Galas wrote: The problem of single shot weapons is invulnerable saves. Theres just too damm much invulnerable saves in this game.
There's an additional problem in that GW's business model and release schedule encourages perpetual power creep and scaling up.
If you released all codices at once (say, as free PDF documents) then you could easily make sweeping changes, such as lowering/removing a lot of invulnerable saves from the game.
However, when you release books one at a time, reducing invulnerable saves is going to make that book terribly underpowered for the next two years, until the other books are all released (and that's assuming GW don't just get bored and reverse their design philosophy halfway though the edition).
Both to your point and also against your point. . .
Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't have the new Marine book, but didn't they just reduce the Storm Shield invuln save to 4++ and then introduce a new unit with new shields with a 3++?
Both to your point and also against your point. . .
Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't have the new Marine book, but didn't they just reduce the Storm Shield invuln save to 4++ and then introduce a new unit with new shields with a 3++?
Both to your point and also against your point. . .
Correct me if I'm wrong, as I don't have the new Marine book, but didn't they just reduce the Storm Shield invuln save to 4++ and then introduce a new unit with new shields with a 3++?
No unit has a 3++.
I'm mistaken then? Good. I definitely agree that the invuln saves should be reduced in general.
ballzonya wrote: So I have 3 Talos built with splinter cannons because I love them as screen killers with rapid 3. Now it's moved to heavy I'm I SOL because I can't move and shoot them effectively.
I've only fought dark eldar so correct me if I'm wrong but aren't Talos Monsters meaning they ignore the penalty to moving and firing heavy weapons, the same as my T-Fex or Exocrine do now?
Galas wrote: The problem of single shot weapons is invulnerable saves. Theres just too damm much invulnerable saves in this game.
GW has chipped away at that. AP is more relevant now than before. The most popular faction is wide open to taking AP4 on the chin for the majority of its units. An AP4 weapon is only losing 1AP when shooting SS termies, termies/BGV in cover as well.
I don't think anyone should really shy away from them from fear of invulnerable saves.
The sad thing is d6 damage and the fact anything with good armor usually has a good inv. save too tends to make single shot weapons less valuable. This in turn makes multiple shot, multiple damage, average ap weapons the go to choice vs units with both saves (basically disintegrators).
Death Guard and dreadnoughts make weapons like disintegrators half as effective, so just spamming D2 isn't a good idea for TAC lists anymore. Better bring something bigger, or a lot of D1.
Galas wrote: The problem of single shot weapons is invulnerable saves. Theres just too damm much invulnerable saves in this game.
And why are there so many invul saves?
Because everyone without one was dying to fast.
This is really a last edition thing.
People selected for invulns in an edition that leaned into shooting. There weren't many units created with an invuln that didn't have precedent for an invuln before ( terminator, storm shield unit, daemon engine, or a knight ).
3++ and well as 5+++ seems to be dead for standard units though I expect Nurgle might keep 5+++.
Galas wrote: The problem of single shot weapons is invulnerable saves. Theres just too damm much invulnerable saves in this game.
And why are there so many invul saves?
Because everyone without one was dying to fast.
This is really a last edition thing.
People selected for invulns in an edition that leaned into shooting. There weren't many units created with an invuln that didn't have precedent for an invuln before ( terminator, storm shield unit, daemon engine, or a knight ).
3++ and well as 5+++ seems to be dead for standard units though I expect Nurgle might keep 5+++.
Lethality was still an issue before 8th, but the reasons were a little different.
7th just built upon the trend starting in 5th which was more high-AP weapons and less sight-obstructing cover. 8th changed the balance of high-lethality weapons with the reintroduction of save modifiers and an increase in the amount of shots (Twin Linked weapons firing double the number of shots, for example). At least 9th has non-TLOS obscuring terrain again.
Edit: Also consider the range of engagement of the most popular army. In 4th ed a marine could only fire once at 12" on the move. Now they can fire much more at greater range.
Many of the invul saves we were used to were ranged only (knights, jink, shining spears...), which are not looking so hot now.
At the same time, the worst melee offenders are AP-2 (claws and hammers), which makes high armor a lot better than it was.
Unfortunately, many events use the WTC maps, which are woefully bad for 9th. One day players will learn that a terrain element with heavy cover impacts the game as much as a big LoS blocker.
VladimirHerzog wrote: "Lance" is nothing more than the category of weapon it is. Just like shuriken and splinter, Bright and Dark are two different technologies.
Or, say, "bolter" - lord knows those all have the same profiles, right?
At the same time, the worst melee offenders are AP-2 (claws and hammers), which makes high armor a lot better than it was.
I find it odd that Claws and Hammers were reduced to -2, personally. Maybe they figured a Terminator Squad being capable of wrecking multiple Knights in a single round was too powerful.
The Newman 796050 11054956 wrote:
Oh come on, it you're going to hyperbole go all out. I'll be ok with the game state when every time a bolt pistol fires in game the living embodiment of the concept of a Lord of War at 40k scale tears itself from the fabric of reality and commits seppuku on the nearest zebra-skin rug.
Well I can't cite the local proverb about wishes, because it would be against the forum rules. I am just saying, that if for multiple editions, the bright and dark lance, shared a stat line . And they happen to be used by the members of the same race, often mixed in the same army. Then chance that one is going to be different from the other, is rather low. And expecting a different result is exactly as if you would expect the models on the other side to blow up stuff in the real world.
It's a shame mortal wounds are usually too crappy to solve this problem.
okey but what is the anwser to this. Lets say bright and dark lances to mortal, suddenly the weapons get spamed on every unit that can take them, and everyone gets to enjoy 20+MW per turn on fast moving and, and sometimes or, hard to destroy platforms. I get it would be fun for armies with the weapons, but would be rather unfun to everyone else.
At the same time, the worst melee offenders are AP-2 (claws and hammers), which makes high armor a lot better than it was.
I find it odd that Claws and Hammers were reduced to -2, personally. Maybe they figured a Terminator Squad being capable of wrecking multiple Knights in a single round was too powerful.
LC were always -2. Hammers did go down though.
GW may have tiered melee in anticipation of the striations in units.
The Newman 796050 11054956 wrote:
Oh come on, it you're going to hyperbole go all out. I'll be ok with the game state when every time a bolt pistol fires in game the living embodiment of the concept of a Lord of War at 40k scale tears itself from the fabric of reality and commits seppuku on the nearest zebra-skin rug.
Well I can't cite the local proverb about wishes, because it would be against the forum rules. I am just saying, that if for multiple editions, the bright and dark lance, shared a stat line . And they happen to be used by the members of the same race, often mixed in the same army. Then chance that one is going to be different from the other, is rather low. And expecting a different result is exactly as if you would expect the models on the other side to blow up stuff in the real world.
It's a shame mortal wounds are usually too crappy to solve this problem.
okey but what is the anwser to this. Lets say bright and dark lances to mortal, suddenly the weapons get spamed on every unit that can take them, and everyone gets to enjoy 20+MW per turn on fast moving and, and sometimes or, hard to destroy platforms. I get it would be fun for armies with the weapons, but would be rather unfun to everyone else.
Dark eldar and Craftworld are as much the same race as Astra militarum and Space marines.
My original suggestion was about doing damage in the form of mortal but still getting to save against them.
At the same time, the worst melee offenders are AP-2 (claws and hammers), which makes high armor a lot better than it was.
I find it odd that Claws and Hammers were reduced to -2, personally. Maybe they figured a Terminator Squad being capable of wrecking multiple Knights in a single round was too powerful.
LC were always -2. Hammers did go down though.
GW may have tiered melee in anticipation of the striations in units.
Well that tells you how often I used LCs during 8th . . .
People selected for invulns in an edition that leaned into shooting. There weren't many units created with an invuln that didn't have precedent for an invuln before ( terminator, storm shield unit, daemon engine, or a knight ).
.
the best army right now is running around with invs on everything with stacked -1 to hit. Seems to me, as if invs are good in 9th too.
Dark eldar and Craftworld are as much the same race as Astra militarum and Space marines.
They eldar, they are the same race. There is not enough time passed between the fall and the creation of the scar, to make either eldar group no longer considered the same race. They all have the same biology, and can inter breed. A space marine couldn't breed with a human even if he wanted to, which they seem to not want to.
People selected for invulns in an edition that leaned into shooting. There weren't many units created with an invuln that didn't have precedent for an invuln before ( terminator, storm shield unit, daemon engine, or a knight ).
.
the best army right now is running around with invs on everything with stacked -1 to hit. Seems to me, as if invs are good in 9th too.
Dark eldar and Craftworld are as much the same race as Astra militarum and Space marines.
They eldar, they are the same race. There is not enough time passed between the fall and the creation of the scar, to make either eldar group no longer considered the same race. They all have the same biology, and can inter breed. A space marine couldn't breed with a human even if he wanted to, which they seem to not want to.
Harlies succeed in spite of invulns, in my opinion. The 4++ doesn't save their T3 from getting murdered. They're fast, ignore terrain, and hit hard with high AP weapons or mortal wounds. They're specifically geared to annihilate marines. Their transports are -1 and 4++, but they're also T5 and W6. Best army, but they're in less than 3% of all games.
Daemons didn't succeed well with all their invulns in 8th, because they had to cross the whole table or spend a crap ton of CP. Now they have the enemy coming to them.
Well all I can say is. Try playeing them without the ++4 on everything alongside the -1 to hit. If they still work well, then the speed would be the deciding factor in them being so good.
I don't really understand the 3% comment though. How does popularity impacts the fact that they are the best? They are eldar, just the same way Crimsion Fist players were being told that marines were OP, because Gulliman list existed. They are even good enough to be played as soups with regular eldar in tournaments and get high placments. That is something only SoB lists can achive on a regular basis in 9th.
Daemons didn't succeed well with all their invulns in 8th, because they had to cross the whole table or spend a crap ton of CP.
Also which part of 8th ed are we talking about, because I remember the time when chaos had their poxwalkers spliting tzeench demons soup lists, and those were horrible to play against. Each killed demon, ment just more models poping up.
The PB bombs were tar pits no one liked to play against, at least not in games where you played with a clock.
If you want to drop their points, sure. Run them without the 4++. You'd still see them do well.
You're worried about high AP not being useful, but propping up that concern with an army that represents 3% of games. You're highly unlikely to encounter them and if you did you would want the guns that take out Necron Warriors anyway.
Splitting horrors never got far. Mixed Thousand Sons and daemons did well, because they could have nurglings doing objective work, PBs blocking, and high power casters doing the killing. It was a pretty narrow list.
Daedalus81 wrote: If you want to drop their points, sure. Run them without the 4++. You'd still see them do well.
I guess it depends on how low you go with these points - but I have my doubts.
The thing is that a 4++ allows you to get lucky. I don't quite know how to express this in theoryhammer - because everyone can get lucky. Oh, you hit me on 3s and reroll 1s? Oh look, half your dice have come up 2s etc.
But as we've all probably experienced, some games you throw enough firepower to kill a unit with good invuls 3 times over and it just shrugs it off. And this likely costs you the game. At a certain point these hotstreaks are not that unlikely - which I suspect is why GW is ditching 3++, and probably 5+++ outside of special circumstances.
But its difficult to calculate mathematically how much say Harlequin and Daemon victories are due to the stars aligning and their opponents having turns where they do a fraction of the expected damage. But I can't believe its negligible - and it can bail you out if your dice have not been hot in previous turns. If DG run through the Tournament scene I suspect it might be for similar reasons.
Tyel wrote: I guess it depends on how low you go with these points - but I have my doubts.
The thing is that a 4++ allows you to get lucky. I don't quite know how to express this in theoryhammer - because everyone can get lucky. Oh, you hit me on 3s and reroll 1s? Oh look, half your dice have come up 2s etc.
But as we've all probably experienced, some games you throw enough firepower to kill a unit with good invuls 3 times over and it just shrugs it off. And this likely costs you the game. At a certain point these hotstreaks are not that unlikely - which I suspect is why GW is ditching 3++, and probably 5+++ outside of special circumstances.
But its difficult to calculate mathematically how much say Harlequin and Daemon victories are due to the stars aligning and their opponents having turns where they do a fraction of the expected damage. But I can't believe its negligible - and it can bail you out if your dice have not been hot in previous turns. If DG run through the Tournament scene I suspect it might be for similar reasons.
How many games do they lose from rolling 75% of their saves as 3's or worse? With a 4++ the rolls are equally likely to go badly as they are to go well and even for a 3++ with the number of dice rolled in an average game the odds of any given unit 'getting hot' for an entire game are low. Even if it does happen play it out and expect different luck the next game.
Karol wrote: Well all I can say is. Try playeing them without the ++4 on everything alongside the -1 to hit. If they still work well, then the speed would be the deciding factor in them being so good.
I don't really understand the 3% comment though. How does popularity impacts the fact that they are the best? They are eldar, just the same way Crimsion Fist players were being told that marines were OP, because Gulliman list existed. They are even good enough to be played as soups with regular eldar in tournaments and get high placments. That is something only SoB lists can achive on a regular basis in 9th.
Daemons didn't succeed well with all their invulns in 8th, because they had to cross the whole table or spend a crap ton of CP.
Also which part of 8th ed are we talking about, because I remember the time when chaos had their poxwalkers spliting tzeench demons soup lists, and those were horrible to play against. Each killed demon, ment just more models poping up.
The PB bombs were tar pits no one liked to play against, at least not in games where you played with a clock.
harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
VladimirHerzog wrote: harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Right.
A player is a minimum of 19 points usually. 10 bolt rifles kill 2.2 of them. Those same bolt rifles do 1.7 to a marine. So you have a 40 point loss to a 0 to 20 point loss.
I think a lot of people get caught out when the Starweaver moves 16", runs 6", and slides in next to a character and 5 fusion pistols drop on them with no penalty from the foremost point of the model. They can wipe a 3 man gravis unit pretty easily that way too. How exactly does one stop something from hitting you first when it can fly from behind cover and move 22"?
VladimirHerzog wrote: harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Right.
A player is a minimum of 19 points usually. 10 bolt rifles kill 2.2 of them. Those same bolt rifles do 1.7 to a marine. So you have a 40 point loss to a 0 to 20 point loss.
I think a lot of people get caught out when the Starweaver moves 16", runs 6", and slides in next to a character and 5 fusion pistols drop on them with no penalty from the foremost point of the model. They can wipe a 3 man gravis unit pretty easily that way too. How exactly does one stop something from hitting you first when it can fly from behind cover and move 22"?
seems like we agree here. I'm pointing out that the reason harlies are good right now isnt because of the invuln.
VladimirHerzog wrote: harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Right.
A player is a minimum of 19 points usually. 10 bolt rifles kill 2.2 of them. Those same bolt rifles do 1.7 to a marine. So you have a 40 point loss to a 0 to 20 point loss.
I think a lot of people get caught out when the Starweaver moves 16", runs 6", and slides in next to a character and 5 fusion pistols drop on them with no penalty from the foremost point of the model. They can wipe a 3 man gravis unit pretty easily that way too. How exactly does one stop something from hitting you first when it can fly from behind cover and move 22"?
Screen the character, use indirect fire and/or Drop Pods to strike first?
Harlies on foot are indeed squishy if you throw enough shots. If you really think that Invuls are not a big deal for the Harlequin army, though, try running your Jetbikes and Clowncars without the 4++ (and ability to get to a 3++ for the bikes) and tell me how it goes.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Harlies on foot are indeed squishy if you throw enough shots. If you really think that Invuls are not a big deal for the Harlequin army, though, try running your Jetbikes and Clowncars without the 4++ (and ability to get to a 3++ for the bikes) and tell me how it goes.
Insectum7 wrote: Screen the character, use indirect fire and/or Drop Pods to strike first?
Yes, that's what they do their second time playing Harlies.
I do think marines lists have to change to deal with the evolving threats. You'd think tremor shells ( DG ignores it, but still ) or suppression fire should be more popular given the way other lists look. Should be interesting to see once COVID is over.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Harlies on foot are indeed squishy if you throw enough shots. If you really think that Invuls are not a big deal for the Harlequin army, though, try running your Jetbikes and Clowncars without the 4++ (and ability to get to a 3++ for the bikes) and tell me how it goes.
Loughs in windriders...
Indeed...Trying to remember the last time I faced a Windrider. Or a Hellion.
Karol wrote:They eldar, they are the same race. There is not enough time passed between the fall and the creation of the scar, to make either eldar group no longer considered the same race. They all have the same biology, and can inter breed. A space marine couldn't breed with a human even if he wanted to, which they seem to not want to.
10,000 years is more than enough time to create a new race. We have at least one new major race in the last 500 years here on Earth. It might not be enough to let another specie to naturally evolve, but that depends on other environmental factors. The Drukhari have not been relying on natural methods to make adjustments, either. Some are in to gene-splicing, others are in to chemical enhancements, and those can have an affect over the course of generations. Of course, Eldar generations are longer than Human, but those factors still exist.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Harlies on foot are indeed squishy if you throw enough shots. If you really think that Invuls are not a big deal for the Harlequin army, though, try running your Jetbikes and Clowncars without the 4++ (and ability to get to a 3++ for the bikes) and tell me how it goes.
im not saying the invuln has no say in their playability, just that i think their mobility and punch come first.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Harlies on foot are indeed squishy if you throw enough shots. If you really think that Invuls are not a big deal for the Harlequin army, though, try running your Jetbikes and Clowncars without the 4++ (and ability to get to a 3++ for the bikes) and tell me how it goes.
im not saying the invuln has no say in their playability, just that i think their mobility and punch come first.
No argument from me that they have great mobility and punch! I don't play Harlies, but I certainly play against them. They have the holy trinity of mobility, firepower and protection. That protection is based on their 4++ (plus some other shenanigans). Take that away and they are lost like tears in rain.
Insectum7 wrote: Screen the character, use indirect fire and/or Drop Pods to strike first?
Yes, that's what they do their second time playing Harlies.
I do think marines lists have to change to deal with the evolving threats. You'd think tremor shells ( DG ignores it, but still ) or suppression fire should be more popular given the way other lists look. Should be interesting to see once COVID is over.
I mean. . . that's sorta the name of the game, practically. Learn what the opposing armies can do and then build your lists with contingencies for it.
Karol wrote:They eldar, they are the same race. There is not enough time passed between the fall and the creation of the scar, to make either eldar group no longer considered the same race. They all have the same biology, and can inter breed. A space marine couldn't breed with a human even if he wanted to, which they seem to not want to.
10,000 years is more than enough time to create a new race. We have at least one new major race in the last 500 years here on Earth.
Karol wrote:They eldar, they are the same race. There is not enough time passed between the fall and the creation of the scar, to make either eldar group no longer considered the same race. They all have the same biology, and can inter breed. A space marine couldn't breed with a human even if he wanted to, which they seem to not want to.
10,000 years is more than enough time to create a new race. We have at least one new major race in the last 500 years here on Earth.
Eh?
The PC Master Race?
The combination of the American Tribal and European commonly known as Hispanic or Latino. The opening of the Americas to colonization by Europeans has mixed the gene pools around a bit. The most notable of which are the Hispanics (though, many tend to downplay the tribal part, hence the European reference in the name).
I think you define a race as separate when the mixed sons are sterile (like horses, donkeys an zebras).
I'm ignoring the delirious above over the human races that will require either an additional courses (if due to ignorance) or a straight up ban (if by convinctions)
In view of their boost, larger footslogging units would be an option.
Thoughts?
They are a bit more viable defending an objective.
I don't think what we have seen changes much, but I'm biased as the whole point of Kabalites (and Drukhari as a whole) to me is infantry in open-topped transports.
In view of their boost, larger footslogging units would be an option.
Thoughts?
They are a bit more viable defending an objective.
