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In comparing this to two other products I bought within days of getting Codex Dark Edar for myself. White Dwarf # 226 cost me $4.95 before taxees, 4 color glossy cover with 112 pages of information. About the same time I bought the Dragon Magazine Annual 1998 for $5.95 US and it is 120 pages long with 4 color art and a glossy cover. Sure the Codex has a heavier stock for the front and back covers. Sure it has some fiction, so does the Dragon Annual. Sure it has lots of neat photos of cool painted miniatures, just like the White Dwarf does. Holding them next to each other the magazines feel heavier. So there is more than a bit of disappointment involved with this purchase.

I own the Skaven, Wood Elf and Eldar Codexes already. So in comparing the Dark Eldar to those other three there is little to recommend it. If you are a fan of the dark and morbid and wish to round out your Warhammer 40K collection then yes get it. If you are a dabbler then spend your money on 3 back issues of the White Dwarf magazine. You will get a good 300 plus pages of GW articles compared to 48 pages in this Codex. I have been collecting White Dwarf magazines since before there was a Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I own Space Marines, have played Adeptus Titanicus and Talisman as well as Dungeon Quest. I am a fan of Games Workshop. This is the least useful, overall, product of theirs that I have seen.

The good points are the artwork, when it is not too dark, the snippets of background and the Painting guide. Well also the concept of the Dark Eldar overall.

The bad parts though are a lot more than the good ones. The slender nature of the book its self. There are not a lot of units and characters in the Army List. The list is light as far as options to use. The Dark Eldar are portrayed as Raiders and as such has little in the way of cool vehicles and support weapons. No mention is made of possible ally forces to round out the pretty one sided troop mixture. If you are a skilled Eldar commander than you should be able t sue the Dark Eldar also. If you are used to Orks or Squats then this is an army to stay away from unless you are looking for a big change in the way your mixture of troops and tactics is what you are after. They are lightly armed and armored. If you like to get in and duke it out then this is likely the worse army you could chose. If you are used or like to use highly mobile close combat troops then there is some real potential here for fun and excitement. Add in continuity glitches in outlook and philosophy from Eldar to Dark Eldar and this just makes me shake my head.

I feel that there was a lot more story in the Skaven codex than there is in this one. The Wood Elf one seemed to have better photos of characters and by far the Eldar have a much wider range of figures and concepts to play with.

Overall I could have spent my money better. But the store where I got it from has a policy that for every $100 spent there you get $5 off your next purchase. So in actuality this only cost me $9.95 and as such was not such a bad purchase. If you get it I suggest getting the White Dwarf issues of #226 and 227 for more about the design ideas as well as a Battle Report from a fight using Dark Eldar. These should help you out. Best of luck hunting with them.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Codex Dark Eldar
Author: Jervis Johnson and Gavin Thorpe Category: game Company/Publisher: Games Workshop Cost: 15.95 Page count: 48 ISBN: 1 869893 41 7 Capsule Review by Tad Kelson on 12/15/98. Genre tags: Science_fiction Space	In comparing this to two other products I bought within days of getting Codex Dark Edar for myself. White Dwarf # 226 cost me $4.95 before taxees, 4 color glossy cover with 112 pages of information. About the same time I bought the Dragon Magazine Annual 1998 for $5.95 US and it is 120 pages long with 4 color art and a glossy cover. Sure the Codex has a heavier stock for the front and back covers. Sure it has some fiction, so does the Dragon Annual. Sure it has lots of neat photos of cool painted miniatures, just like the White Dwarf does. Holding them next to each other the magazines feel heavier. So there is more than a bit of disappointment involved with this purchase. I own the Skaven, Wood Elf and Eldar Codexes already. So in comparing the Dark Eldar to those other three there is little to recommend it. If you are a fan of the dark and morbid and wish to round out your Warhammer 40K collection then yes get it. If you are a dabbler then spend your money on 3 back issues of the White Dwarf magazine. You will get a good 300 plus pages of GW articles compared to 48 pages in this Codex. I have been collecting White Dwarf magazines since before there was a Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I own Space Marines, have played Adeptus Titanicus and Talisman as well as Dungeon Quest. I am a fan of Games Workshop. This is the least useful, overall, product of theirs that I have seen. The good points are the artwork, when it is not too dark, the snippets of background and the Painting guide. Well also the concept of the Dark Eldar overall. The bad parts though are a lot more than the good ones. The slender nature of the book its self. There are not a lot of units and characters in the Army List. The list is light as far as options to use. The Dark Eldar are portrayed as Raiders and as such has little in the way of cool vehicles and support weapons. No mention is made of possible ally forces to round out the pretty one sided troop mixture. If you are a skilled Eldar commander than you should be able t sue the Dark Eldar also. If you are used to Orks or Squats then this is an army to stay away from unless you are looking for a big change in the way your mixture of troops and tactics is what you are after. They are lightly armed and armored. If you like to get in and duke it out then this is likely the worse army you could chose. If you are used or like to use highly mobile close combat troops then there is some real potential here for fun and excitement. Add in continuity glitches in outlook and philosophy from Eldar to Dark Eldar and this just makes me shake my head. I feel that there was a lot more story in the Skaven codex than there is in this one. The Wood Elf one seemed to have better photos of characters and by far the Eldar have a much wider range of figures and concepts to play with. Overall I could have spent my money better. But the store where I got it from has a policy that for every $100 spent there you get $5 off your next purchase. So in actuality this only cost me $9.95 and as such was not such a bad purchase. If you get it I suggest getting the White Dwarf issues of #226 and 227 for more about the design ideas as well as a Battle Report from a fight using Dark Eldar. These should help you out. Best of luck hunting with them. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 2 (Sparse)

Codex Dark Eldar