This page includes fan-made rules for using Dark Eldar in 2nd Edition 40k.
These rules were originally found on the Voidhammer Geocities page. I've taken these rules and formatted them into a PDF that you can download for your own use.
My purpose of creating this PDF is to preserve these rules in the event that the Wayback Machine ever loses this content. For now, I've essentially replicated the original rules more or less 'as is', with only some minor clean-up. I hope to be able to test these rules out and update/revise them based on game experience.
No challenge to the original author(s) is intended by reposting these rules here.
The rules for using Dark Eldar in 2nd Edition appear to have been based on the original 3rd Edition range of Dark Eldar models. As such, this army differs from the modern incarnation of the Dark Eldar in terms of the available units and weapon options.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of these rules is that they feature psychic powers for the army, with virtually every character in the army being a psyker. It's not clear to me why the original author did this. AFAIK, the Dark Eldar have lacked psykers from the very beginning due to their aversion of Chaos in general and Slaanesh in particular. By avoiding psychic powers, they avoid the attention of the Chaos Gods as well as minimize the risk of Chaos gaining entry into Commorraugh or possessing their souls.
If I were to guess, it would be that the intention was to make the army competitive in an edition of the game with a pretty strong psychic phase and with plenty of armies capable of using that phase to damage their enemies and buff their own units. This makes even more sense to me given how relatively small the original Dark Eldar range was, with only a few generic characters and a couple vehicle options, including only a single "tank" to take on enemy vehicles or tougher squads and characters.
As such, I'd ultimately like to rewrite this aspect of the armylist to either reduce or remove psychics - I say 'reduce' only because I do like the psychology-flavored aspect of some of the psychic powers the original author created for this army.
They are divided into the following sections.
Adding Dark Eldar to 2nd Edition may seem weird, if not heresy, but to me the original range of this army has a very Rogue Trader / 2nd Edition feel to it. There's a bit of cartoonish villainy to the original range's aesthetics, and the plastics in particular share the same relative simpicity in terms of building and painting them.
Beyond the models themselves, having another xenos army - and a second Eldar army at that - makes for a nice addition to the army range of 2nd Ed 40k. And for my own personal use, the Dark Eldar make for a nice raiding force type of army, which fits perfectly with the collective setting I've been working for my 2nd Ed project - a wilderness sector vulnerable to countless human and alien pirates, mercenaries, and raiders.