I don't think what we have seen changes much, but I'm biased as the whole point of Kabalites (and Drukhari as a whole) to me is infantry in open-topped transports.
Seconded.
Successful Kabal armies should still focus on light and lightening-fast vehicles.
harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Not when most weapons come with AP, and the +3sv is never a +3sv one.
10,000 years is more than enough time to create a new race. We have at least one new major race in the last 500 years here on Earth. It might not be enough to let another specie to naturally evolve, but that depends on other environmental factors. The Drukhari have not been relying on natural methods to make adjustments, either. Some are in to gene-splicing, others are in to chemical enhancements, and those can have an affect over the course of generations. Of course, Eldar generations are longer than Human, but those factors still exist.
Well that is interesting, but you guys in US use strange definition what a race is. Because here, where I go to school, humans still have one race. Not one new every 500y. Because if that was true, my country that has history of over 300y, would be populated by bucket loads of different races of humans.
Canadian 5th wrote: How many games do they lose from rolling 75% of their saves as 3's or worse? With a 4++ the rolls are equally likely to go badly as they are to go well and even for a 3++ with the number of dice rolled in an average game the odds of any given unit 'getting hot' for an entire game are low. Even if it does happen play it out and expect different luck the next game.
Yes, but as people have pointed out, this matters less because Harlequin's speed allows them to set the terms of engagement. If you can move where you want, shoot what you want, kill what average dice say so, tie stuff up with charges and repeat - the 4++ doesn't matter as much. Because you are winning.
But sometimes in a dice game, you bounce.
So then having the ability to make your opponent bounce in turn comes up. As pointed out this can happen to anyone - but if you get above average luck on a 4++/3++ - which isn't that unlikely - it can have a big effect. Yes, the odds are equally there to fail all your 4++ saves - but this matters less because of the first paragraph.
Basically "I get average to good luck when attacking"->"I probably just win."
"I get bad luck"->"my opponent also gets bad luck"->"I probably still go on to win".
Its only "I get bad luck"->"my opponent gets good luck"->"I lose".
The difference with say GSC is that to win, usually you require good luck *and* your opponent to have bad luck. Any other combination see's you lose. So the odds of you winning are inevitably much lower. There will after all also be games where despite all their various defences, a Harlequin player see's a big chunk of Starweavers/Skyweavers shot off the board turn one. But this is probably sufficiently rare not to have a significant impact on overall Harlequin win rates and tournament performance.
How to express this mathematically is difficult but its a phenomenon that exists.
===
On Eldar. I think modern fluff treats all Eldar as a single unified species, and the various groups are subcultures that individuals are relatively easily able to move between. I.E. someone on a Craftworld can decide to become a Ranger, go hang out with Exodites, get a bit bored of that, wind up in Commoragh, sign on with a Kabal, think this has all got a bit too metal and return to their Craftworld. This doesn't totally make sense given the supposed physiological differences, especially with regard to psychic abilities, but the fluff on that may be evolving from "this was suppressed to the point of atrophy" in Dark Eldar to "Dark Eldar Don't Do Psychic cos Vect says Slaanesh is scary and shut up we don't want to make new models".
Also CWE are meant to be a declining race with miniscule birth rates, whereas DE are a constantly resurrecting vampire-aristocracy backed by potentially infinite hordes of vat-born (who can also be resurrected if lucky/successful). Which raises the question of why CWE don't invest in this technology to fix their own population problems - but presumably its too edgy and sort of messes with the whole "declining race on edge of extinction" fluff.
Also CWE are meant to be a declining race with miniscule birth rates, whereas DE are a constantly resurrecting vampire-aristocracy backed by potentially infinite hordes of vat-born (who can also be resurrected if lucky/successful). Which raises the question of why CWE don't invest in this technology to fix their own population problems - but presumably its too edgy and sort of messes with the whole "declining race on edge of extinction" fluff.
For the same reason that they don't just 'get busy'; they don't have enough soulstones to protect a larger population.
Being the same species or not is irrelevant. The imperium has how many distinct armies with their own unique weapons units and tactics? Who are all in the same species, empire and cross over all the time?
The gap between craftworlds is bigger than imperial worlds as they are all sovereign nations. A citizen of ulthwe doesn't have the right to do whatever they want on saim Hann, but an imperial citizen is an imperial citizen no matter what planet they travelled to.
Ergo, as per the initial reason this argument started, craftworlds and the drukhari can have completely different weapons with their own unique rules.
harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Not when most weapons come with AP, and the +3sv is never a +3sv one.
most weapons come with ap? thats news to me.
And even then, for marines to be on the same save as quins, they need to be out of cover and facing ap -1 at least. Quins get a 4++ even if theyre in cover and getting shot by ap-0.
And even after that, Quins have less toughness and wounds than marines.
I'm not hating marines BTW, just comparing the two. Youre free to complain about quins, but you gotta complain about the real OP part, not the invuln.
harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Not when most weapons come with AP, and the +3sv is never a +3sv one.
most weapons come with ap? thats news to me.
And even then, for marines to be on the same save as quins, they need to be out of cover and facing ap -1 at least. Quins get a 4++ even if theyre in cover and getting shot by ap-0.
And even after that, Quins have less toughness and wounds than marines.
I'm not hating marines BTW, just comparing the two. Youre free to complain about quins, but you gotta complain about the real OP part, not the invuln.
To be fair, the -1 wound aura Harlies have access to is pretty good on evening out the Toughness difference.
The wound count, though... Yeah, hard to get around that. And you can always snipe the Shadowseer.
harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Not when most weapons come with AP, and the +3sv is never a +3sv one.
most weapons come with ap? thats news to me.
And even then, for marines to be on the same save as quins, they need to be out of cover and facing ap -1 at least. Quins get a 4++ even if theyre in cover and getting shot by ap-0.
And even after that, Quins have less toughness and wounds than marines.
I'm not hating marines BTW, just comparing the two. Youre free to complain about quins, but you gotta complain about the real OP part, not the invuln.
To be fair, the -1 wound aura Harlies have access to is pretty good on evening out the Toughness difference.
The wound count, though... Yeah, hard to get around that. And you can always snipe the Shadowseer.
harlies with a 4++ still die faster than marines with a 3+ save.... Its just that they have the punch, mobility and tricks to make their squishiness work.
Not when most weapons come with AP, and the +3sv is never a +3sv one.
most weapons come with ap? thats news to me.
And even then, for marines to be on the same save as quins, they need to be out of cover and facing ap -1 at least. Quins get a 4++ even if theyre in cover and getting shot by ap-0.
And even after that, Quins have less toughness and wounds than marines.
I'm not hating marines BTW, just comparing the two. Youre free to complain about quins, but you gotta complain about the real OP part, not the invuln.
To be fair, the -1 wound aura Harlies have access to is pretty good on evening out the Toughness difference.
The wound count, though... Yeah, hard to get around that. And you can always snipe the Shadowseer.
Most Snipers still aren't good
So just turn the -1 to wound aura off. And then feed the clowns bolters, lots of bolters. And maybe a couple chaincannons for good measure.
Well that is interesting, but you guys in US use strange definition what a race is. Because here, where I go to school, humans still have one race. Not one new every 500y. Because if that was true, my country that has history of over 300y, would be populated by bucket loads of different races of humans.
The fall of the eldar happened in 30k. Thats 10 000 years of evolution that could happen.
Combine that with the stark differences between Eldar and Deldar and yes, evolution is very well possible.
Deldar lost their psychic abilties, Eldar are still a psychic race. Both were psychic 10k years ago.
There is more differences between Eldar and Deldar than between Humans and Space marines
Well that is interesting, but you guys in US use strange definition what a race is. Because here, where I go to school, humans still have one race. Not one new every 500y. Because if that was true, my country that has history of over 300y, would be populated by bucket loads of different races of humans.
The fall of the eldar happened in 30k. Thats 10 000 years of evolution that could happen.
Combine that with the stark differences between Eldar and Deldar and yes, evolution is very well possible.
Deldar lost their psychic abilties, Eldar are still a psychic race. Both were psychic 10k years ago.
There is more differences between Eldar and Deldar than between Humans and Space marines
I don't think that the Drukhari are very different physically from the Asuryani, nor have the former have ceased completely to be a psychic race. Their society suppresses the development and use of psychic powers, and so that ability has atrophied as a whole.
Their technologies have always been somewhat different (what might be found in an Aeldari city vs what refugees could take with them as they fled the collapse of their civilization), but the Drukhari's lack of psychic powers also forced them to adapt further; no wraithbone or psycho-technical engineering.
The homo sapiente is somewhere between 300k or 100k years old. And more or less between 15k to 5k years ago started to radically change (even more I mean) the surrounding environment, diet and lifestyle. We're still the same, and compared with Eldar we breed like rabbit (I don't know, maybe 100x faster?)
10k is literally nothing for them, even when you consider genes splitting and such. On a "natural" basis I except Eldar to evolve on a scale of at least a million years.
IF even they could evolve at all. Since they are a project of the Ancient Ones, I wouldn't be surprised if Eldar do not randomly mutate in order to evolve but rather are codified within a preselected number of variations. Would probably make more sense (especially when you consider that the Park were the other tools, and they evolve by external in influences)
I think we need to be careful with terminology her. With regard to (biological) evolution, it may be worth noting that it's not automatic.
That is to say, the fact that Species A has been around for 10,000 years and Species B has been around for 100,000 years doesn't automatically follow that Species B will be "more evolved" than Species A.
This is because evolution is based on selection pressures, which have to be realised in terms of "more evolved" members of the species having a disproportionally high number of surviving descendants.
However, just to consider humans, we have developed all manner of technology to keep sick, injured and deformed people alive (ones who would almost certainly die if they were forced to fend for themselves). Similarly, we have all manner of technology to allow for people to have children in spite of age, illness etc. Not to mention people willing to be partners with such individuals and bear their children (again, in contrast to most animals, where it tends to be the 'stronger' or healthier animals that are the most successful in finding mates and breeding with them).
On top of this, humans have become exceptionally good at controlling their environments, such that they can survive even in remote and inhospitable places.
Finally, the ability to move around the globe means that the potential breeding population is *massive* (whereas evolution in the animal kingdom is typically most noticeable with isolated species).
Put simply, there just aren't enough selection pressures for humans to evolve in any meaningful way.
Oh, I should also add that evolution is often misunderstood. In spite of what X-Men and the like are always claiming, there is no "next stage" or "final stage" of evolution. Evolution is based entirely on how well a given species has adapted to their current environment. It doesn't mean that they will be objectively better at fighting than a "less evolved" species, let alone when you consider the impact of technology.
Now, it's possible a species could gradually alter their overall biology by, for example, culling sick/defective individuals or maybe selecting for some desired trait (or with genetic engineering, if they have that technology). However, these would be eugenics, selective-breeding or genetic engineering - not evolution.
vipoid wrote: Now, it's possible a species could gradually alter their overall biology by, for example, culling sick/defective individuals or maybe selecting for some desired trait (or with genetic engineering, if they have that technology). However, these would be eugenics, selective-breeding or genetic engineering - not evolution.
Still the matter of changes happening between the several groups of Eldar, one of which is doing exotic things to their generation, is something to be recognized. While their generations are farther apart, the Exodites is dealing with pressures of a variety of planets, while the Craftworlders are basically in an otherwise stagnant environment, and Drukhari are always pushing genetic modification and chemical enhancements. Those types of things will tell across generations. They may not be notable for one unfamiliar with the groups, and I doubt we'd be looking at sufficient changes for them to be classified as different species, but the differences would be notable to each other at least.
In view of their boost, larger footslogging units would be an option.
Thoughts?
Kind of depends. I very occasionally try deepstriking maxed out squads of kabalites. Currently, you can get 4 darklight shots (5 counting a blast pistol) into a single squad that then has 15 ablative wounds that can each contribute a couple of poison shots. If Hunt From the Shadows remains unchanged, those ablative wounds could be rocking 2+ saves in cover, and they'll suddenly have twice the attacks in melee. So something like that might become more viable rather than purely being "cute." I probably wouldn't count on warriors to hug objectives in the backfield just because of a 4+ save though. They'd still have the same problems dire avengers do when they try that.
Wyldhunt wrote: Kind of depends. I very occasionally try deepstriking maxed out squads of kabalites. Currently, you can get 4 darklight shots (5 counting a blast pistol) into a single squad that then has 15 ablative wounds that can each contribute a couple of poison shots. If Hunt From the Shadows remains unchanged, those ablative wounds could be rocking 2+ saves in cover, and they'll suddenly have twice the attacks in melee. So something like that might become more viable rather than purely being "cute." I probably wouldn't count on warriors to hug objectives in the backfield just because of a 4+ save though. They'd still have the same problems dire avengers do when they try that.
At 8 points a go you would be getting quite a few more bodies than Dire Avengers.
I think it depends on special rules/synergies, will power from pain be changed (almost certainly) and so on.
If kabalites can be made into a half-way credible melee threat then I think masses of them could be interesting.
But then if they do have that melee ability, it raises questions for what Wyches/Wracks look like.
Insectum7 wrote: Screen the character, use indirect fire and/or Drop Pods to strike first?
Yes, that's what they do their second time playing Harlies.
I do think marines lists have to change to deal with the evolving threats. You'd think tremor shells ( DG ignores it, but still ) or suppression fire should be more popular given the way other lists look. Should be interesting to see once COVID is over.
I mean. . . that's sorta the name of the game, practically. Learn what the opposing armies can do and then build your lists with contingencies for it.
Karol wrote:They eldar, they are the same race. There is not enough time passed between the fall and the creation of the scar, to make either eldar group no longer considered the same race. They all have the same biology, and can inter breed. A space marine couldn't breed with a human even if he wanted to, which they seem to not want to.
10,000 years is more than enough time to create a new race. We have at least one new major race in the last 500 years here on Earth.
Eh?
The PC Master Race?
We come out with a new race pretty much any time we have a new underclass to hate on, it's like iphones. "70% native american and 30% european mixed together is a race now, we've just come out with it, very exciting, to be extra confusing we're going to also call this one 'latin' despite the fact that it's about as close geographically to the location of the last one we called latin as China is to the USA."
Wyldhunt wrote: Kind of depends. I very occasionally try deepstriking maxed out squads of kabalites. Currently, you can get 4 darklight shots (5 counting a blast pistol) into a single squad that then has 15 ablative wounds that can each contribute a couple of poison shots. If Hunt From the Shadows remains unchanged, those ablative wounds could be rocking 2+ saves in cover, and they'll suddenly have twice the attacks in melee. So something like that might become more viable rather than purely being "cute." I probably wouldn't count on warriors to hug objectives in the backfield just because of a 4+ save though. They'd still have the same problems dire avengers do when they try that.
At 8 points a go you would be getting quite a few more bodies than Dire Avengers.
I think it depends on special rules/synergies, will power from pain be changed (almost certainly) and so on.
If kabalites can be made into a half-way credible melee threat then I think masses of them could be interesting.
But then if they do have that melee ability, it raises questions for what Wyches/Wracks look like.
I'm guessing Wracks are going to be significantly less potent than they are now given their new 8ppm price tag. Would not be surprised to see covens lose their invuln saves.
Wyldhunt wrote: Kind of depends. I very occasionally try deepstriking maxed out squads of kabalites. Currently, you can get 4 darklight shots (5 counting a blast pistol) into a single squad that then has 15 ablative wounds that can each contribute a couple of poison shots. If Hunt From the Shadows remains unchanged, those ablative wounds could be rocking 2+ saves in cover, and they'll suddenly have twice the attacks in melee. So something like that might become more viable rather than purely being "cute." I probably wouldn't count on warriors to hug objectives in the backfield just because of a 4+ save though. They'd still have the same problems dire avengers do when they try that.
At 8 points a go you would be getting quite a few more bodies than Dire Avengers.
I think it depends on special rules/synergies, will power from pain be changed (almost certainly) and so on.
If kabalites can be made into a half-way credible melee threat then I think masses of them could be interesting.
But then if they do have that melee ability, it raises questions for what Wyches/Wracks look like.
I'm guessing Wracks are going to be significantly less potent than they are now given their new 8ppm price tag. Would not be surprised to see covens lose their invuln saves.
The problem with Wracks is that their damage output is almost none existent, their whole point is to be tougher than our other troops, take away their invulns and they'll be completely useless.
Wyldhunt wrote: Kind of depends. I very occasionally try deepstriking maxed out squads of kabalites. Currently, you can get 4 darklight shots (5 counting a blast pistol) into a single squad that then has 15 ablative wounds that can each contribute a couple of poison shots. If Hunt From the Shadows remains unchanged, those ablative wounds could be rocking 2+ saves in cover, and they'll suddenly have twice the attacks in melee. So something like that might become more viable rather than purely being "cute." I probably wouldn't count on warriors to hug objectives in the backfield just because of a 4+ save though. They'd still have the same problems dire avengers do when they try that.
At 8 points a go you would be getting quite a few more bodies than Dire Avengers.
I think it depends on special rules/synergies, will power from pain be changed (almost certainly) and so on.
If kabalites can be made into a half-way credible melee threat then I think masses of them could be interesting.
But then if they do have that melee ability, it raises questions for what Wyches/Wracks look like.
I'm guessing Wracks are going to be significantly less potent than they are now given their new 8ppm price tag. Would not be surprised to see covens lose their invuln saves.
The problem with Wracks is that their damage output is almost none existent, their whole point is to be tougher than our other troops, take away their invulns and they'll be completely useless.
I'm not saying I know, what I am saying is what I think they're going to do. if you made me guess based on the 8ppm price tag, I'd say:
-Invuln gone
-maybe a 5+ armor given kabs went to 4+
-A3 with poison as now
-8ppm
that would put wyches at A4 with the knife, dodge and no escape, kabs at A2, wracks at A3 with poison.
harlokin wrote: I think Wracks with 5++ will stay....but I doubt that Prophets of Flesh will still boost it to 4++
Pretty much this. I mean, I think there is a very small chance 4++ becomes the default save, but an all out bonus to invuln save from picking a sub-coven is gone considering the fact that it is just overwhelmingly better than other sub-faction bonuses.
Well that is interesting, but you guys in US use strange definition what a race is. Because here, where I go to school, humans still have one race. Not one new every 500y. Because if that was true, my country that has history of over 300y, would be populated by bucket loads of different races of humans.
The fall of the eldar happened in 30k. Thats 10 000 years of evolution that could happen.
Combine that with the stark differences between Eldar and Deldar and yes, evolution is very well possible.
Deldar lost their psychic abilties, Eldar are still a psychic race. Both were psychic 10k years ago.
There is more differences between Eldar and Deldar than between Humans and Space marines
DE didn't lose their psychic abilities. they just kill everyone who tries to use them, it is one of the few things they all agree on.
And ton of eldar didn't go through 10k years of evolution, because they were born before or just after the cataclysm. And DE on top of that breed through clone vats, so only the children of the children of true born could under go any form of evolution. This means were are talking about the top 10% of a nearly extinct race, having to breed with other members of their race who are also the top 10%, which itself is rare for DE, and then repeated multiple times, while living in a hellhole.
And there are no more difference between marines and humans, then DE an Eldar. DE and eldar, and harlis and exos can still have living children, that can have children themselfs. Marines, even if they wanted can not have children.
They are as different from the human race as navigators.
That is like expecting a new race to pop up in Liberia.
Wyldhunt wrote: Kind of depends. I very occasionally try deepstriking maxed out squads of kabalites. Currently, you can get 4 darklight shots (5 counting a blast pistol) into a single squad that then has 15 ablative wounds that can each contribute a couple of poison shots. If Hunt From the Shadows remains unchanged, those ablative wounds could be rocking 2+ saves in cover, and they'll suddenly have twice the attacks in melee. So something like that might become more viable rather than purely being "cute." I probably wouldn't count on warriors to hug objectives in the backfield just because of a 4+ save though. They'd still have the same problems dire avengers do when they try that.
