The Drukhari are cruel beyond imagination, launching terrifying raids into realspace from their home of Commorragh, a nightmarish pocket dimension scattered across countless sub-realms. But there are stranger places than Commorragh, where yet more horrifying beasts lurk. From the shadow realm of Aelindrach come the Mandrakes, unsettling creatures who hunt for mortals to drag back to their umbral dimension for reasons best left unknown.
Often seen fighting alongside Drukhari raiding parties, contracted by esoteric means, Mandrakes are vicious fighters who can warp their limbs, scale shear surfaces, and slip through shadows unobserved.
These strange echoes of fallen Aeldari have been reimagined into a new kit for Kill Team. They can be built as unique operatives, with surreal and strange delineations that only the Mandrakes themselves understand, or as regular warriors. This flexibility means they can be used in both Kill Team and full games of Warhammer 40,000 – as if either needed to become more dangerous.
Mandrakes are deployed by canny Archons as elite strike forces, taking out communication hubs or guarding strategic objectives for unusual payments: a treasured memory, a heartbeat, a true and secret name, and other odd esoteric ephemera.
The end result of a Mandrake hunt may look like the aftermath of a gruesome murder scene, but they do have a mysterious hierarchy. Their leader is always a Nightfiend, a being whose presence can cause its enemies' very blood to curdle. They are accompanied by Abyssals, living conduits of the malign energy that resides in the tenebrous dimension of Aelindrach.
The Chooser of the Flesh uses its baleblades to collect limbs in service of some arcane ritual. Dirgemaws haunt their foes with pareidolic projections in shadows and reflections, their wailing scream the last thing their target ever hears.
Stranger still are the Shadeweavers, Mandrakes that weaponise darkness, drowning areas in suffocating darkness and using their penumbral manipulation to bore tunnels through the very fabric of reality.
Kill Team: Nightmare is available to pre-order this Saturday, and later in the week, we’ll be taking a look at the equally macabre if less phantasmal Nemesis Claw Kill Team, Heretic Astartes of the Night Lords Legion whose penchant for butchery almost matches the Mandrakes. We hope you’ve got a strong stomach.
Want to know exactly how they perform in game? Watch them in action right now on Battle Report on Warhammer+!