize longer-ranged weaponry to minimize risk to themselves.^[2b]

Weapons

Standard issue weaponry for Warriors is a Splinter Rifle. They are trained with a variety of weapons, however, in the event that their Archon chooses to assign different weapons to their squad. These weapons are:

• Splinter Cannon — A heavier version of the Splinter Rifle with more range and higher rate of fire. It is equipped with a semi-fluid stabiliser system to negate recoil.^[2c]
• Dark Lance — A heavy anti-vehicle weapon, which fires a beam of dark matter at its target, tearing through armour and vaporising soldiers.^[2c]
• Shredder — A small pistol-sized device that launches monomolecular barbed wire nets at its target, digging into groups of enemies with well-aimed shots.^[2c]
• Blaster — A more compact version of a Dark Lance. Due to the reduced size, the accelerator mechanism is less effective, reducing the overall range of the weapon, though the devastating effects are the same.^[2c]

Armour

Due to the Dark Eldar's desire for speed and dexterity over defensibility, their armour is a thin, light-weight flexible bodysuit, pressurised to allow Warriors to traverse the vacuum of space. Just like standard-issue Eldar suits, they respond to neural impulses from their wearer and harden on command, allowing for the Warriors to shrug off civilian-grade firepower, but requiring them to rely on their superior combat abilities and quick reflexes to survive the engagement against more challenging targets.^[1]

Kabalite warriors wear armour of segmented plates, often held in place by barbs.^[2c]

Trueborn

The Trueborn are Dark Eldar that were not grown in a vat, but were actually born from a Dark Eldar female.^[2b] These Trueborn are given more value than the half-born, and as such earn a higher place in the Dark Eldar society. The Trueborn form units of their own, and given their elevated status can afford better armour, weapons, and other equipment.^[2b] Also, because Trueborn are not as numerous, they usually form smaller units than their half-born counterparts.^[2b]

In addition to the equipment the standard Warriors have, they also can field:

• Splinter Pistol and Close combat weapon — the Splinter pistol being a smaller, hand-held version of the Splinter Rifle.^[2c]
• Shardcarbine — The shardcarbine has a fire rate between the Splinter Rifle and Cannon, but is shorter ranged than both.^[2c]

Dracon

The leader of a Trueborn warrior squad is a Dracon.^[3]

Images

• 

  Kabalite Warrior of the Kabal of the Obsidian Rose (5th edition)

• 

  Kabalite Warrior of the Kabal of the Black Heart (5th edition)

• 

  Kabalite Warrior of the Kabal of the Flayed Skull (3rd edition)

Sources

This article contains text passages or images with citation issues. The concerned content is marked with "Citation issue" tags. Please help to improve this article by fixing those issues as described in the corresponding Help article. Do also note that it is absolutely forbidden to add new information or content to these marked passages as long as the pre-existing citation issues have not been completely resolved.

• 1: Codex: Dark Eldar (3rd Edition), ^[Help]
• 2: Codex: Dark Eldar (5th Edition)
  • 2a: pg. 5
  • 2b: pg. 26
  • 2c: pg. 62
• 3: Spirits of Tir-Namagesh (Short Story)
• 4: Lelith Hesperax: Queen of Knives (Novel) - Chapter 6