At 8 points a go you would be getting quite a few more bodies than Dire Avengers.
I think it depends on special rules/synergies, will power from pain be changed (almost certainly) and so on.
If kabalites can be made into a half-way credible melee threat then I think masses of them could be interesting.
But then if they do have that melee ability, it raises questions for what Wyches/Wracks look like.
I'm guessing Wracks are going to be significantly less potent than they are now given their new 8ppm price tag. Would not be surprised to see covens lose their invuln saves.
The problem with Wracks is that their damage output is almost none existent, their whole point is to be tougher than our other troops, take away their invulns and they'll be completely useless.
I'm not saying I know, what I am saying is what I think they're going to do. if you made me guess based on the 8ppm price tag, I'd say:
-Invuln gone
-maybe a 5+ armor given kabs went to 4+
-A3 with poison as now
-8ppm
that would put wyches at A4 with the knife, dodge and no escape, kabs at A2, wracks at A3 with poison.
At the moment I don't trust the FAQ's points values as being related to the new codex.
harlokin wrote: I think Wracks with 5++ will stay....but I doubt that Prophets of Flesh will still boost it to 4++
Pretty much this. I mean, I think there is a very small chance 4++ becomes the default save, but an all out bonus to invuln save from picking a sub-coven is gone considering the fact that it is just overwhelmingly better than other sub-faction bonuses.
Honestly i'd love for coven to get a 4++ and Prophets to get a new obsession. Dark creed and Co12 were basically never taken because prophets was necessary to function (until DT happened).
DE didn't lose their psychic abilities. they just kill everyone who tries to use them, it is one of the few things they all agree on.
And ton of eldar didn't go through 10k years of evolution, because they were born before or just after the cataclysm. And DE on top of that breed through clone vats, so only the children of the children of true born could under go any form of evolution. This means were are talking about the top 10% of a nearly extinct race, having to breed with other members of their race who are also the top 10%, which itself is rare for DE, and then repeated multiple times, while living in a hellhole.
And there are no more difference between marines and humans, then DE an Eldar. DE and eldar, and harlis and exos can still have living children, that can have children themselfs. Marines, even if they wanted can not have children.
They are as different from the human race as navigators.
That is like expecting a new race to pop up in Liberia.
all of this is ignoring the fact that DE are all-in with genetic modifications and cloning. And if we take real world equivalent where African/Asian/Caucasian/etc are considered different races only because of slight differences in bone structure, skin color and culture, then yes, DE qualify as a different race.
Anyway, why were we arguing this in the first place?
Just moving on slightly, is anyone else a little edgy over just how little there has been teased / previewed so far?
The Drukhari codex should have been released already were it not for the delays, and so far we've had - what? One article dropping the Kabalite statline and the bit about venom cannons?
I mean, they've previewed the DoK endless spells, and Uriel Ventris on his own, more than they have DE so far... I'm sure there was an awful lot more released in advance for Death Guard in particular.
Just a little worried I guess that maybe GW aren't that excited by it, and does that mean it's been just phoned in...
Crispy78 wrote: Just moving on slightly, is anyone else a little edgy over just how little there has been teased / previewed so far?
The Drukhari codex should have been released already were it not for the delays, and so far we've had - what? One article dropping the Kabalite statline and the bit about venom cannons?
I mean, they've previewed the DoK endless spells, and Uriel Ventris on his own, more than they have DE so far... I'm sure there was an awful lot more released in advance for Death Guard in particular.
Just a little worried I guess that maybe GW aren't that excited by it, and does that mean it's been just phoned in...
We should start getting more previews pretty soon, what we got was just a taste since they still had the DA codex to release. Since its out, we're in elf season.
Crispy78 wrote: Just moving on slightly, is anyone else a little edgy over just how little there has been teased / previewed so far?
The Drukhari codex should have been released already were it not for the delays, and so far we've had - what? One article dropping the Kabalite statline and the bit about venom cannons?
I mean, they've previewed the DoK endless spells, and Uriel Ventris on his own, more than they have DE so far... I'm sure there was an awful lot more released in advance for Death Guard in particular.
Just a little worried I guess that maybe GW aren't that excited by it, and does that mean it's been just phoned in...
For the record, I'm with you.
But they have also previewed changes to Incubi and the DE vs. Sisters box set that has the new Lelith in it. We also know you'll be able to mix troops from all three sub-factions into the same detachment. That, plus the two you mentioned are all the previews I've seen or heard about.
Once I learned that Kill Team is the February 27th release, it eased my mind a bit, because it means the DE release won't be until March 13th. That puts us almost a full month away. I expect hype to start in earnest on March 1.
Crispy78 wrote: Just moving on slightly, is anyone else a little edgy over just how little there has been teased / previewed so far?
The Drukhari codex should have been released already were it not for the delays, and so far we've had - what? One article dropping the Kabalite statline and the bit about venom cannons?
I mean, they've previewed the DoK endless spells, and Uriel Ventris on his own, more than they have DE so far... I'm sure there was an awful lot more released in advance for Death Guard in particular.
Just a little worried I guess that maybe GW aren't that excited by it, and does that mean it's been just phoned in...
Death Guard were pushed back at very late notice, WarCom was left having to put out previews for a codex that was now a month away instead of a week, either that or not put anything out. Dark Angels had their previews as normal, in the week leading up to preorder and it'll be the same for Drukhari and every other faction.
Yeah, I’m assuming the codex is still 1-2 months away. Depending on if it comes before or after the Charadon-book.
But the reboxing of some of our units should give us some more info before the preview week, at least! (Not sure if stat lines out of context is the Best thing for my personal sanity, but beggars can’t be choosers!)
I suspect we will see Pre-Order announcement of the Codex on Sunday, followed by a week of preview articles, and then Pre-Order on 2/27.
As for Wracks, I wonder if GW will use all the design space they gave themselves by moving Marines to 2 Wounds and changing Disgustingly Resilient to -1 Damage? They could easily revamp the Covens units away from Invulnerable Saves and allow them to build three different resilience templates into the Drukhari army. Everyone has Power from Pain and 6+++, but they could then build off the basic units being something like:
ursvamp wrote: Yeah, I’m assuming the codex is still 1-2 months away.
Unlikely at this point. 2-3 weeks, maybe 4 at the outside stretch. (Barring even more logistical issues, but I suspect any new ones will be regionalized, whether its customs nonsense or weather).
Maybe 5 if you're looking for release date rather preorder date. The apparently small scale of this release works in favor of just kicking the book out the door and letting the special character catch up whenever. Hurrah for mixed blessings and silver (or lead) linings.
alextroy wrote: I suspect we will see Pre-Order announcement of the Codex on Sunday, followed by a week of preview articles, and then Pre-Order on 2/27.
As for Wracks, I wonder if GW will use all the design space they gave themselves by moving Marines to 2 Wounds and changing Disgustingly Resilient to -1 Damage? They could easily revamp the Covens units away from Invulnerable Saves and allow them to build three different resilience templates into the Drukhari army. Everyone has Power from Pain and 6+++, but they could then build off the basic units being something like:
Personally I could see 2W wracks and losing the PoF bonus of 4++ invuln. Maybe 5++ max and PoF does something else, PoF did steal the show almost entirely until DT got released in PA. Some rebalance to encourage the other options would be nice.
There are a couple things I think of when I read lieutenant.
First is a two-for-one slot.
Second is characters in the Elite slot.
I don't think either of those would be "bad" would it? I don't quite understand your position I guess.
Having the Succubus in the Elite slot would be awful. We've got few enough HQs as it is. The last thing we need is for one of them to be shoved into an Elite slot instead. And probably for no other reason than so Lelith can feel important, regardless of how crap her rules are.
As for a two-for-one, that's not bad in and of itself. However, it does rather imply that the Succubus is still going to be stuck as a piece of cheap(ish) garbage, who loses a duel against anything more intimidating than a IG Commander. And instead of fixing that particular issue, GW have instead decided to let you take 2 of them per HQ slot.
Succubus relegated to the now standard "lieutenant".
Sorry, I'm a little confused as to what this even means.
It doesn't make too much sense given the current system, but I suspect the intent is that the 'rumor' suggests a vague hierarchy:
Archon on top, and Succubus as a secondary roles. (As in, Archon = SM Captain, and Succubus= Lieutenant variants) But I don't really get how this would be a meaningful change.
Lts generally don't wander into the elite slot- thats more the fate of specialists like Apothecaries (or the ninety-eleven characters like GSC and DG have), so if anyone were to get bumped out of HQ, it would be Haemonculi.
Its probably something dumb like "thy shalt take only one Archon in a detachment because that 70 point model who hits like a 35 point Marine would be mad overpowered if you could take 3.
Whereas you can take all the Succubi/Haemonculus because yolo Archite Glaive/Scissorhands hype."
Really I'm not sure these are rumours so much as just words.
That would have less to do with balance, and far more with fluff. As I understand it, having multiple Archons in the same battlefield is almost unheard of, after all there is only one Archon per Kabal.
Tyran wrote: That would have less to do with balance, and far more with fluff. As I understand it, having multiple Archons in the same battlefield is almost unheard of, after all there is only one Archon per Kabal.
Cool, I guess we'll just a Dracon instead.
Oh wait, those were removed.
Well, at least we can fall back on an Incubi Lieutenant.
Oh. No, we don't have those either.
Er... good job we've got Scourge Princes, right?
Oh wait, no, those don't exist either.
Ah well, at least we can always take our trusty Mandrake Lord.
Oh, nope, there I go again imaging a reality in which GW actually gives a damn about Dark Eldar.
Tyran wrote: That would have less to do with balance, and far more with fluff. As I understand it, having multiple Archons in the same battlefield is almost unheard of, after all there is only one Archon per Kabal.
Of course, I'm suuuuure GW's main motivating factor is the 'fluff.'
Never mind that secondary Archons could be Dracons without GW even having to go to the effort of making them a datasheet.
In any case, the Kabal of The Black Heart does in fact have multiple Archons, who answer to 'Big V'.
Tyran wrote: That would have less to do with balance, and far more with fluff. As I understand it, having multiple Archons in the same battlefield is almost unheard of, after all there is only one Archon per Kabal.
Cool, I guess we'll just a Dracon instead.
Oh wait, those were removed.
Well, at least we can fall back on an Incubi Lieutenant.
Oh. No, we don't have those either.
Er... good job we've got Scourge Princes, right?
Oh wait, no, those don't exist either.
Ah well, at least we can always take our trusty Mandrake Lord.
Oh, nope, there I go again imaging a reality in which GW actually gives a damn about Dark Eldar.
If GW didn't give a damn, then Dark Eldar wouldn't be getting a codex.
petrov27 wrote: They give a small damn - gotta be something for Marines to shoot at afterall
"Sir we have completed the marine books and supplaments!"
"outstanding work"
"whats next ? We need an enemy for them to fight, and people are grumbling about us only caring about marines"
"what about those Dark eldar guys that used to be iconic baddies way back when I was a kid?"
"Sounds perfect sir. I will throw something together before lunch and have it on your desk in 5"
*proceeds to C&P 8E codex and then just edits it in 5 minutes to let it look legit so he can go back to making WDSM rules for his sones fav chapter*
petrov27 wrote: They give a small damn - gotta be something for Marines to shoot at afterall
"Sir we have completed the marine books and supplaments!"
"outstanding work"
"whats next ? We need an enemy for them to fight, and people are grumbling about us only caring about marines"
"what about those Dark eldar guys that used to be iconic baddies way back when I was a kid?"
"Sounds perfect sir. I will throw something together before lunch and have it on your desk in 5"
*proceeds to C&P 8E codex and then just edits it in 5 minutes to let it look legit so he can go back to making WDSM rules for his sones fav chapter*
That’s assuming they even remember DE are still a thing!
There are a couple things I think of when I read lieutenant.
First is a two-for-one slot.
Second is characters in the Elite slot.
I don't think either of those would be "bad" would it? I don't quite understand your position I guess.
It's all about the story: Cult or a Coven should have the power to rival a Kabal; if they don't, it really chips away at the intrigues that make Commorragh what it is. I would have been offended (and was) even if I though of lieutenant as merely being a lesser HQ- I hadn't even considered the possibility of Succubi or Haemonculai being reduced to Elites. That would be an atrocity.
Sure, Lelith and Urien get to keep their status as HQ, and so the Cult of Strife and the Prophets of the Flesh will still be actual armies, rather than the paid lackeys of some Archon schmuck, but for the rest of us... sorry about our luck.
Would mercs (Incubi, Scourges, Mandrakes) even stoop to accept payment from a Cult or a Kabal that didn't have an HQ choice? The loss of prestige...
Which is why I prefer to not panic about such a vague leak- I'm sure it's a communication error based on semantics. I've seen more people complain about the gradual gutting of our HQ choices than I have complaining about the raiding force rule; surely GW couldn't be foolish enough to solve the later by doubling down on the former.
It's all about the story: Cult or a Coven should have the power to rival a Kabal; if they don't, it really chips away at the intrigues that make Commorragh what it is.
I think there's also the question of why such a rule would be necessary in the first place.
What problem would we even be solving by making Cult and Coven secondary to Kabal?
If GW didn't give a damn, then Dark Eldar wouldn't be getting a codex.
Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V to milk money from DE players in a new edition does not count as "giving a damn".
It would be very blatant if they do that, as 9th edition codexes not only include tons of army wide rules, but the format and wording of datasheets and rules are considerably changed.
petrov27 wrote: They give a small damn - gotta be something for Marines to shoot at afterall
"Sir we have completed the marine books and supplaments!"
"outstanding work"
"whats next ? We need an enemy for them to fight, and people are grumbling about us only caring about marines"
"what about those Dark eldar guys that used to be iconic baddies way back when I was a kid?"
"Sounds perfect sir. I will throw something together before lunch and have it on your desk in 5"
*proceeds to C&P 8E codex and then just edits it in 5 minutes to let it look legit so he can go back to making WDSM rules for his sones fav chapter*
I think this has been an issue with 40K for decades. When the GW writers (as a whole) show clearly more investment and enthusiasm in writing for one faction (SM) over the others, this leads to unintended consequences such as unintended synergistic combinations of all the various special rules that creep in. Other factions either languish, being ignored, or get a sort of "phoned in" effort that because of the lack of enthusiasm by the writer, leads to being underpowered (or reliant on the handful of good things that actually do work in an otherwise dysfunctional list), or ironically overpowered due to their unfamiliarity with the faction leading to the creation of overpowered rules.
Iracundus wrote: I think this has been an issue with 40K for decades. When the GW writers (as a whole) show clearly more investment and enthusiasm in writing for one faction (SM) over the others, this leads to unintended consequences such as unintended synergistic combinations of all the various special rules that creep in. Other factions either languish, being ignored, or get a sort of "phoned in" effort that because of the lack of enthusiasm by the writer, leads to being underpowered (or reliant on the handful of good things that actually do work in an otherwise dysfunctional list), or ironically overpowered due to their unfamiliarity with the faction leading to the creation of overpowered rules.
There's certainly an element of this but you also need to recognize that some factions, and sub-factions, are easier to design for than others.
As examples:
-Tau are tough because they've traditionally been a very shooting-focused army that had a cool mobility feature (JSJ) that was frustrating to play against and was removed.
-Eldar, Dark Eldar, and GSC are tough because it's hard to make a balanced glass cannon army. You either end up with trash tier unplayable messes - current Eldar, DE, GSC - or overpowered unfun messes - Harlequins, GSC with turn one infiltrate, Eldar in most past editions - with very little room in between.
-Daemons are tough because it's difficult to balance an exclusive melee army where anything can DS. It's also tough to balance the gods against one another, as well as for play as mono-factions, while also considering mixed god lists.
It's not always that the designers hate a given faction it's mostly just that it can be hard to get things to feel cool while keeping the idea of the army distinct.
This all said DE losing unit entries is unforgivable. Many of the entries lost could be built with nothing more than an upgrade kit to and current models. I sincerely hope that this new codex adds a bunch of new HQs, restores True Born as troops, and tosses in a new surprise or two that make the fans of the BDSM elves jaws drop.
May have already said this: the thing I'm looking most forward to is the Crusade content, because there is no existing Crusade content that could be harmed by whatever it is that we get.
With everything but the Crusade content, there's a chance that it will get messed up. I'm optimistic- I like the dexes I have, and I like many of the bits I've seen from the dexes I don't have.
This is why I'm sure that Succubi and Haemonculai WILL retain HQ status.
I'm less certain that they will get the mixed detachment to work in such a way that it keeps everyone happy- that's a really tall order.
Here's hoping we get real information before the week of March 8th.
This is why I'm sure that Succubi and Haemonculai WILL retain HQ status.
I hope so. The real spectre haunting the DEHQ slot is something like the bizarre restriction Death Guard got saddled with where you get _1_ Lord(of whatever type) or DaemonPrince, and the only thing to do is spam sorcerers in the other required (or optional) slots. Just... wtf?
It seems really clear that there won't be anything else for the army, so any weirdness in this vein is going to be very noticeable.
It seems really clear that there won't be anything else for the army
You are most likely right about that, but I am holding on to a bit of hope. If we're looking at a March 13th preorder, there is a real chance they've held something back.
At the very least, it seems that every army that doesn't have a fortification is getting one; admittedly, the realspace raid concept sort of negates the idea of DE fortifications, unless they do a dark mirror to the CW webway portal (you know, portal... only with blades). Kinda neat for a custom narrative scenario... Enter a portal on a Craftworld, exit into Commorragh, or vice versa.
Hoping for a unit. 8th gave us a character and a unit. We know 9th is giving us a character, but there should be a unit.
It seems really clear that there won't be anything else for the army
You are most likely right about that, but I am holding on to a bit of hope. If we're looking at a March 13th preorder, there is a real chance they've held something back.
Keep in mind this book was delayed. There's nothing in the months of glimpses, rumour engines, preview videos or anything else other than the Lelith remake v3, and she first started popping into view way back in October (unless some of her rumor engine bits were even earlier). Nothing. Not even a 'is this possibly a dark eldar bit in the corner of this screenshot.'
The few previews they've done are changes to a couple unit profiles, spread out over months (incubi were back in November, iirc). That's starting out by scraping the bottom of the barrel.
At the very least, it seems that every army that doesn't have a fortification is getting one; admittedly, the realspace raid concept sort of negates the idea of DE fortifications, unless they do a dark mirror to the CW webway portal (you know, portal... only with blades). Kinda neat for a custom narrative scenario... Enter a portal on a Craftworld, exit into Commorragh, or vice versa.
The webway portal is already in the Dark eldar section of the webstore. I honestly thought they had it already.
Hoping for a unit. 8th gave us a character and a unit. We know 9th is giving us a character, but there should be a unit.
8th redid a character and a unit for a Ynnarri tie-in story that still hasn't gone anywhere. The redone character is the sum total. 'Should' is just an empty word.
The only thing that will make this release look bigger is reboxing.
And keep in mind, Lelith isn't coming with the Codex. She's going to be trapped in the DE vs Sisters boxed set for a while.
If there were a unit coming, they'd also be in that box, rather than the alternate 'Start Collecting' force they've shown off (Lels instead of Succubus, Scourges instead of Reavers, and then the standard 10 wyches + venom they can't ride in.
-Eldar, Dark Eldar, and GSC are tough because it's hard to make a balanced glass cannon army. You either end up with trash tier unplayable messes - current Eldar, DE, GSC - or overpowered unfun messes - Harlequins, GSC with turn one infiltrate, Eldar in most past editions - with very little room in between.
Speaking for myself, what bothers me about the way DE has been handled is not the overall balance but the demonstrable lack of effort.
