Not quite a Cenobite, but close

Some armies need an evil genius or a mad scientist, the Dark Eldar has that in Urien Rakarth.

He is the Master Haemonculus. He has taken flesh crafting and alteration to an entirely new level. This depraved genius has even altered himself beyond measure. He is supposedly over 1,000 years old.  During this time he has not only made countless wracks, grotesques and other flesh constructs, he has also modified himself extensively.  

original Urien

His modifications have made it so he essentially cannot die. Upon each death Urien’s remains re-grow into a new version of himself (like a twisted Timelord). He has even come to embrace death. He gets enjoyment out of the sensation each time he dies. He might actually be garnering knowledge from it.  This does come at a small price; his re-births have become a bit corrupt. His new forms have retained vestigial organs and limbs. This should be a problem, but Urien takes it in stride. He seems to put these new parts and limbs to proper use.  He is essentially a quasi-eternal mutated Dr. Viktor Frankenstein.



Urien after one too many re-births



Now Urien is not an Archon or Succubus, his stats show that. He is still no slouch. His is actually very similar to the Ancient Haemonculus HQ choice. He has a WS 5, BS 5, strength 3, toughness 5, wounds 3, attacks 3, initiative 5, leadership 9 and a 6+ save. He comes armed with a close combat weapon, clone field, casket of flensing, and an Ichor Gauntlet. He has the Night Vision, Power Through Pain and Independent Character rules. He does not have Fleet. I guess all those transformations didn’t grow him extra legs. He has special rules like all unique 40K characters; Meld Flesh, Father of Pain and Master Haemonculus. This will run you $1.90 which seems steep for a fancy Haemonculus.

Ichor Gauntlet is a modified flesh gauntlet. Is has the same instant death for a failed save and is poisoned. It is better since it is poison 3+.

The casket of flensing and clone field I have covered in the Haemonculus and Archon HQ reviews. The casket is to random of a shooting attack for me and its one shot only ever is just bad. They are the same for Urien, no cool modifications there.

Meld Flesh this lets Urien regenerate a wound per turn. At the beginning of the turn he automatically regains a wound he has lost. Now that is really helpful especially with toughness 5. He can soak some fire that would double tough most of this army.

Father of Pain gives Urien a pain token to start the game with. He also gets to roll a D3 and get that many extra pain tokens. However, he must give these tokens to Wrack or Grotesque units, and only one token can be given to each unit.

Master Haemonculus this rules gives Grotesques a buff for cost. Any units of Grotesques in Urien’s force can be upgraded from strength 5 to strength 6 for 5 extra points.

So how do we best utilized Urien? Well in a Wrack/Grot filled army he is awesome. Giving at least one unit, or up to three, an additional pain token is great. If you are running Grotesques with Urien why not spend five points to make then strength 6? Add in that free pain token and look at all those furious charging strength 7 attacks!

He can also be an annoyance when wounding him or his unit. Allocate that strength 6-9 wound to him. He will just grow that wound back next turn. Add the clone field and get D3 clones and allocate hits to them. See those extra hits negated before they even get to roll wounds.

He is not a must include, unless you are doing a pure “Coven o’ something evil sounding “list. He does have some use in wounding shenanigans and buffing a few units. I do miss his destructor that he used to carry, or I should say Liquifier Gun. That would be great to still have. Most people will just run a regular Haemonculus for the pain token and wracks as troops ability. It also saves points. Urien is a bit expensive and you can easily get several Haemonculi for what he costs. Most people seem to be doing this instead.

I’ll admit he is my favorite HQ choice. Then again I like the macabre, the horrorific, and the weird. Urien has that in spades. A coven run with him really calls to me. All those twisted flesh constructs to model/ convert…..oh the joy…. Wait, I like to convert and build as does Urien. Maybe Urien and I are cut from the same cloth or flesh as it were.

And that ends my sorted trip through the Dark Eldar codex. Looks like I might have to dive into thr Grey Knigths next, not like everyone and thier sister hasn't already.