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 favoured 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 manoeuvrable, the Raider epitomises the Dark Eldar's belief that velocity always triumphs over durability which when it comes to think about it, is actually quite stupid as a perfect balance between the two is superior than both. Alternate opinion: no way man, max out speed and you'll barely be hit, max out armour and you can barely be hurt, put it in the middle and you fail on both counts. It's the defensive equivalent of auto cannons, versatility means you'll never excell. And Dark Eldar are meant to excell at hitting fast and hard, so these things are actually specialist transports. Unlike the lumbering vehicles of the human Imperium, a Raider does not carry its passengers within heavily armoured 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 tesselating 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.