It's clear that no one who wrote the 8th edition book even played Dark Eldar. If they did, they'd have immediately seen the fundamental flaw in squad sizes being 5-10, and transports also being capacity 5-10, with neither having an additional slot for an HQ model (and the HQs themselelves having 0 mobility options between them).
What ability should the Archon have to represent his tactical genius and cunning? Er... reroll 1s. Except that we'll make it really exciting by not allowing it to work on Coven units, Cult units, Incubi, Mandrakes, or Scourges. Also, in spite of Kabal's thing being open-topped transports, it won't work in, out of, or into open-topped transports.
So what about the Succubus? Er... reroll 1s in melee. And it doesn't work on Coven, Kabal, Incubi etc. etc.
Then you've got the weapons.
How about the Mindphase Gauntlet? Sounds quite interesting, right? Maybe it attacks an enemy's mind or even forces them to attack themselves.
Want to know what it does?
S:user AP0 D2
Someone wrote that. Someone had to look at it and think to themselves 'Yes, this is the perfect representation of this diabolical alien weapon.'
This is what gets me about the Dark Eldar codex. If they'd tried to make it flavourful but ended up making it underpowered, I could accept that. But instead, no effort at all has been put into it at all. There's just no creative spark, nor the slightest attempt to push the envelope. An envelope would move more if you put it in front of a glacier.
You can see this with the models, too. It's been over a decade now and we're still waiting for a single model that isn't just another remake (usually with a worse sculpt that the model it's replacing). We haven't even got back even a single one of the HQs we've lost over the years, nor any alternative. They maybe had an excuse when their production capacity was low, but not when they've spend the last 3 years vomiting Primaris Lieutenants from every orifice.
(To be clear, Canadian, this rant isn't directed at you. I'm just really fed up at this point.)
Keep in mind this book was delayed. There's nothing in the months of glimpses, rumour engines, preview videos or anything else other than the Lelith remake v3, and she first started popping into view way back in October (unless some of her rumor engine bits were even earlier). Nothing. Not even a 'is this possibly a dark eldar bit in the corner of this screenshot.'
The few previews they've done are changes to a couple unit profiles, spread out over months (incubi were back in November, iirc). That's starting out by scraping the bottom of the barrel.
It doesn't give you much hope for the codex being good, does it?
I'm reminded of Blood of the Phoenix, which was so devoid of content that most of the previews were just "another look at Drazhar/Incubi - this time from a slightly different angle!".
Voss wrote: The few previews they've done are changes to a couple unit profiles, spread out over months (incubi were back in November, iirc). That's starting out by scraping the bottom of the barrel.
No, they're not going to showcase a ton of army details. Those previews are for week of. The Dark Angels preview at the same time showed off a Crusade rule.
They previewed Lelith on Christmas and Incubi just before Thanksgiving. Then they dropped the Kabalites, because new datasheets were going into boxes.
-Eldar, Dark Eldar, and GSC are tough because it's hard to make a balanced glass cannon army. You either end up with trash tier unplayable messes - current Eldar, DE, GSC - or overpowered unfun messes - Harlequins, GSC with turn one infiltrate, Eldar in most past editions - with very little room in between.
Speaking for myself, what bothers me about the way DE has been handled is not the overall balance but the demonstrable lack of effort.
It's clear that no one who wrote the 8th edition book even played Dark Eldar. If they did, they'd have immediately seen the fundamental flaw in squad sizes being 5-10, and transports also being capacity 5-10, with neither having an additional slot for an HQ model (and the HQs themselelves having 0 mobility options between them).
What ability should the Archon have to represent his tactical genius and cunning? Er... reroll 1s. Except that we'll make it really exciting by not allowing it to work on Coven units, Cult units, Incubi, Mandrakes, or Scourges. Also, in spite of Kabal's thing being open-topped transports, it won't work in, out of, or into open-topped transports.
So what about the Succubus? Er... reroll 1s in melee. And it doesn't work on Coven, Kabal, Incubi etc. etc.
Then you've got the weapons.
How about the Mindphase Gauntlet? Sounds quite interesting, right? Maybe it attacks an enemy's mind or even forces them to attack themselves.
Want to know what it does?
S:user AP0 D2
Someone wrote that. Someone had to look at it and think to themselves 'Yes, this is the perfect representation of this diabolical alien weapon.'
This is what gets me about the Dark Eldar codex. If they'd tried to make it flavourful but ended up making it underpowered, I could accept that. But instead, no effort at all has been put into it at all. There's just no creative spark, nor the slightest attempt to push the envelope. An envelope would move more if you put it in front of a glacier.
Yes, I agree with you. That's an example of what I was getting at in my earlier post. If it were SM, most of the GW writers would no doubt be gushing over with different ideas on how to tweak it or add flavor to it in some way, even if it turned out underpowered. However if it comes to a faction they don't play or care about, the effort just dries up and they just phone it in, and when they can't think of anything else they just fiddle a bit with the raw stats, particularly Damage in 9th edition, or throw in a weak re-roll.
Cruddace's Tyranid Codex is a prime example of this minimum effort Codex.
This is what gets me about the Dark Eldar codex. If they'd tried to make it flavourful but ended up making it underpowered, I could accept that. But instead, no effort at all has been put into it at all. There's just no creative spark, nor the slightest attempt to push the envelope. An envelope would move more if you put it in front of a glacier.
Agree with you on a lot- transports and weapons 100%. And there were drawbacks to raiding force rules in both 8th and 9th.
But it absolutely is fluffy and does make sense that Wych Cults benefit from the auras of Wych Cult HQ's, that Covens benefit from the auras of Haemonculai and Kabals benefit from the auras of Archons.
Seriously. You're a wrack in the Prophets of the Flesh. The archon you happen to be raiding with says "Don't let the enemy take this hill."
Then Urien says "Go get me that delightful Ogryn... I want its flesh."
Who do you listen to? Give you a hint: it's never been the Archon (possible exception if the Archon is Vect). Because the Archon might be leading the raid, but if you are a Wrack in the Prophets, Urien owns you. Period. Every edition ever.
And just a thing about 8th and 9th in general: a leader's vast knowledge, experience and skills aren't represented by its aura abilities: they are represented by its aura abilities + its warlord trait + its augmentation strat(s) + any of the circumstantial strats it happens to use during the game.
And finally, while I freely admit that the raiding force rule wasn't perfect, it was UNIQUE and innovative and imaginative and it did make the army feel different than every other army.
But it absolutely is fluffy and does make sense that Wych Cults benefit from the auras of Wych Cult HQ's, that Covens benefit from the auras of Haemonculai and Kabals benefit from the auras of Archons.
Seriously. You're a wrack in the Prophets of the Flesh. The archon you happen to be raiding with says "Don't let the enemy take this hill."
Then Urien says "Go get me that delightful Ogryn... I want its flesh."
Who do you listen to? Give you a hint: it's never been the Archon (possible exception if the Archon is Vect). Because the Archon might be leading the raid, but if you are a Wrack in the Prophets, Urien owns you. Period. Every edition ever.
But you're talking about a dispute in command.
What if there isn't a Haemonculus on the raid? What if he's elsewhere, or if he wants the same hill, just for different reasons?
And finally, while I freely admit that the raiding force rule wasn't perfect, it was UNIQUE and innovative and imaginative and it did make the army feel different than every other army.
It wasn't unique. It was just a re-packaged version of the Coterie rule from the 7th edition Corsairs book.
Except without the features that made that particular detachment functional.
Sort of- but I think it's more accurate to say that I'm using a dispute in command to illustrate something that we have all known about the DE since they first appeared on the scene: that Archons are the leaders of Kabals, that Succubi are the leaders of Cults and Haemonculai are the leaders of Covens. Just because you want the ease and simplicity of all auras applying to all troops doesn't make it fluffy.
As for "What would the Wrack do in army without a Haemonculai," you won't like my answer, which is "Not be in that army." Because again, I don't care about winning, or balance or streamlining/ ease of use anywhere near as much as I care about stories, and never since the DE first appeared on the scene have I ever considered fielding a unit in a battle without its corresponding subfaction HQ. Your head cannon may allow you to believe it's fluffy enough, and I suppose I could come up with a narrative where it would be fluffy. But my personal head cannon sees that situation as an exception and not a rule, and I've thought of it that way since DE appeared on the scene.
To be clear... Not trying to get personal or be self righteous- if my tone is was a bit heavy handed, many apologies; I'm not saying your opinion is wrong- just that I disagree with it. Meaning that I hope the new Codex is flexible enough to let you play it your way and me to play it my way... Because I do think that both of us have valid points.
It wasn't unique. It was just a re-packaged version of the Coterie rule from the 7th edition Corsairs book.
Except without the features that made that particular detachment functional.
Cool- I was unaware of this, because even though I've played since rogue trader, I took a break for 6th and 7th. I'd still be on a break, except GW brought back the GSC and started treating Sisters like a real army, so I decided to vote with my wallet and let them know that those were good decisions.
I probably should have specified that I meant "Unique to the edition."
But thanks for letting me know there is a precedent from an earlier edition- I might see if I can download a copy of that Corsair book, because I'd like to se the features that made the rule work better for the Corsairs than it does for DE. I don't want to ask you go to a lot of hassle, but if it's a topic of interest, would you mind explaining those features a bit? Might be able to swing them into a house rule if GW doesn't do right by the DE in the new dex.
As for "What would the Wrack do in army without a Haemonculai," you won't like my answer, which is "Not be in that army." Because again, I don't care about winning, or balance or streamlining/ ease of use anywhere near as much as I care about stories, and never since the DE first appeared on the scene have I ever considered fielding a unit in a battle without its corresponding subfaction HQ. Your head cannon may allow you to believe it's fluffy enough, and I suppose I could come up with a narrative where it would be fluffy. But my personal head cannon sees that situation as an exception and not a rule, and I've thought of it that way since DE appeared on the scene.
Story wise wracks are routinely sent out by themselves (or part of a raiding force) to go do stuff for the homunculus who is too busy to go themselves and supervise...
Still can't figure out how multiquote works on Dakka, so:
@ Warmaster: Yes, Haemonculai do go out on their own to do their master's bidding... But they are still doing their master's bidding, which means it doesn't really makes sense for them to get the benefit of the Archon's command, because they aren't under the Archon's command.
But, of course, the Haemonculus' commandment could be "Do what this guy says." Like I said in the post you quoted, there are certain story situations where it makes sense and others where it doesn't.
Your observation does certainly point out the degree to which my own point of view really is head cannon as opposed to the default fluff. Thanks for the paradigm shift.
@Voss
Yep. Agree 100% with all of that too- an absolutely lock solid story reason for it to be appropriate for the Wracks to benefit from the Archon's command. This hammers the point home.
@both The key for me is always the "Everyone wins" solution. Absolutely, the codex should be written in such a way that it is possible for all of us to field an army that matches our head cannon. Because you guys are right- there will be many, many situations when it is appropriate for the story to go either way.
PenitentJake wrote: Sort of- but I think it's more accurate to say that I'm using a dispute in command to illustrate something that we have all known about the DE since they first appeared on the scene: that Archons are the leaders of Kabals, that Succubi are the leaders of Cults and Haemonculai are the leaders of Covens. Just because you want the ease and simplicity of all auras applying to all troops doesn't make it fluffy.
First off, Archons ate still usually the overall leaders of raids. They usually hire Coven and/or Cult units, not necessarily with accompanying Haemonculi or Succubi.
Second, what do these auras even represent?
If the Archon's aura represents his tactical expertise, is it really so strange that he'd be able to apply it by directing non-Kabal units under his command?
And Haemonculi augment pretty much everyone in the Dark City (so long as they can afford it and haven't offended the haemonculi). So there's absolutely no reason why he shouldn't be able to buff non-Coven units.
As for "What would the Wrack do in army without a Haemonculai," you won't like my answer, which is "Not be in that army." Because again, I don't care about winning, or balance or streamlining/ ease of use anywhere near as much as I care about stories, and never since the DE first appeared on the scene have I ever considered fielding a unit in a battle without its corresponding subfaction HQ. Your head cannon may allow you to believe it's fluffy enough, and I suppose I could come up with a narrative where it would be fluffy. But my personal head cannon sees that situation as an exception and not a rule, and I've thought of it that way since DE appeared on the scene.
Sorry but as others here have said, that simply isn't true.
Coven and Cult units can be (and frequently are) hired out to Archons to assist in their raids.
This idea that Coven units work exclusively in Coven-only raiding forces bears absolutely no resemblance to the fluff and is just pointlessly restrictive.
But thanks for letting me know there is a precedent from an earlier edition- I might see if I can download a copy of that Corsair book, because I'd like to se the features that made the rule work better for the Corsairs than it does for DE. I don't want to ask you go to a lot of hassle, but if it's a topic of interest, would you mind explaining those features a bit? Might be able to swing them into a house rule if GW doesn't do right by the DE in the new dex.
If you ever intend to play 7th, I cannot recommend the Corsairs book highly enough. IMO it basically functioned as Codex Dark Eldar: Good Version.
As for the Coterie rule, I'm happy to try and explain it in more detail:
Technically, it was called a Corsair Fleet Raiding Company (CFRC). I mention this because 'Coterie' is actually the name of the sub-detachments. The premise was very similar to the DE Realspace Raiders in that you had multiple detachments (the Coteries), almost identical to patrols (just with -1HQ slot and -1 HS slot). Each of these detachments effectively acted independently from the others (treating them only as Allies of Convenience - which generally stopped them sharing buffs and such).
So at a glance it seems almost identical to Realspace Raiders. However, there were a number of key differences:
- Detachments weren't limited (so you weren't restricting your ability to take allies or other detachments by taking a CFRC).
- The CFRC didn't require exactly 3 Coteries. Instead, it would work with 1-4.
- There was no restriction on which units you could take in an individual Coterie (unlike DE, where you're basically locked into Coven, Cult or Kabal). In other words, you were taking this detachment because you wanted to, not because you were forced you into it by restrictive army-building rules. You could just as easily take them in a standard FoC if you wanted.
- Corsairs had access to a very cheap HQ. The Corsair Baron was just 30pts base (and this in an edition where Archons could easily reach 150pts). Obviously you could spend points to tool him up, but even with a little wargear he was still a very cheap HQ (and if you were short of points, there was nothing to stop you just leaving him with just the base pistols). This made the multiple HQ requirement of the CFRC much less painful.
- In addition to the Coterie detachments, each CFRC had a Command Crew, comprising a single HQ and an optional Elite and LoW. The key point is that while all the different Coteries wouldn't work with each other, they would all work with the Command Crew. So any HQ in the Command Crew could affect any/all of the Coterie units with auras, psychic powers etc.
I don't know how well I'm explaining things. It's possible that it's the sort of thing you need to play for yourself to really understand. All I can really say is that it felt much more like a coherent army. Yes, it was split into multiple, competing gangs, but each of those was a complete mini-force in their own right and all were united under a single commander.
With DE, it feels much more like we're playing 3 separate armies with no synergy and no overall commander (in spite of one model allegedly being your Warlord). The reasons why a given commander can't buff a given unit feel arbitrary and it leads to a lot of situations that are both unfluffy and unfun.
You know the sad thing is if we didn't have that multi-faction BS our army would go up in strength considerably. A haemonculus boosting the toughness of bikers that already have the Toughness boost combat drug. Scourge with the range boost from obsidian rose so heat lances from DS are actually valid. Also in the case of Phoenix Rising imagine if Kabals could take dark technomancers for their dissie weapons on ravagers. Imagine if Covens could DS multiple units with the Kabal DS webway spam. Not to mention if beasts even had their sub-faction's trait like with Red Grief.
Sadly GW nerfs us even when they un-nerf us. We'll lower your points costs but we nerf most of your unit sizes so you can't have a unit of 10 grotesques or lots of beasts or anything. We'll get you all excited for Dark eldar by releasing re-vamped old units that didn't need it. Then we'll half ass it even more by giving you nothing for weeks even when it's one of the next releases. Instead we'll show new models for a bunch of older games and the ultramarine's other known special character company commander of which we probably have more ultramarines special characters than the entire dark eldar army now (sicarius, tigurius, uriel ventris, guilliman, calgar, some scout leader i think and god knows what else). I think we have about 4 Special characters. It's just an insult is all.
It's just pretty pathetic when you see GSC and Admech getting probably as many units as dark eldar in a fraction of the time as well as new units. GSC is currently super low tier but at least they get new units to enjoy. For Dark eldar it's mostly finally following through making units we were supposed to have in 5th edition. The only real thing we got since 5th in model form is Dark Scythes weapons and ossefactors and both of those suck now.
alextroy wrote: The preview was all Mortal Realms. No 40K content.
But my god was it amazing.
I'll take "Words that will not be said following the preview of the Dark Eldar codex" for 500, Alex.
Yeah after WHFB got trashed and has been gone for over 5 years (yes it's coming back but they post almost no content on it), dark eldar constantly being one of the red-headed step children of 40k and GW constantly laying blame at the hands of the customer for WHFB or toxic communities or whatever (instead of taking blame themselves or making the community good for everybody), poor game balance, poor treatment of competitive players, poor treatment of long term players and poor treatment of players of somewhat less popular factions and so on it's just hard to want to play GW games anymore.
I mean if i don't play space marines i get screwed. If i play one of the new flavor of the month factions like GSC, harlequins, ynnari or custodes then the likelihood is they either become low tier or GW stops caring about them. Every time GW tries to replicate the popularity of space marines with Space Marines but BETTER! they get attention but eventually get neglected like death watch, grey knights, chaos marines or custodes.
It's just so hard for me to want to play 40k anymore esp. with corona, the price hikes, the distance from my home to game and the infrequent times i can game.
Daedalus81 wrote: I guess things will be awkward if DE turn out good.
It’s not even necessarily the power of the codex.
If the codex is basically the same as right now, but they cut the price of everything in half, it’d stomp the competitive scene-because even if something is 150% of what it should be now, it’d be 75% of what it should be after halving.
But that wouldn’t be a GOOD codex. It’d be powerful, but bland and unfluffy.
Daedalus81 wrote: I guess things will be awkward if DE turn out good.
Not really.
The thing is Vipoid is going to be disappointed. You can probably guarantee that there won't be any new DE units. You also *almost certainly* know Archons etc won't get movement options that are not on the model. (Its not impossible there could be invisible wing upgrade, gain M14" - but it seems unlikely.)
Venoms will almost certainly still have a transport capacity of 5 and Raiders a transport capacity of 10.
But DE were up there as one of the top factions in the game after their codex dropped in 8th. You just didn't take Mindphase Gauntlets. You could just advance your movement 8+D6 Archon alongside 3 Ravagers/venoms and maybe two planes for two turns.
Ravagers of course basically made Primaris unplayable (they were not alone in this, but certainly a major cause). 9 Talos were solid too.
Only the Wych Cult wasn't awesome - and even they were probably "viable" on initial codex drop, its only as the edition's inevitable creep kicked in that their power went down and down.
All in all, I'm reasonably confident the power will be there. But if those issues above are the major gripe rather than probability of winning games, disappointment is almost inevitable.
Daedalus81 wrote: I guess things will be awkward if DE turn out good.
It’s not even necessarily the power of the codex.
If the codex is basically the same as right now, but they cut the price of everything in half, it’d stomp the competitive scene-because even if something is 150% of what it should be now, it’d be 75% of what it should be after halving.
But that wouldn’t be a GOOD codex. It’d be powerful, but bland and unfluffy.
Well, yea - my definition of good would be something that isn't just strong units, but fun units that you get excited to use.
The first Necron codex was phoned in sooo badly. Just bland as all get out. That was pretty early in the start of the edition and DE came right on their heels. I don't think GW really had a good direction yet. You can see it in how they worded rules - especially strats.
9th codexes seem to be consistent in really driving home the uniqueness of the army, so far.
Daedalus81 wrote: I guess things will be awkward if DE turn out good.
Not really.
The thing is Vipoid is going to be disappointed. You can probably guarantee that there won't be any new DE units. You also *almost certainly* know Archons etc won't get movement options that are not on the model. (Its not impossible there could be invisible wing upgrade, gain M14" - but it seems unlikely.)
Venoms will almost certainly still have a transport capacity of 5 and Raiders a transport capacity of 10.
<snip>
All in all, I'm reasonably confident the power will be there. But if those issues above are the major gripe rather than probability of winning games, disappointment is almost inevitable.
See, I'm not at all confident, given that the adjustments they've shown off demonstrate they don't have a clue what problems they're trying to solve.
'Hey, warriors ride on transports and shoot things'
'Great, lets give them a bonus attack and make their basic anti-infantry option Heavy!'
See, I'm not at all confident, given that the adjustments they've shown off demonstrate they don't have a clue what problems they're trying to solve.
'Hey, warriors ride on transports and shoot things'
'Great, lets give them a bonus attack and make their basic anti-infantry option Heavy!'
Objective control is the name of the game. Getting more durable Kabalites to objectives who can punch better isn't a bad thing. I don't think it is really out of scope for their race either, is it?
Though all Kabalite Warriors are expert combatants at close quarters, few have the influence needed to ensure regeneration in the lairs of the Haemonculi. As a result, Warriors frequently employ heavy weaponry that can slay the foe from afar.
See, I'm not at all confident, given that the adjustments they've shown off demonstrate they don't have a clue what problems they're trying to solve.
'Hey, warriors ride on transports and shoot things'
'Great, lets give them a bonus attack and make their basic anti-infantry option Heavy!'
Objective control is the name of the game. Getting more durable Kabalites to objectives who can punch better isn't a bad thing. I don't think it is really out of scope for their race either, is it?
Its out of their scope for the game as it currently works. S3 T3 models standing on objective and punching means jack and squat when they're getting a pile of attacks back (or first) that actually kill them.
It solves zero issues that currently plague the army.
alextroy wrote: The preview was all Mortal Realms. No 40K content.
Except Be'lakor, he IS 40K content. Make me wonder if his arrival in AoS will be at the same time of a new Daemons Codex, but that's neither topic of this thread nor was there a pattern in the past when new Daemons came out.
18" shredders are good news. Happy to see that, still on the fence with D6 shots as that swing can make them quite unreliable, generally prefer a flat number of shots. Isn't it great now that the shredder synergizes so well with our splinter cannon at 18" range? Oh wait... nevermind. Just another example of how braindead it was to make the SC heavy 3...
D3+3 damage on the DL is awesome, that's a level of reliability I'm excited to see from a single shot weapon. Now haywire blasters will be interesting to compare with cause currently I feel they just don't do enough damage to compare favourably against the new DL.
AP3 agoniser is cool. Interesting to note that unlike our splinter weapons which are poison but now have a Strength stat the agoniser still does not have one.
S2 splinter rifle... once again we don't know the whole picture but this really isn't looking good for our primary rifle. If these aren't improved in some way I'll greatly fear for the viability of our codex barring I'm sure one or two optimal builds that ignore a primary weapon mechanic of our army. And before anyone says it: No stratagems, specific obsessions, warlord traits or auras can't be used to fix an entire swathe of weapons shared across our entire army. It'll be nearly impossible to scale well (or at all) and will force very specific builds to leverage it. The mechanics of your core suite of primary battle rifles, pistols and a few specials needs to be able to stand on its own two feet first and foremost then allow traits and the like to modify it after that. Especially when dealing with an army like Drukhari who lack to survivability to trade blows with any of our opponents. We are glass, we need cannon to compete.
Since it seems splinter weaponry has been left unchanged and in my opinion made worse (SC looking at you) I fear greatly that the Codex writer has no idea what makes a Drukhari army properly tick and I'm pretty much fully expecting Raider capacity 10, Venom capacity 5 and completely unchanged HQ options may be our big revelations of the future.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: Interesting to note that unlike our splinter weapons which are poison but now have a Strength stat the agoniser still does not have one.
I think the little star means 'S: user', not 'S: -'
Inevitable_Faith wrote: Interesting to note that unlike our splinter weapons which are poison but now have a Strength stat the agoniser still does not have one.
I think the little star means 'S: user', not 'S: -'
Oh yeah I never even thought of that! Thanks for the insight Duskweaver.
Brutus_Apex wrote: It doesn't really matter to me if DE are bottom of the barrel, as long as they are fun to play and have lots of options.
Fluff and options are the hallmarks of a good codex.
It will probably be the opposite. Hyper competitive unit spam...the worst.
I agree.
IMO the worst case scenario is "hyper competitive unit spam" consisting of resilient objective holders. You lose the whole design philospy of the the faction.
vipoid wrote: I can't help but think that we're being pushed to ignore infantry and spam vehicles, since apparently DE infantry just aren't allowed good weapons.
Which is fantastic, as vehicle-spam is my most hated playstyle.
Brutus_Apex wrote: It doesn't really matter to me if DE are bottom of the barrel, as long as they are fun to play and have lots of options.
Fluff and options are the hallmarks of a good codex.
It will probably be the opposite. Hyper competitive unit spam...the worst.
Basically this.
I love how you ignored the good weapons just previewed on the Kabalite squad. I'm with you, DE need new models and HQ flexibility, but not sure why you're trotting this line out after the objectively great news about Dark Lances. You can take those on Infantry too!
vipoid wrote: I can't help but think that we're being pushed to ignore infantry and spam vehicles, since apparently DE infantry just aren't allowed good weapons.
Which is fantastic, as vehicle-spam is my most hated playstyle.
Brutus_Apex wrote: It doesn't really matter to me if DE are bottom of the barrel, as long as they are fun to play and have lots of options.
Fluff and options are the hallmarks of a good codex.
It will probably be the opposite. Hyper competitive unit spam...the worst.
Basically this.
I love how you ignored the good weapons just previewed on the Kabalite squad. I'm with you, DE need new models and HQ flexibility, but not sure why you're trotting this line out after the objectively great news about Dark Lances. You can take those on Infantry too!
Because, aside from the Shredder, the "good" weapons are also the Heavy weapons. i.e. the ones least useful for mobile Kabalites (and entirely unavailable to any Venom squads).
Meanwhile, the basic weapons, basic pistols, blasters, and blast pistols - i.e. the weapons used by infantry (rather than vehicles) - have received no improvements.
But sure, let's just ignore that fact and pretend that it's good game design for weapons that require you to get within 6" of an enemy to have a worse payoff than those that can be fired from 36" away.
Really happy to see the Dark Lance go to D3+3 damage, as I've said before this now makes it functionally better than the Disintegrator against all T6+ targets regardless of invulns, as it should be. The extra range on the Shredder is a nice surprise, a shame Trueborn aren't a thing anymore as you really needed to be able to take these in multiples per squad to offset the randum shots, will really help Scourge in finding a decent place to deepstrike to make use of them though. The extra AP on the Agoniser is cute but I think the Power Sword is still the better option with +1S, they're equal against T4, the Sword is better against T3 and worse against T5, but if you're fighting T5 units you're either about to die or trying to tie them up with little care for killing them.
Really hard to gage the changes to Wyches as their unique weapons all relied on special rules. The blade getting AP-1 is very nice but does it still give +1A or was that just incorporated into the main stat line. Doe Hydra Gauntles still reroll wounds (would be amazing now they're +2, -2), do you still get D3 extra attacks and reroll hits from the Razorflail and does the Shardnet still boost No Escape (is No Escape still a thing?)?
Imateria wrote: Really hard to gage the changes to Wyches as their unique weapons all relied on special rules. The blade getting AP-1 is very nice but does it still give +1A or was that just incorporated into the main stat line. Doe Hydra Gauntles still reroll wounds (would be amazing now they're +2, -2), do you still get D3 extra attacks and reroll hits from the Razorflail and does the Shardnet still boost No Escape (is No Escape still a thing?)?
Those are all good points.
Will also be interesting to see what Combat Drugs are like, too.
Voss wrote: Its out of their scope for the game as it currently works. S3 T3 models standing on objective and punching means jack and squat when they're getting a pile of attacks back (or first) that actually kill them.
It solves zero issues that currently plague the army.
If it came with a point increase I'd agree, but as it is likely free there is no downside to improving your effectiveness.
Daedalus81 wrote: If it came with a point increase I'd agree, but as it is likely free there is no downside to improving your effectiveness.
I mean, Kabalites already went up in points at the beginning of the edition. So it's possible they just got the increase before the benefit, if you see what I mean.
Voss wrote: Its out of their scope for the game as it currently works. S3 T3 models standing on objective and punching means jack and squat when they're getting a pile of attacks back (or first) that actually kill them.
It solves zero issues that currently plague the army.
If it came with a point increase I'd agree, but as it is likely free there is no downside to improving your effectiveness.
A benefit that doesn't actually help do your job, isn't actually an improvement. If you're throwing your warriors into close combat, you're doing it wrong.
They're the shooty guys, and they basically got no better at it, beyond the big guns nailing their feet to the floor.
Wyches, on the other hand, with a bonus attack and AP on their basic weapon (and lots of other stat changes that I can't bother to track) actually _are_ better at their jobs. There is a big, visible difference in how they changed the two units. Every basic wych with a basic weapon got a buff to do their job better. The warriors didn't.
Now if you don't mind, I think I hear Admiral Ackbar calling in the background. Something about a flap? Minding the gap? Something like that.
Meanwhile, the basic weapons, basic pistols, blasters, and blast pistols - i.e. the weapons used by infantry (rather than vehicles) - have received no improvements.
But sure, let's just ignore that fact and pretend that it's good game design for weapons that require you to get within 6" of an enemy to have a worse payoff than those that can be fired from 36" away.
The basics don't need upgrades. The blast pistol won't show the new melta rule on this sheet. You gotta chill out, man.
A benefit that doesn't actually help do your job, isn't actually an improvement. If you're throwing your warriors into close combat, you're doing it wrong.
They're the shooty guys, and they basically got no better at it, beyond the big guns nailing their feet to the floor.
Wyches, on the other hand, with a bonus attack and AP on their basic weapon (and lots of other stat changes that I can't bother to track) actually _are_ better at their jobs. There is a big, visible difference in how they changed the two units. Every basic wych with a basic weapon got a buff to do their job better. The warriors didn't.
Now if you don't mind, I think I hear Admiral Ackbar calling in the background. Something about a flap? Minding the gap? Something like that.
That's not how this edition works. You're not "throwing" them into combat. They're helping to hold objective and the enemy comes to them or they're running past in venoms for line breaker and better at absorbing that incidental damage better.
Galas wrote: Whats the problem with the splinter rifle? With the amount of T4 and T5 infantry in the game they are great weapons wounding both on 4+.
And I believe people undersells the relevance of meele attacks on shooting units.
I mean... don't people complaint about intercessors in meele? And they hit with basic S4 ap0 attacks.
Wounding Gravis on a 4+ is nice. But without any AP and at D1, they're no more effective than a Bolt Rifle shot per shot against them, and worse against T4 and especially T3 models.
And the difference is that Intercessors can, point for point, beat Orks and Genestealers in melee. Kabalites... Let me run the math. 80 points of Kabalites versus 80 points of Orks or 75 points of Stealers.
Spoiler:
Kabalites T1 21 attacks 14 hits 14/3 wounds 70/18 or 35/9 or just about 4 wounds against Orks 28/9 or about 3 wounds against Stealers
Orks T1 30 attacks 20 hits 40/3 wounds 20/3 failed saves or 6-7 dead Kabalites
Stealers T1 15 attacks 10 hits 15/3 wounds at AP-1, 5/3 at AP-3 30/6 or 5 plus 5/3 failed saves, for 6-7 dead Kabalites
Yeah, Kabalites get WRECKED in close combat by Orks or Genestealers. If they're a big enough squad, they can maybe kill enough Stealers to win, if they get the charge, but they'll be hurting, and the Genestealers are faster and can advance and charge.
If Intercessors were a fragile shooting unit, their melee wouldn't be as big a deal. But they're NOT fragile, so they can do real well in close combat as well. Plus their attacks go to AP-1 Turn Three or Four.
Galas wrote: Whats the problem with the splinter rifle? With the amount of T4 and T5 infantry in the game they are great weapons wounding both on 4+.
When poison was first introduced, Monstrous Creatures had - at most - 6 wounds. Most had just 4. 2+ armour saves on monsters were almost unheard of, with most relying on toughness for protection.
Back then, the Splinter Rifle was Rapid Fire S* AP5 Poison 4+
Now, monsters have doubled or even tripled in wounds, and far more of them have 2+ saves, FNP, and/or other defences. e.g. a Carnifex went from 4 wounds to 8. A Hive Tyrant went from 8 wounds to 12.
Meanwhile the Splinter Rifle is Rapid Fire S* AP- D1 Poison 4+.
Oh, and now most infantry in the game have had their wounds characteristic doubled. But that's okay because the Splinter Rifle has been compensated with a new profile:
Meanwhile the Splinter Rifle is Rapid Fire S2 AP- D1 Poison 4+.
Are you beginning to see the problem?
What's more, this is in an edition where toughness matters far less to begin with. It used to be that bolters needed 6s to wound T6-7, and couldn't wound T8 at all. Now, though, they can wound T6-7 on 5s - even against vehicles (which splinter weapons are stuck wounding on 6s). And this is in addition to bolters also being better against low-toughness troops.
In other words, the advantages Splinter Weapons had over conventional weapons have been drastically reduced, whilst monsters (the targets they used to be most effective agaisnt) have increased in durability to such an extent that splinter weapons just aren't effective or efficient against them.
"But," I hear you say "Bolters and other basic weapons haven't improved either."
This is true. The difference is that SMs, for example, get an absolute ton of other rules to increase the power of bolters. They have Doctrines, they have the abillity to double their shots if they didn't move, they have all manner of auras, psychic powers and other buffs.
Meanwhile, Dark Eldar have almost no buffs or force-multipliers to speak of. So while Bolters and such may be significantly stronger than they appear on paper, the Splinter Rifle is generally going to be every bit as crap as it looks.
And apparently the new codex has maintained this depressing trend.
But Kabalites should get wrecked by Orks and Genestealers in combat. Thats not where they belong.
They are a shooting unit that got an extra attack to fend off small time units that would try to come and shift them off of an objective.
Yes, they will die if a close combat unit comes and assaults them.
The extra attacks are more of a side-grade. They won't contribute to most games, but might make the difference in the odd battle.
Yes, the Splinter Rifle is pretty bad right now. But in total fairness we haven't seen what the new poisoned rules are. What kind of auras HQ's will bring, what Splinter Racks will do, what kind of Strats we will have or what changes will be made to Obsessions.
Brutus_Apex wrote: But Kabalites should get wrecked by Orks and Genestealers in combat. Thats not where they belong.
Agreed.
The issue is, Marines shouldn't win, point for point, against those units too. They should make a good showing for themselves (they're a generalist unit, after all) but they shouldn't be winning that fight.
Kabalites getting dunked on by melee specialists is fine.
Marines getting dunked on by those same units might be a lil' much, but they shouldn't WIN against them in their area of expertise.
Brutus_Apex wrote: Yes, the Splinter Rifle is pretty bad right now. But in total fairness we haven't seen what the new poisoned rules are. What kind of auras HQ's will bring, what Splinter Racks will do, what kind of Strats we will have or what changes will be made to Obsessions.
That's true. But I was merely arguing the point as to why the Splinter Rifle needs a buff of some kind. If it comes in the form of better Poison rules, improved army-wide rules or better HQ support, fine.
I'm just very wary of pinning my hopes on such things when I've seen nothing thus far to suggest we'll be getting anything of the sort.
This is true. The difference is that SMs, for example, get an absolute ton of other rules to increase the power of bolters. They have Doctrines, they have the abillity to double their shots if they didn't move, they have all manner of auras, psychic powers and other buffs.
Meanwhile, Dark Eldar have almost no buffs or force-multipliers to speak of. So while Bolters and such may be significantly stronger than they appear on paper, the Splinter Rifle is generally going to be every bit as crap as it looks.
And apparently the new codex has maintained this depressing trend.
Space Marines are also over twice the cost of the individual Dark Eldar troop. The Splinter rifle competes against the hot-shot lasgun and the Adepta Sororitas' bolter, not with the Space Marine bolter,
Obviously we'll have to see how the Codex pans out, but I would have thought armies like the various space elves should have gotten lots of mechanics based around denying obsec and enemy primary points to account for their own lack of it.
Turning off obsec is a cool ability concept, but it's not something that, in my opinion, armies like Space Marines or Necrons should get. They already play the primary very well, especially with the ability to get extra obsec themselves. They don't also need to turn off their opponents at the same time. That's a mechanic I'd expect in an army like Craftworlds or Drukhari, where narratively and gameplay-wise the army really shouldn't be focused on holding ground.
This isn't to say DE or CWE won't get their own abilities like that, but just from a design space perspective that's how I would have constructed them, rather than trying to turn these fast, elusive, fragile armies into ones that can defend objectives super well.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised to see several ways to improve poisoned weapons to make them wound on 3+ or give them D2 and I'm not only thinking stratagems. The basic profile doesn't mean that much in 9th edition.
Galas wrote: Whats the problem with the splinter rifle? With the amount of T4 and T5 infantry in the game they are great weapons wounding both on 4+.
And I believe people undersells the relevance of meele attacks on shooting units.
I mean... don't people complaint about intercessors in meele? And they hit with basic S4 ap0 attacks.
Wounding Gravis on a 4+ is nice. But without any AP and at D1, they're no more effective than a Bolt Rifle shot per shot against them, and worse against T4 and especially T3 models.
And the difference is that Intercessors can, point for point, beat Orks and Genestealers in melee.
Kabalites... Let me run the math. 80 points of Kabalites versus 80 points of Orks or 75 points of Stealers.
Spoiler:
Kabalites T1 21 attacks
14 hits
14/3 wounds
70/18 or 35/9 or just about 4 wounds against Orks
28/9 or about 3 wounds against Stealers
Orks T1 30 attacks
20 hits
40/3 wounds
20/3 failed saves or 6-7 dead Kabalites
Stealers T1 15 attacks
10 hits
15/3 wounds at AP-1, 5/3 at AP-3
30/6 or 5 plus 5/3 failed saves, for 6-7 dead Kabalites
Yeah, Kabalites get WRECKED in close combat by Orks or Genestealers. If they're a big enough squad, they can maybe kill enough Stealers to win, if they get the charge, but they'll be hurting, and the Genestealers are faster and can advance and charge.
If Intercessors were a fragile shooting unit, their melee wouldn't be as big a deal. But they're NOT fragile, so they can do real well in close combat as well. Plus their attacks go to AP-1 Turn Three or Four.
While I agree with everything you've said, can I just say how much I hate the way you display probabilities in fractions for a game that is based entirely on whole numbers where it's physically impossible to get a fraction an a dice, it makes my head hurt.
As for various other abilities that can be used to improve splinter fire, GW would have to go seriously out of there way to write rules for them to get around the fact that Drukhari are largely a mechanised army with infantry in transports and the game makes it verly clear it does not want interaction between the abilities of embarked units and other units on the field or vice versa. Powerful HQ auras and strats aren't worth much when half your army can't interact with them. Whilst it's entirely possible that GW will put the thought and effort in to making this work, the last 10 years worth of streamlining the army does not provide much hope.
Tyran wrote: Space Marines are also over twice the cost of the individual Dark Eldar troop. The Splinter rifle competes against the hot-shot lasgun and the Adepta Sororitas' bolter, not with the Space Marine bolter,
This really.
Its an 8 point troop's rifle. There's the usual argument that you might prefer a bolt gun although whether you'd get it for 8 points is unclear.
Shooting Intercessors.
2*2/3*1/2*1/3=0.22. *10=2.2 points. Divided by 8=27% return. Quite reasonable really before applying any buffs.
Shooting Orks.
2*2/3*1/2*5/6=0.55. *8=4.4 points. Divided by 8=55% return.
Shooting Plague Marines.
2*2/3*1/2*1/3=0.22*10.5=2.33 points. Divided by 8=29.16% return.
Shooting Guardsmen.
2*2/3*1/2*2/3=0.44. *5.5=2.44. Divided by 8=30.5% return.
The extra attack also means charging in is a reasonable choice if you want to claim an objective from lightish units.
I mean 10 kabalites would expect to inflict 10 wounds on Boys from shooting and charging, leaving the Nob there looking a bit nervous. Now you could say Boyz have issues, getting silly returns versus them doesn't prove much - but I'm not sure how much better an 8 point guy is meant to be.
T3 W1 eldar with a splinter rifle need more than a stat bump on a basic weapon to have a purpose in 9th edition. Not sure what people are expecting. The upside will be determined by the synergies of special rules, strats etc., not whether a S2 poisoned weapon is great against space marines.
And besides, my wraithguard/wraithlords fething hate your poisoned weapons, so again, tell me how weak they are?
Couple of things I'd like to see for Drukhari (without adding new units which I think is not happening at this stage, although I think we might see a Dracon statline...since it does not require a model. If Deathwing can get a Lt equivalent without a model, so can Drukhari).
Auras work within transports.
Increase in capacity of raider and venom by 1.
Vipoid is right, in short the durability of most units has increased 2 to 3 times over, 2 wounds marines are everywhere and more multi-wound elites keep popping up. I like this as it generally makes the scale of the game feel more right, marines should be able to absorb more damage than a guardsman after all. This is all before considering the boost to armour saves a lot of targets have and especially with the new cover rules boosting armour instead of a flat 4++ invuln as it used to we are seeing 2+ armour marines with 2 wounds reasonably often. Durabilty has far outpaced the old poison weapons ability to keep up with the game and as such a weapon that used to feel fine just feels more and more inadequate with each edition.
Meanwhile other basic rifles in most other armies just feel like they work. AP1 on gauss is good all the time against any target you shoot, S5 pulse weaponry wounds more reliably on everyone and can threaten tougher targets easier, hell it even wounds T8 tanks and monsters on 5+. Tau may have other problems but a S5 basic rifle isn't one of them. Marine bolters seem underwhelming on paper but with a swathe of rules such as bolter discipline and combat doctrines they can perform fine, not to mention it's on a platform that can take some hits and is generally going to be on the table longer, a Kabalite needs to do his damage fast because next round he's going to be dust in a crater. Hell I'd say a good comparison unit for Drukhari is a tempestus scion, 9 points, and I'm sure if given the option every Drukhari player would swap their splinter weaponry for AP2 S3 (S4 on the cannons) guns any day.
Kabalites are not guardsman or gaunts, cheap disposable chaff to throw to the meat grinder. They may be vat-born but they still are a semi-elite unit of ancient (by human standards) sadistic, space elves with advanced technology. Kabalites should be scary, they should have damage potential to offset their fragility and if anyone thinks that 8 points is too cheap for for that then fine lets bump up the points to match their lethality but for the love of Vect lets actually allow the murder elves to actually, you know, murder things.
On a side note: Splinter wracks, obsessions and HQ support should not be used to compensate for weak poison rules. Splinter wracks are on exactly one transport and if they are the only way to make poison work then foot Kabalites (or webway drop) will never be viable and splinter wracks won't help the vast swathe of other units in our army that use poison (hellions, reavers, wyches, venoms, talos, scourges). Obsessions to fix poison would shoehorn you in specific builds to leverage them and likely only help Kabals so it still doesn't fix the mechanic. Stratagems are non-scalable and only benefit one unit for one turn and once again only likely be useful on Kabalites since you wont waste it on wych pistols or reaver guns or maybe even hellions. Poison is too liberally used in our army on so many units that stratagem bandaids aren't viable. Stratagems fix also doesn't help MSU one lick. Also why should we have to pay CP to make our basic weapons function when other armies just, you know, work. HQ support also suffers from scaleability and how transport rules work. Not to mention coverage since we will have reavers pushed up and kabalites in middle or back with wyches also pushed up, our poison is too decentralized to properly leverage HQ auras.
Splinter weapons need to stand on their own as a viable standard weapon mechanic.
I mean, sure, at 8 points per Splinter Rifle body, they might be powerful. (Doubt it, unless there's some real good bonuses we don't know about yet.) But...
Daedalus81 wrote: I guess things will be awkward if DE turn out good.
It’s not even necessarily the power of the codex.
If the codex is basically the same as right now, but they cut the price of everything in half, it’d stomp the competitive scene-because even if something is 150% of what it should be now, it’d be 75% of what it should be after halving.
But that wouldn’t be a GOOD codex. It’d be powerful, but bland and unfluffy.
See what I wrote earlier. A Kabalite doesn't have to be as good as an ordinary Marine, but they shouldn't be 8 points to a Marine's 20. They're not Joe Schmoe Guardsmen. They're supernaturally fast space elves.
Galas wrote: Whats the problem with the splinter rifle? With the amount of T4 and T5 infantry in the game they are great weapons wounding both on 4+.
And I believe people undersells the relevance of meele attacks on shooting units.
I mean... don't people complaint about intercessors in meele? And they hit with basic S4 ap0 attacks.
Wounding Gravis on a 4+ is nice. But without any AP and at D1, they're no more effective than a Bolt Rifle shot per shot against them, and worse against T4 and especially T3 models.
You already forget you're getting 2-4 shots for two Kalabites compared to the one Intercessor?
Galas wrote: Whats the problem with the splinter rifle? With the amount of T4 and T5 infantry in the game they are great weapons wounding both on 4+.
And I believe people undersells the relevance of meele attacks on shooting units.
I mean... don't people complaint about intercessors in meele? And they hit with basic S4 ap0 attacks.
Wounding Gravis on a 4+ is nice. But without any AP and at D1, they're no more effective than a Bolt Rifle shot per shot against them, and worse against T4 and especially T3 models.
You already forget you're getting 2-4 shots for two Kalabites compared to the one Intercessor?
You did notice I explicitly said "Per shot", right? I know Kabalites are cheaper than Intercessors. You get five Kabalites per two Intercessors, assuming no upgrades.
And I don't like that. If Marines are 20 points, Kabalites should be 15 or so, and worth it.
JNAProductions wrote: And I don't like that. If Marines are 20 points, Kabalites should be 15 or so, and worth it.
That is just not a workable concept, because the only way you could conceivably do that is by giving them incredible guns. And then everyone would offset their extreme glass cannon nature by sticking them in venoms.
In 5th edition marines were 18 and kabalites were 9 - so almost exactly the same as it is now. Old marines picked up a wound and Kabalites picked up armor and an attack.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
vipoid wrote: Why would it have the new melta rule? It was never a melta weapon.
Sorry - let me rephrase. You won't see the bespoke rules here like with melta. So whether they stay 2 dice rr1 or something else is unknown.
JNAProductions wrote: And I don't like that. If Marines are 20 points, Kabalites should be 15 or so, and worth it.
That is just not a workable concept, because the only way you could conceivably do that is by giving them incredible guns. And then everyone would offset their extreme glass cannon nature by sticking them in venoms.
In 5th edition marines were 18 and kabalites were 9 - so almost exactly the same as it is now. Old marines picked up a wound and Kabalites picked up armor and an attack.
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vipoid wrote: Why would it have the new melta rule? It was never a melta weapon.
Sorry - let me rephrase. You won't see the bespoke rules here like with melta. So whether they stay 2 dice rr1 or something else is unknown.
Give them durability through evasion.
Give them abilities that restrict or hamper the foe without outright killing them.
Give them something interesting.
Daedalus81 wrote: Sorry - let me rephrase. You won't see the bespoke rules here like with melta. So whether they stay 2 dice rr1 or something else is unknown.
I wonder if you're familiar with the Blast Pistol's history?
It's spent most of its life being an outright inferior version of the Fusion/Inferno Pistol - having the same stats but without the Melta rule (or any other rule that would make up for it), and often being more expensive as an added insult.
I mean, I'd very much like for you to be right. I just hope you can understand why I'm not particularly hopeful at this point.
In 5th edition marines were 18 and kabalites were 9 - so almost exactly the same as it is now
16 points. They were 16 points in 5th edition. With a sarge tax of about 26 to make them 90 for 5 with an additional 16 per. Because 5th edition had plenty of taxes from the Sarge to boost things to make it so you'd want to buy out rather then more squads.
JNAProductions wrote: Give them durability through evasion.
Give them abilities that restrict or hamper the foe without outright killing them.
Give them something interesting.
Don't just make them cheap.
You haven't seen the faction rules, army stratagems, and unit rules yet, so it feels very early to be whining that they don't have anything going for them.
Heck, even without those things they seem like a solid unit at 8ppm. They get good returns against a lot of common target profiles, can be a credible melee threat on the charge, they're a very good baseline unit to build an army around, and doubly so now that the big gun on their transport got a massive buff. I could easily see a DE list built around warriors in raiders bringing lances while witches in Venoms pressure the mid-field.
One of the downsides of 40K is that they don't really have a defensive stat that shooting needs to overcome to work. Sure, there's Armor and Invul Saves, but that's something the owning player can use to negate the attack, not something the shooter has to beat, like Strength does with Toughness. This is something Initiative could have been converted to use, but that's water under the bridge right now. It will have to wait till they reset how the system works again like with 8th.
One of the downsides of 40K is that they don't really have a defensive stat that shooting needs to overcome to work. Sure, there's Armor and Invul Saves, but that's something the owning player can use to negate the attack, not something the shooter has to beat, like Strength does with Toughness. This is something Initiative could have been converted to use, but that's water under the bridge right now. It will have to wait till they reset how the system works again like with 8th.
40K 2nd edition did have something like that built in. Any shots at a target that had moved 10" got a -1 (and anything at like a model that had moved 20" got a -2) to-hit. This was in an era when humans had a Move of 4" (thus running 8") while Eldar had a Move of 5" (running 10" and just enough to get the -1).
Tyel wrote: You can't really argue with "I think Kabalites should be 15 points".
Okay. But they aren't. They won't be. That ship - if such ever existed - has sailed. In this case - unlike say Necrons it never even existed.
Yep. And the design space to shift them that way just doesn't exist either. They're t3, 1W and carry a pilow-gun- those things aren't going to change after the previews proving they haven't.
A huge pile of non-space marines are in the same boat, whether they have a 4++, a 5+, or slightly different pillow-guns, and they would _also_ need to be adjusted.
No amount of 'interesting' unspecified abilities is going to alter the fact that they're same basic GEQ troops with indifferent guns that are barely worth 8 points, let alone almost double that.
In 5th edition marines were 18 and kabalites were 9 - so almost exactly the same as it is now
16 points. They were 16 points in 5th edition. With a sarge tax of about 26 to make them 90 for 5 with an additional 16 per. Because 5th edition had plenty of taxes from the Sarge to boost things to make it so you'd want to buy out rather then more squads.
Yea, but effectively 18. 10 man would get you down to 17 ppm.
JNAProductions wrote: Give them durability through evasion.
Give them abilities that restrict or hamper the foe without outright killing them.
Give them something interesting.
Don't just make them cheap.
You haven't seen the faction rules, army stratagems, and unit rules yet, so it feels very early to be whining that they don't have anything going for them.
Heck, even without those things they seem like a solid unit at 8ppm. They get good returns against a lot of common target profiles, can be a credible melee threat on the charge, they're a very good baseline unit to build an army around, and doubly so now that the big gun on their transport got a massive buff. I could easily see a DE list built around warriors in raiders bringing lances while witches in Venoms pressure the mid-field.
They get good returns by being cheap.
They're not really a credible melee threat. They're (ignoring the Sarge's extra attack) 36 points per wound dealt to a GEQ. 108 points per wound dealt to a MEQ.
I'm not saying they're a bad unit, especially without knowing what else has changed. But given what GW has said in the community articles, and that they're likely still gonna be 8 PPM, they're not what I'd like them to be.
Tyel wrote:You can't really argue with "I think Kabalites should be 15 points".
Okay. But they aren't. They won't be. That ship - if such ever existed - has sailed. In this case - unlike say Necrons it never even existed.
*Shrug*
I'd like Kabalites and other Eldar to be similar in levels of badassery to Marines. Not quite as powerful, especially in durability, but a squad of 10 Marines shouldn't be fearless of a squad of 10 Kabalites.
I'd like Kabalites and other Eldar to be similar in levels of badassery to Marines. Not quite as powerful, especially in durability, but a squad of 10 Marines shouldn't be fearless of a squad of 10 Kabalites.
For every edition right up to this one, this has been true. Eldar elite warrior types, Aspects, Incubi, wyches, were all credible opponents to the marines, better in their speciality and worse at other things.
So it's not even about liking them to be that way, it's simply saying that the new rules should make them comparatively as good as they were in all other editions of the game.
Hellebore wrote: For every edition right up to this one, this has been true. Eldar elite warrior types, Aspects, Incubi, wyches, were all credible opponents to the marines, better in their speciality and worse at other things.
So it's not even about liking them to be that way, it's simply saying that the new rules should make them comparatively as good as they were in all other editions of the game.
Is it any wonder that Marine players hated editions where they paid a premium to be good at a bit of everything while other factions could pay less, cut out extra bits they didn't need, and then casually murder marines while costing less. Yeah, if you want those days back I'm not on board.
Hellebore wrote: For every edition right up to this one, this has been true. Eldar elite warrior types, Aspects, Incubi, wyches, were all credible opponents to the marines, better in their speciality and worse at other things.
So it's not even about liking them to be that way, it's simply saying that the new rules should make them comparatively as good as they were in all other editions of the game.
Is it any wonder that Marine players hated editions where they paid a premium to be good at a bit of everything while other factions could pay less, cut out extra bits they didn't need, and then casually murder marines while costing less. Yeah, if you want those days back I'm not on board.
I'm sure that the current situation is perfect for Marine players who adore their bolter porn.
However, Marines out-shooting Tau and out-meleeing Orks (just just on a per-model basis but even with equal points) is most certainly not the game I signed up for.
vipoid wrote: I'm sure that the current situation is perfect for Marine players who adore their bolter porn.
However, Marines out-shooting Tau and out-meleeing Orks (just just on a per-model basis but even with equal points) is most certainly not the game I signed up for.
Marines should just sit there being outshot, outfought, outranged, with fewer tricks, and that's fine because 'Shoot the fighty ones and fight the shooty ones' is the pinnacle of game design.
vipoid wrote: I'm sure that the current situation is perfect for Marine players who adore their bolter porn.
However, Marines out-shooting Tau and out-meleeing Orks (just just on a per-model basis but even with equal points) is most certainly not the game I signed up for.
Marines should just sit there being outshot, outfought, outranged, with fewer tricks, and that's fine because 'Shoot the fighty ones and fight the shooty ones' is the pinnacle of game design.
I haven't checked hive in months, glad to see you're still missing the point. /s
The concept is Jack of All Trades. A muhreeeen should outshoot, outtank, outthink and outskill an orc
A mehreeon should outtank and outshoot an eldar
a meryeen should outtank, outskill and outthink a tau
Is that not enough "out-x" for you? Or do you really want to tick all the boxes against all the other ( and more advanced ) alien races in the setting. lmao.
vipoid wrote: However, Marines out-shooting Tau and out-meleeing Orks (just just on a per-model basis but even with equal points) is most certainly not the game I signed up for.
Well, on a 1:1 basis, the Boyz were weaker, slower, and had a much worse armor Save, but one could bring a LOT more Boyz in to a scrum, even within the same unit. Fire Warriors were not as accurate without Markerlight support and their Armor wasn't as good, but they did Wound each other at the same rate, so long as other Marine gear isn't taken in to account. One could usually bring more Pulse Rifles than Marines, though, and start shooting Marines earlier, too.
vipoid wrote: I'm sure that the current situation is perfect for Marine players who adore their bolter porn.
However, Marines out-shooting Tau and out-meleeing Orks (just just on a per-model basis but even with equal points) is most certainly not the game I signed up for.
Marines should just sit there being outshot, outfought, outranged, with fewer tricks, and that's fine because 'Shoot the fighty ones and fight the shooty ones' is the pinnacle of game design.
Because Marines are better at everything than everyone else is the pinnacle of game design? Is this where you stand Canadian 5th? Cause you're sure making it sound that way.
Yes the idea of a generalist unit is that it can achieve its goals by using it's medium strength skills against the weakest skills of an enemy unit to shift a matchup back in its favour. There is nothing wrong inherently with this game design and it suits what GW seems to want marines to be. The fact that in past editions they have failed to make the generalist role work for marines is not a admonishment of this design but rather of GWs ability to balance marines properly. Now we are seeing the other side of this where marines as generalists do every role better than anyones specialty, they're still a generalist but simply punching well above their weight against matchups that they should have been struggling against. This is simply the other side of the coin for GWs inability to find the right middle-ground with marines.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: Because Marines are better at everything than everyone else is the pinnacle of game design? Is this where you stand Canadian 5th? Cause you're sure making it sound that way.
Yes the idea of a generalist unit is that it can achieve its goals by using it's medium strength skills against the weakest skills of an enemy unit to shift a matchup back in its favour. There is nothing wrong inherently with this game design and it suits what GW seems to want marines to be. The fact that in past editions they have failed to make the generalist role work for marines is not a admonishment of this design but rather of GWs ability to balance marines properly. Now we are seeing the other side of this where marines as generalists do every role better than anyones specialty, they're still a generalist but simply punching well above their weight against matchups that they should have been struggling against. This is simply the other side of the coin for GWs inability to find the right middle-ground with marines.
*leans in the microphone and whispers* Yeah, but it's always going to be that way. Designing a game as large as this is hard and GW is bad. Either find a new hobby or deal.
The problem is this line of thinking turns into a decades long debate on the roll of "Tactical Marines" in SM army lists in the context of evolving editions and metas. And for the most part its meaningless.
SM are not winning games today because of tactical marines or intercessors. So complaining about how Kabalites or Necron Warriors stack up to SM troops is a bit meaningless (especially when in the case of Necron warriors they stack up fine point for point, and Kabalites seem likely to do the same). The vast majority of games do not consist of 40 Intercessors and "outshooting" 90 Fire Warriors. Or out-punching 100 Boyz. And if they do it may be because those factions are weak and need help.
The idea of a generalist was that the unit should always be "okay". So a tactical squad with a flamer and missile launcher (yes) could shoot boyz, it could shoot other marines or yes it could throw krak missile at a vehicle. By today's standards this is incredibly stilted - but the comparison was say fire dragons, who would far more specialised. Point them at a predator and its happy days. Shoot them at some boyz and you may as well not have bothered. In practice however, GW has rarely followed this design philosophy through and players always quickly identify the break points.
On average the new Incubi, without any additional special rules (which are surely almost inevitable given every other codex release so far and 40k in general), will be getting 175% returns attacking Intercessors. So... yeah. I'm not sure I'd be that worried.
*leans in the microphone and whispers* Yeah, but it's always going to be that way. Designing a game as large as this is hard and GW is bad. Either find a new hobby or deal.
you sure sound like someone fun to play again... glad your not in my area
warmaster21 wrote: you sure sound like someone fun to play again... glad your not in my area
Were you 'fun' to play against when your army was OP or does the perception warp with the meta?
Tyel wrote: The problem is this line of thinking turns into a decades long debate on the roll of "Tactical Marines" in SM army lists in the context of evolving editions and metas. And for the most part its meaningless.
SM are not winning games today because of tactical marines or intercessors. So complaining about how Kabalites or Necron Warriors stack up to SM troops is a bit meaningless (especially when in the case of Necron warriors they stack up fine point for point, and Kabalites seem likely to do the same). The vast majority of games do not consist of 40 Intercessors and "outshooting" 90 Fire Warriors. Or out-punching 100 Boyz. And if they do it may be because those factions are weak and need help.
The idea of a generalist was that the unit should always be "okay". So a tactical squad with a flamer and missile launcher (yes) could shoot boyz, it could shoot other marines or yes it could throw krak missile at a vehicle. By today's standards this is incredibly stilted - but the comparison was say fire dragons, who would far more specialised. Point them at a predator and its happy days. Shoot them at some boyz and you may as well not have bothered. In practice however, GW has rarely followed this design philosophy through and players always quickly identify the break points.
On average the new Incubi, without any additional special rules (which are surely almost inevitable given every other codex release so far and 40k in general), will be getting 175% returns attacking Intercessors. So... yeah. I'm not sure I'd be that worried.
If I were in a more serious mood today, this is the kind of argument I'd make. Again.
vipoid wrote: I'm sure that the current situation is perfect for Marine players who adore their bolter porn.
However, Marines out-shooting Tau and out-meleeing Orks (just just on a per-model basis but even with equal points) is most certainly not the game I signed up for.
Marines should just sit there being outshot, outfought, outranged, with fewer tricks, and that's fine because 'Shoot the fighty ones and fight the shooty ones' is the pinnacle of game design.
Because Marines are better at everything than everyone else is the pinnacle of game design? Is this where you stand Canadian 5th? Cause you're sure making it sound that way.
Yes the idea of a generalist unit is that it can achieve its goals by using it's medium strength skills against the weakest skills of an enemy unit to shift a matchup back in its favour. There is nothing wrong inherently with this game design and it suits what GW seems to want marines to be. The fact that in past editions they have failed to make the generalist role work for marines is not a admonishment of this design but rather of GWs ability to balance marines properly. Now we are seeing the other side of this where marines as generalists do every role better than anyones specialty, they're still a generalist but simply punching well above their weight against matchups that they should have been struggling against. This is simply the other side of the coin for GWs inability to find the right middle-ground with marines.
Yes, if anything Marines' specialty is surviving long enough to make up for their slightly worse ability in other areas - they can survive incoming enemy fire to punch an enemy unit to death, or they can survive enemy melee long enough to move and gun them down.
but to do this, it's a balance between defence, ranged offense and melee and balanced by cost. So to reflect this, an intercessor/tac marine should be worse at melee, worse at shooting but good at survival. currently they're just good at all of them. Devastators should be bad at melee, good at survival and good at shooting, but currently they're also good at melee. Marines have specialists too.
It's basically a distribution chart between those 3 things. In pic attached the big blue circle is intercessors, meaning they have a large presence in all 3 zones, while specialist units in black and white are mostly just one thing.
GW have not balanced their cost vs their output, and also by making even the most base level marine unit this good, it either overpowers marine specialists, or makes them too expensive, or makes them suck by comparison.
Hellebore wrote: Yes, if anything Marines' specialty is surviving long enough to make up for their slightly worse ability in other areas - they can survive incoming enemy fire to punch an enemy unit to death, or they can survive enemy melee long enough to move and gun them down.
However in practice because marines are so much of the meta lists are designed to defeat their defenses and negate this advantage. See pretty much every edition ever including this one. Every discussion compares units to them and talks about how well they kill a PEQ or TEQ model. If you want marines toned down they need to not be the threat every meta builds to kill.
Hellebore wrote: Yes, if anything Marines' specialty is surviving long enough to make up for their slightly worse ability in other areas - they can survive incoming enemy fire to punch an enemy unit to death, or they can survive enemy melee long enough to move and gun them down.
However in practice because marines are so much of the meta lists are designed to defeat their defenses and negate this advantage. See pretty much every edition ever including this one. Every discussion compares units to them and talks about how well they kill a PEQ or TEQ model. If you want marines toned down they need to not be the threat every meta builds to kill.
Which could happen if Marines aren't every other release, and stop making up the majority of armies.
In previous editions, the "jack of all trades" thing was hindered by marines not actually being all that durable and by missions that basically just came down to trying to table the other guy until the end of the game. The game only really rewarded killing things (unless you were deathstar-durable), so any points spent not killing things efficiently were a hindrance. Now that marines are appreciably more durable and modern missions put more emphasis on progressive scoring, I could see the "tough generalists" gimmick working out.
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Regarding how elite drukhari should be, I actually don't hate them being cheap for the most part. I certainly wouldn't mind if every kabalite were only a stone's throw away from matching a marine's abilities, but I think keeping them cheap(ish) actually helps the overall feel of the army.
Currently, drukhari are numerous enough that you can sort of flood the board with them. By turn 3, you probably have floating boats in every quadrant of the table, and your opponent has probably killed several squads worth of nameless, sinister space elves. Basically, drukhari troops are good at being the bad guy ninjas that show up in numbers and get beaten down in droves. And to some extent, I actually kind of like that. We shouldn't feel like orks or guardsmen, but we should feel like we showed up in enough numbers to overwhelm and unnerv our prey.
I don't want drukhari to just be an "NPC faction" that exists to get beaten by imperials, but I do love how well they fill the role of love-to-hate-them moustache twirlers.
Maybe keep the rank and file cheap and humble, but let the squad leaders be little mini-bosses? A warrior is impressiev and all, but the sybarite that managed to keep his position for the last two centuries is even moreso. Maybe give the sybarites access to the special ammo and make agonizers something to worry about again.So in a given fight, your opponent can feel good about killing off your mooks, but then he's going to feel it when the guy that mattered hits him back.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: Because Marines are better at everything than everyone else is the pinnacle of game design? Is this where you stand Canadian 5th? Cause you're sure making it sound that way.
Yes the idea of a generalist unit is that it can achieve its goals by using it's medium strength skills against the weakest skills of an enemy unit to shift a matchup back in its favour. There is nothing wrong inherently with this game design and it suits what GW seems to want marines to be. The fact that in past editions they have failed to make the generalist role work for marines is not a admonishment of this design but rather of GWs ability to balance marines properly. Now we are seeing the other side of this where marines as generalists do every role better than anyones specialty, they're still a generalist but simply punching well above their weight against matchups that they should have been struggling against. This is simply the other side of the coin for GWs inability to find the right middle-ground with marines.
*leans in the microphone and whispers* Yeah, but it's always going to be that way. Designing a game as large as this is hard and GW is bad. Either find a new hobby or deal.
That is one of the most defeatist things I've ever heard. So if things are not good should we just always accept them and never expect or desire anything to be better? Do you take this stance in all things in life or just in the hobbies you presumably play to have fun with? I've played 40K since 4th edition. There has been highs and lows for each edition but one thing I can say for sure is this: 7th edition was an all-time low for me, and I played craftworld and drukhari back then. I had to specifically tailor my lists (for craftworld, drukhari were just hopeless) up or down to each opponent I had because the power difference between each codex was so wildly swingy. GW dropped the ball so hard there and made almost no effort to solve any of it in any meaningful way and it took a major shakeup and blowing it all up to start over with 8th to make things feel more right. I enjoyed 8th immensely and have been very grateful for the more communicative stance GW has taken as well as their willingness to address problems much faster so we don't get stuck in rut for years like we used to. This has caused some of its own problems but ultimately is the lesser of two evils in my opinion. 9th, despite some of its own issues, is probably my favourite edition to date (haven't gotten to play as much for obvious reasons but the matches I did play were fun and felt fairly balanced, right up until I was pitting my 8th edition dex to the shiny 9th editions ones that is).
All this to say that in my opinion GW indeed has improved over the years, they're still not perfect and never will be, but at least they are BETTER and as long as they keep striving to be better I'll be happy. It's not some dystopian future where you can't voice an opinion or express concerns over problems lest you get carted away by the corporate police, if GW messes up it should absolutely be spoken about and brought to their attention so they can work to fix it.
On your topic of people tailoring to fight marines: Of course we have to, they are the dominant force in the meta and the single army you are most likely to face. They're so strong right now that if you don't write your list with a plan to take on marines you are very likely going to have a very bad match. Marines are the #1 faction in terms of playerbase to boot so even if they aren't flavour of the month in the meta you are still likely to go head to head with them more often than not, it only makes sense to keep them in mind while list building. In early 8th they were so weak I doubt most people tailored to fight them, honestly almost any list you brought would have a chance against them but now that's changed, they need to be planned for or else you struggle. It's not just marines, it's the MEQ profile in general, it applies to DG and in time chaos as well (and custodes to a point as well), they all have a MEQ profile that we will have to plan for and deal with. Just because marines are insanely popular doesn't give the development team free reign to just make them bonkers powerful cause they have a target on their back, they can still strive for balance regardless of that. Also everything getting compared to MEQ makes sense, they are supposedly the generalist army of the game and as such deviation in to any other part of the design triangle posted above will move off their central point. They're also the poster boys of the game and make for an easy point of reference.
Call me crazy, but a game where you can field about twice as many Drukhari as Astartes sounds relatively accurate to the background. The Aeldari in general are much more dangerous than an average human, but they are no Astartes. So 5.5 point Guardsman, 8 point Kabalite Warrior, and 20 point Intercessor doesn't seem horribly bad.
A) Anything with a storm shield - because good assault combined with a 2+/4++ is incredibly solid.
B) Dreadnoughts - usually Redemptors, sometimes a Leviathan is thrown in.
C) Melta platforms. Attack Bikes probably preferred, although Eradicators and even bog standard MM toting Devastators can still work.
When you look a modern Marine list potentially as little as 300 points is going to your now standard T4/3+ 2 wounds troops. (I think 1 unit of Infiltrators is a must take, but YMMV.) They are not impacting the meta compared with the above three sections.
So it really doesn't matter if in a theoretical world, someone running nothing but intercessors would expect to be someone running nothing but kabalites. That's not how the game is played outside of some very niche garages. Its not a major feature of why SM are a good faction right now.
I feel like there has to be *something* we're not getting from the poison rule ATM, because otherwise the profile changes on the splinter weaponry just makes no sense.
There must be some reason why Cannons are S3 and Rifles and Pistols are S2. I suppose it's conceivable that they just put the base S value in there to make it more "intuitive" that they wound vehicles always on 6s, but it just hurts my brain that someone would bother making one S2 and one S3 if that were the case, it just seems like such an arbitrary change.
It could be that they're bringing back the old 'if your S = the toughness of the target, then the wound is re-rollable' thing, in which case Splinter Cannons would be better and Rifles unchanged, but it is an odd thing.
"Strength doubled vs non-vehicle target" would finally move splinter away from its now fairly stupid conceptual role as "ohhhh but you could just point it at a big ol' monsterous creature and wound it on a 4+ thats soooooo strooooooonk.....and then it makes a no-AP save....which is generally always a 2+ or 3+....and then it takes 1 of its 10 wounds....you could have just pointed a lance at it dummy...."
Kabalites having a gun that's basically a boltgun but it just wounds the targets you're not supposed to point it at on a 6 instead of a 5 would be perfectly A-OK in my book (given that compared to marines you get 2x as many of them for the points), and then you'd have splinter cannons as basically a slightly different but not strictly worse heavy bolter (better at killing GEQs and T5-T6 heavy infantry/light monsters, worse at killing light vehicles, equivalent vs meqs)
I think what is going to be interesting is how this new book is received/performs. I'm not familiar with Necrons to know how their book landed, and each other book so far has been power armour based. And as much as people don't like them, marines actually finally feel like they are portrayed in the fluff. I'm sorry that you don't think they should be destroying Orks in melee, but that's pretty much what I read all the time....now numbers, different story. Just take away the double shoot of the Erads like you did the Aggies and all good, but I don't want to make this a marine love/hate thread, too many of those.
The next series of books (barring Chaos) will showcase armies that are not marine based, and it's going to be interesting (and game defining) how they perform in this edition. Drukhari are the first on the list and they will show what GW thinks a T3 1W based force needs to win in 9th, so it's a pretty important book, even though I'm more of a craftworlder myself. I think it boils down to more than just Drukhari players being happy, it basically sheds light on how other non marine players can expect to play in this edition (hopefully not the NPC trope)
I'm pretty pleased with Wyches out of all this. +1A and AP-1 hekatarii blades mean that while they still can't fight astartes hyper longrange shooting specialists (what dedicated all-melee unit can though!) when equipped with a suitable anti-marine special weapon they can at least give MEQ something to think about and they absolutely carve up GEQ.
4A AP-1 is exactly enough for a full 10 wych squad to be able to basically overwhelm a standard 5-man 2 wound MEQ squad, which is just about where they need to be to be a useful semi-glass cannon unit that can pull some tricks with Dodge.
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bullyboy wrote: I think what is going to be interesting is how this new book is received/performs. I'm not familiar with Necrons to know how their book landed, and each other book so far has been power armour based. And as much as people don't like them, marines actually finally feel like they are portrayed in the fluff. I'm sorry that you don't think they should be destroying Orks in melee, but that's pretty much what I read all the time....now numbers, different story. Just take away the double shoot of the Erads like you did the Aggies and all good, but I don't want to make this a marine love/hate thread, too many of those.
The next series of books (barring Chaos) will showcase armies that are not marine based, and it's going to be interesting (and game defining) how they perform in this edition. Drukhari are the first on the list and they will show what GW thinks a T3 1W based force needs to win in 9th, so it's a pretty important book, even though I'm more of a craftworlder myself. I think it boils down to more than just Drukhari players being happy, it basically sheds light on how other non marine players can expect to play in this edition (hopefully not the NPC trope)
Necron players in my experience are pretty unimpressed. Mathematically, warriors and immortals are fine, but they're not representing what necron players in my area think they ought to be compared to the baseline of astartes. Chalk that up to the fact that, pound for pound, immortals are exactly identical durability-wise to baseline astartes vs almost every type of weapon. Vs the current durability-focused marine units - DA terminators, DW vets with storm shields, plague marines - nothing necron even comes close to holding a candle.
Theyve also got the same old problem they've had since their 5th ed redesign which is that they've got sooooooooooooo many units trying to do the exact same thing of being "beefy mid-T infantry with good save and RP with anti elite gun and no melee or with anti-elite melee and no gun." That ends up leaving holes in their roster that can really only be filled by 1 or 2 units that inevitably show up in every list or whole swathes of units that dont get used because there's one "best" for the category, like Wraiths were for the longest time the best all-melee-mid-strength-anti-elite category unit, so nobody used Flayed Ones Lychguard Praetorians etc.
If anything GW doubled down on that setup - the new walker thing is near-identical to the doomsday arc, the 2 new forms of destroyers are just "wraiths again, twice", the new hexmark looked at what deathmarks were doing and was like 'hey bro can i borrow that exact play pattern from you for a sec, you can have this bland generic sniper statline"
The most meaningful addition was something they had in the original 5e book - all the different types of cryptek. So while it's a nice add, it's more just something they get back than something that's really new.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm pretty pleased with Wyches out of all this. +1A and AP-1 hekatarii blades mean that while they still can't fight astartes hyper longrange shooting specialists (what dedicated all-melee unit can though!) when equipped with a suitable anti-marine special weapon they can at least give MEQ something to think about and they absolutely carve up GEQ.
Just a point but you might want to make sure Wyches still get +1A from their blades before celebrating.
It's possible GW just moved the extra attack from their blades to their statline.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm pretty pleased with Wyches out of all this. +1A and AP-1 hekatarii blades mean that while they still can't fight astartes hyper longrange shooting specialists (what dedicated all-melee unit can though!) when equipped with a suitable anti-marine special weapon they can at least give MEQ something to think about and they absolutely carve up GEQ.
Just a point but you might want to make sure Wyches still get +1A from their blades before celebrating.
It's possible GW just moved the extra attack from their blades to their statline.
True I suppose.Obviously, we don't know how the various special rules work.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm pretty pleased with Wyches out of all this. +1A and AP-1 hekatarii blades mean that while they still can't fight astartes hyper longrange shooting specialists (what dedicated all-melee unit can though!) when equipped with a suitable anti-marine special weapon they can at least give MEQ something to think about and they absolutely carve up GEQ.
4A AP-1 is exactly enough for a full 10 wych squad to be able to basically overwhelm a standard 5-man 2 wound MEQ squad, which is just about where they need to be to be a useful semi-glass cannon unit that can pull some tricks with Dodge.
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bullyboy wrote: I think what is going to be interesting is how this new book is received/performs. I'm not familiar with Necrons to know how their book landed, and each other book so far has been power armour based. And as much as people don't like them, marines actually finally feel like they are portrayed in the fluff. I'm sorry that you don't think they should be destroying Orks in melee, but that's pretty much what I read all the time....now numbers, different story. Just take away the double shoot of the Erads like you did the Aggies and all good, but I don't want to make this a marine love/hate thread, too many of those.
The next series of books (barring Chaos) will showcase armies that are not marine based, and it's going to be interesting (and game defining) how they perform in this edition. Drukhari are the first on the list and they will show what GW thinks a T3 1W based force needs to win in 9th, so it's a pretty important book, even though I'm more of a craftworlder myself. I think it boils down to more than just Drukhari players being happy, it basically sheds light on how other non marine players can expect to play in this edition (hopefully not the NPC trope)
Necron players in my experience are pretty unimpressed. Mathematically, warriors and immortals are fine, but they're not representing what necron players in my area think they ought to be compared to the baseline of astartes. Chalk that up to the fact that, pound for pound, immortals are exactly identical durability-wise to baseline astartes vs almost every type of weapon. Vs the current durability-focused marine units - DA terminators, DW vets with storm shields, plague marines - nothing necron even comes close to holding a candle.
Theyve also got the same old problem they've had since their 5th ed redesign which is that they've got sooooooooooooo many units trying to do the exact same thing of being "beefy mid-T infantry with good save and RP with anti elite gun and no melee or with anti-elite melee and no gun." That ends up leaving holes in their roster that can really only be filled by 1 or 2 units that inevitably show up in every list or whole swathes of units that dont get used because there's one "best" for the category, like Wraiths were for the longest time the best all-melee-mid-strength-anti-elite category unit, so nobody used Flayed Ones Lychguard Praetorians etc.
If anything GW doubled down on that setup - the new walker thing is near-identical to the doomsday arc, the 2 new forms of destroyers are just "wraiths again, twice", the new hexmark looked at what deathmarks were doing and was like 'hey bro can i borrow that exact play pattern from you for a sec, you can have this bland generic sniper statline"
The most meaningful addition was something they had in the original 5e book - all the different types of cryptek. So while it's a nice add, it's more just something they get back than something that's really new.
Too early to get excited about the Wyche profiles, as Vipoid said we don't no if the Heketarii blade keeps it's +1A or not, though Hydra Gauntlets going to +2, -2 is pretty tasty allround. This unit and it's weapons relies so heavily on it's abilities that we wont know if they're any good until we see the full rules for them, they've also been historically the most overcosted of our troops choices for what they do.
I also completely disagree with you on the Necron codex, despite some early gripping about Reanimation it has been very well received. The internal balance is actually pretty good with only a few outliers being notably bad (such as the Hexmark you mentioned) and most of them are Lords of War and are suffering more due to the rules regarding the super heavy detachments than their own stats (the Obelisk seems to be the only one unsalvagable). You mention all of their combat units but have missed that they all play pretty differently, with Lychguard either being a defencive screen unit for characters or a scalpel used to hit specific targets when buffed up (at their most buffed they can have 6 S9, AP-4, D2 attacks each hitting on 2's, rerolling 1's, though they are more likely to have 4 S8 attacks hitting on 2's), Praetorians are a good bully unit to be sent up the flanks and do damage without support, Wraiths are still used to tie up the midfield as usual, Skorpeks are more like shock troops and Ophydians are best for harrasing the backfield.
Honestly, though I haven't had much chance to play due to lockdown, Necrons look like the most fun army to play that I've had since Corsairs, certainly a lot more fun than the other Xenos armies have been through 8th and 9th, even Drukhari. In fact I'd say that was the biggest criticism of Drukhari, while the 8th ed codex was certainly strong, GW has streamlined the faction so much that hasn't really got any tricks left and even the 7th ed codex was more fun despite being weaker.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm pretty pleased with Wyches out of all this. +1A and AP-1 hekatarii blades mean that while they still can't fight astartes hyper longrange shooting specialists (what dedicated all-melee unit can though!) when equipped with a suitable anti-marine special weapon they can at least give MEQ something to think about and they absolutely carve up GEQ.
Just a point but you might want to make sure Wyches still get +1A from their blades before celebrating.
It's possible GW just moved the extra attack from their blades to their statline.
I'm trying to stay positive, but I suspect that is what this is.
I'm not saying your opinion is wrong or even not reflective of the overall necron player community - I'm just mentioning what I've heard said by the 3 necron players in my area.
Personally, I played the absolute gak out of the 8th drukhari book - possibly one of my favorite codexes in 8th overall for my various factions. The fact that my wych cults felt like by the end of 8th they had 4 distinct, meaningfully different, and in my area at least equally useful/viable army setups made them totally unique among my 40k armies where most often it felt like there was one 'right' choice of subfaction setups and all the best ways to build and use the units were the best ways with any subfaction. Really only my orks were the other army I play where I felt like I could goof around with various subfactions and like them for different reasons.
Throughout 8th I played my wyches as:
-Foot Horde/hellion and reaver horde with Cursed Blade
-Glass cannon with Test of skill/Slashing Impact
-Super high speed alpha strike with red grief
-Mechanized infantry focused with actually functional duellist HQs wtih Strife
It's 100% showing its age now, but from a purely gameplay standpoint I felt like I had far more options with my drukhari than I did throughout 7h ed as a whole. Most of my frustrations are just with core statlines and the various annoyances with the HQs.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm not saying your opinion is wrong or even not reflective of the overall necron player community - I'm just mentioning what I've heard said by the 3 necron players in my area.
Personally, I played the absolute gak out of the 8th drukhari book - possibly one of my favorite codexes in 8th overall for my various factions. The fact that my wych cults felt like by the end of 8th they had 4 distinct, meaningfully different, and in my area at least equally useful/viable army setups made them totally unique among my 40k armies where most often it felt like there was one 'right' choice of subfaction setups and all the best ways to build and use the units were the best ways with any subfaction. Really only my orks were the other army I play where I felt like I could goof around with various subfactions and like them for different reasons.
Throughout 8th I played my wyches as:
-Foot Horde/hellion and reaver horde with Cursed Blade
-Glass cannon with Test of skill/Slashing Impact
-Super high speed alpha strike with red grief
-Mechanized infantry focused with actually functional duellist HQs wtih Strife
It's 100% showing its age now, but from a purely gameplay standpoint I felt like I had far more options with my drukhari than I did throughout 7h ed as a whole. Most of my frustrations are just with core statlines and the various annoyances with the HQs.
Personally I never liked to run just 1 of the subfactions and felt incredibly hamstrung by the forced speration, I could never just slot in a unit of Reavers or Talos, I had to build entire detachments around them and usually being forced to take more units than I wanted. By the end of the edition my lists were all feeling samey and I was rather tired of the faction.
Personally I never liked to run just 1 of the subfactions and felt incredibly hamstrung by the forced speration, I could never just slot in a unit of Reavers or Talos, I had to build entire detachments around them and usually being forced to take more units than I wanted. By the end of the edition my lists were all feeling samey and I was rather tired of the faction.
I'm in the same boat.
In 7th, I could have a Grotesquerie with one set of Grotesques led by a Haemonculus and another by an Archon. Now, if I try to do the same, that Archon exists only for decoration.
I could have a unit of Wyches or Incubi led by a Haemonculus, who would boost their PfP as well as increasing their Ld. Now he's as helpful to those squads as a walking doorknob.
I could also mix it up with units - I could have an Archon as my HQ, leading Kabalite warriors in Venoms, backed up by three Reaver squads and a Talos. Now, if I want to do the same, I need to separate those into different detachments, add HQs to each and also troops or extra Heavy Support units to the Talos.
I just find it to be a lot of unintuitive faffing that makes list-building far limited and far more of a pain, whilst adding nothing positive in return.
Even if I'm primarily running just one subfaction, I still like retaining the option to add in a Haemonculus or a Talos or whatever. Maybe I have some extra points, maybe it's thematic for the list I'm running, maybe I just think it will be fun.
Necron players in my experience are pretty unimpressed. Mathematically, warriors and immortals are fine, but they're not representing what necron players in my area think they ought to be compared to the baseline of astartes. Chalk that up to the fact that, pound for pound, immortals are exactly identical durability-wise to baseline astartes vs almost every type of weapon. Vs the current durability-focused marine units - DA terminators, DW vets with storm shields, plague marines - nothing necron even comes close to holding a candle.
Theyve also got the same old problem they've had since their 5th ed redesign which is that they've got sooooooooooooo many units trying to do the exact same thing of being "beefy mid-T infantry with good save and RP with anti elite gun and no melee or with anti-elite melee and no gun." That ends up leaving holes in their roster that can really only be filled by 1 or 2 units that inevitably show up in every list or whole swathes of units that dont get used because there's one "best" for the category, like Wraiths were for the longest time the best all-melee-mid-strength-anti-elite category unit, so nobody used Flayed Ones Lychguard Praetorians etc.
If anything GW doubled down on that setup - the new walker thing is near-identical to the doomsday arc, the 2 new forms of destroyers are just "wraiths again, twice", the new hexmark looked at what deathmarks were doing and was like 'hey bro can i borrow that exact play pattern from you for a sec, you can have this bland generic sniper statline"
The most meaningful addition was something they had in the original 5e book - all the different types of cryptek. So while it's a nice add, it's more just something they get back than something that's really new.
I don't really agree with this assessment and the devil is in the details. Note - based solely on personal experience.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm pretty pleased with Wyches out of all this. +1A and AP-1 hekatarii blades mean that while they still can't fight astartes hyper longrange shooting specialists (what dedicated all-melee unit can though!) when equipped with a suitable anti-marine special weapon they can at least give MEQ something to think about and they absolutely carve up GEQ.
Just a point but you might want to make sure Wyches still get +1A from their blades before celebrating.
It's possible GW just moved the extra attack from their blades to their statline.
I think this is less likely (but not impossible) due to the Kabalite and Incubi +1A without other baggage.
I also completely disagree with you on the Necron codex, despite some early gripping about Reanimation it has been very well received. The internal balance is actually pretty good with only a few outliers being notably bad (such as the Hexmark you mentioned) and most of them are Lords of War and are suffering more due to the rules regarding the super heavy detachments than their own stats (the Obelisk seems to be the only one unsalvagable). You mention all of their combat units but have missed that they all play pretty differently, with Lychguard either being a defencive screen unit for characters or a scalpel used to hit specific targets when buffed up (at their most buffed they can have 6 S9, AP-4, D2 attacks each hitting on 2's, rerolling 1's, though they are more likely to have 4 S8 attacks hitting on 2's), Praetorians are a good bully unit to be sent up the flanks and do damage without support, Wraiths are still used to tie up the midfield as usual, Skorpeks are more like shock troops and Ophydians are best for harrasing the backfield.
I think DE are getting an extra attack to represent "stabbyness" - because someone at GW really wants them to be a stabby faction (see... PA) and with the existing rules they weren't really.
The trade off might be losing the 6+++. Not for any real reason - but it would arguably streamline the game, and has always been a bit of an odd ability for a supposedly glass cannon faction.
But really, DE have had power from pain and drugs to get where they are. They sort of need a new mechanic to stand up to combat doctrines, nurgle's gift, command protocols and whatever the Sister's rule is called for why they get moar buffs. Its interesting how little speculation I've seen on that - perhaps because no one believes DE can have nice things. Admittedly, perhaps that's just "you get 1 more attack, gg".
the_scotsman wrote: I'm pretty pleased with Wyches out of all this. +1A and AP-1 hekatarii blades mean that while they still can't fight astartes hyper longrange shooting specialists (what dedicated all-melee unit can though!) when equipped with a suitable anti-marine special weapon they can at least give MEQ something to think about and they absolutely carve up GEQ.
Just a point but you might want to make sure Wyches still get +1A from their blades before celebrating.
It's possible GW just moved the extra attack from their blades to their statline.
I think this is less likely (but not impossible) due to the Kabalite and Incubi +1A without other baggage.
Incubi did not gain an extra attack, they have been A3 since the start of 8th, they gained S and D on their swords. Remember that Death Guard had the +1 attack on the charge moved to their stat profile with their new codex, not exactly a like for like comparison but pretty close.
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Tyel wrote: I think DE are getting an extra attack to represent "stabbyness" - because someone at GW really wants them to be a stabby faction (see... PA) and with the existing rules they weren't really.
The trade off might be losing the 6+++. Not for any real reason - but it would arguably streamline the game, and has always been a bit of an odd ability for a supposedly glass cannon faction.
But really, DE have had power from pain and drugs to get where they are. They sort of need a new mechanic to stand up to combat doctrines, nurgle's gift, command protocols and whatever the Sister's rule is called for why they get moar buffs. Its interesting how little speculation I've seen on that - perhaps because no one believes DE can have nice things. Admittedly, perhaps that's just "you get 1 more attack, gg".
I'd say it was pretty much guaranteed they are going to get an army wide ability like Command Protocols, Contagions or Combat Doctrines, I just haven't for the life of me got any idea what it would be.
Incubi did not gain an extra attack, they have been A3 since the start of 8th, they gained S and D on their swords. Remember that Death Guard had the +1 attack on the charge moved to their stat profile with their new codex, not exactly a like for like comparison but pretty close.
And I think we're going to find they lost their deadly strike (or whatever their "Extra Damage on a 6" rule was called). The extra point of strength and damage is better, so I'm not going to complain if we lost it. But just thought it would be better for discussion if all the details were on the table.
Incubi did not gain an extra attack, they have been A3 since the start of 8th, they gained S and D on their swords. Remember that Death Guard had the +1 attack on the charge moved to their stat profile with their new codex, not exactly a like for like comparison but pretty close.
And I think we're going to find they lost their deadly strike (or whatever their "Extra Damage on a 6" rule was called). The extra point of strength and damage is better, so I'm not going to complain if we lost it. But just thought it would be better for discussion if all the details were on the table.
We'd actually have to have details to put on the table though, until then it's all speculation.
PenitentJake wrote: And I think we're going to find they lost their deadly strike (or whatever their "Extra Damage on a 6" rule was called). The extra point of strength and damage is better, so I'm not going to complain if we lost it. But just thought it would be better for discussion if all the details were on the table.
I agree, and have thought the same......mainly because Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics was a playtester for the 9e Drukhari codex, and he has been getting the Lethal Precision rule wrong in their recent 8e battle reports. So, either he's unfamilar with it cos it wasn't in the 9e document, or the stress of anticipation is turning me into a paranoid consipracy theorist. ......it's probably the latter tbh.
harlokin wrote: I agree, and have thought the same......mainly because Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics was playtester for 9e Drukhari codex, and he has been getting the Lethal Precision rule wrong in their recent 8e battle reports. So, either he's unfamilar with it cos it wasn't in the 9e document, or the stress of anticipation is turning me into a paranoid consipracy theorist. ......it's probably the latter tbh.
I guess that beats my take of "right so the new DE hotness is going to be 30 incubi and triple lance ravagers..."
I doubt they are going to keep the rule as it is - because 4 damage feels a bit silly. Could be nerfed to be +1 damage perhaps. Or made into a stratagem. Or who knows.
harlokin wrote: I agree, and have thought the same......mainly because Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics was playtester for 9e Drukhari codex, and he has been getting the Lethal Precision rule wrong in their recent 8e battle reports. So, either he's unfamilar with it cos it wasn't in the 9e document, or the stress of anticipation is turning me into a paranoid consipracy theorist. ......it's probably the latter tbh.
I guess that beats my take of "right so the new DE hotness is going to be 30 incubi and triple lance ravagers..."
I doubt they are going to keep the rule as it is - because 4 damage feels a bit silly. Could be nerfed to be +1 damage perhaps. Or made into a stratagem. Or who knows.
I will admit I am excited for my pink and white spirals and checker patterns alice in wonderland ravager to finally be maybe not the suboptimal build.
the_scotsman wrote: I will admit I am excited for my pink and white spirals and checker patterns alice in wonderland ravager to finally be maybe not the suboptimal build.
Actually most Necrons players I know, locally and online, are pretty happy overall with the book. A large amount of it is viable (a pretty shocking percentage for a GW Codex actually) and there's a handful of units that just need points drops before they could be viable and usable. The amount of truly bad, go-back-and-redo-the-datasheet models is actually pretty low and the army now has a few different ways to play along with various list archetypes. Compared to previous editions, 8th especially, it's night and fething day.
Not all of it is a success, the WLT's and Relics have a lot of misses in them, but I'd say in terms of power and fluff being represented well while also being an internally and externally balanced army, it's probably the best Necron book GW have ever written. It's certainly the first time they've managed to actually write functional and non-busted RP rules.
The only people unhappy with the book are people who were legitimately hoping for and betting on some Iron Hands level of brokenness so they could just faceroll through tourneys without having to get any neurons firing. I think there's also a few people who started the army midway through 8th and so built 8th ed style armies that are now not that great under the new rules. The vast majority of Necron players are actually just happy to get a book that is powerful but reasonable, fun and functional and also represents the lore and concept of the army pretty damn well.
If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate Ravagers?
Not at all. It's petty really, but it bugs me that the turrets on either side somehow preclude the boat from being able to carry troops. I much prefer the look of Reapers
If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate Ravagers?
Not at all. It's petty really, but it bugs me that the turrets on either side somehow preclude the boat from being able to carry troops. I much prefer the look of Reapers
Ah, I see.
And yeah, now that I come to think about it, that is a little strange.
If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate Ravagers?
Not at all. It's petty really, but it bugs me that the turrets on either side somehow preclude the boat from being able to carry troops. I much prefer the look of Reapers
Ah, I see.
And yeah, now that I come to think about it, that is a little strange.
They should be Falcons - 6 transport with extra guns.
They'd need to build something with a pretty large cannon or generators to take up enough space to prevent any passengers fitting.
If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate Ravagers?
Not at all. It's petty really, but it bugs me that the turrets on either side somehow preclude the boat from being able to carry troops. I much prefer the look of Reapers
Ah, I see.
And yeah, now that I come to think about it, that is a little strange.
They should be Falcons - 6 transport with extra guns.
They'd need to build something with a pretty large cannon or generators to take up enough space to prevent any passengers fitting.
Oh wow I like that idea, 6 capacity on a gunboat like the ravager sounds pretty decent. Hmm a raider with a large cannon and generator taking up most of the crew space... I'm wondering if we'd ever get to see a model like that made. Perhaps forge world might take a crack at it?
If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate Ravagers?
Not at all. It's petty really, but it bugs me that the turrets on either side somehow preclude the boat from being able to carry troops. I much prefer the look of Reapers
Ah, I see.
And yeah, now that I come to think about it, that is a little strange.
They should be Falcons - 6 transport with extra guns.
They'd need to build something with a pretty large cannon or generators to take up enough space to prevent any passengers fitting.
the_scotsman wrote: The whole srmy is like this. Well not pink and white, but multicolored and with lots of harlequin conversions.
Well that'll certainly show up amongst the typical grey ruins etc everyone uses.
Well, I also painted our terrain, so most of it is a little more colorful than gray (because the water and salt double layer spray technique is super OP for painting terrain pieces and making them look instantly cool) but yeah, mostly it does.
+1S, +1D (I still assume losing the bonus damage on a 6 thing), +1A. I guess his new higher point cost makes sense. I guess maybe the double blade thing is going away though?
If he still attacks twice, Drazar is even a pretty decent threat vs vehicles. 7 damage vs a standard vehicle defensive profile.
harlokin wrote: I thought the bonus attacks with Demiklaives was part of the Incubi reveal? Is so, he will likely have another couple of attacks.
yep, aand with guaranteed damage two and strength +1 that gives him an excellent anti-MEQ fighting mode.
...Also, I checkd other leaked datasheets and that is correct - grenade launchers, missile launchers, and plasma guns are all shown with only one profile on the assembly sheets.
+1S, +1D (I still assume losing the bonus damage on a 6 thing), +1A. I guess his new higher point cost makes sense. I guess maybe the double blade thing is going away though?
If he still attacks twice, Drazar is even a pretty decent threat vs vehicles. 7 damage vs a standard vehicle defensive profile.
+1S, +1D (I still assume losing the bonus damage on a 6 thing), +1A. I guess his new higher point cost makes sense. I guess maybe the double blade thing is going away though?
If he still attacks twice, Drazar is even a pretty decent threat vs vehicles. 7 damage vs a standard vehicle defensive profile.
I don't see why he should lose abilities. He will lose the +1 to wound to himself, as 9th ed HQs don't buff themselves, but I guess he's keeping the other stuff.
He went up 30 pts. But I guess we'll see in a couple weeks.
Denegaar wrote: He will lose the +1 to wound to himself, as 9th ed HQs don't buff themselves
Given that Ravagers almost certainly won't be Core and the only other thing Archons can meaningfully buff is themselves, I eagerly await their aura affecting bugger-all.
I don't see why he will lose his aura, it already has an INCUBI requirement. The CORE requirement has only been implemented on generalist auras that didn't have Keyword requirements.
Drazhar has a better stat line than a Primaris Captain! Well, he has a higher move and a better save, but otherwise matches the Primaris Captain. Not bad for a knife-ear.
Drazhar has a better stat line than a Primaris Captain! Well, he has a higher move and a better save, but otherwise matches the Primaris Captain. Not bad for a knife-ear.
Well, Phoenix Lords should utterly annhilate Space Marine Captains so much needed.
Drazhar has a better stat line than a Primaris Captain! Well, he has a higher move and a better save, but otherwise matches the Primaris Captain. Not bad for a knife-ear.
He matches him defensively, but currently offensively he absolutely obliterates him. 10A at S6 Ap-3 D3, or 14A S5 Ap-3 D2.
Drazhar has a better stat line than a Primaris Captain! Well, he has a higher move and a better save, but otherwise matches the Primaris Captain. Not bad for a knife-ear.
Right, a NAMED Dark Eldar character is better than an unnamed loyalist character.
Drazhar has a better stat line than a Primaris Captain! Well, he has a higher move and a better save, but otherwise matches the Primaris Captain. Not bad for a knife-ear.
He matches him defensively, but currently offensively he absolutely obliterates him. 10A at S6 Ap-3 D3, or 14A S5 Ap-3 D2.
Assuming they didn't just give him an extra attack and take away his special rule.... GW rarely seems to just buff non marine units without taking stuff away, but I'm happy to be wrong.
They could balance it with +3 attacks when charging, charged or intervention, as that's pretty much what A4 doubled is.
Drazhar has a better stat line than a Primaris Captain! Well, he has a higher move and a better save, but otherwise matches the Primaris Captain. Not bad for a knife-ear.
Right, a NAMED Dark Eldar character is better than an unnamed loyalist character.
Everyone! Celebrate!
Space Marines are the best and Primaris are the best of the best. Be thankful he isn't worst than a generic captain
Drazhar has a better stat line than a Primaris Captain! Well, he has a higher move and a better save, but otherwise matches the Primaris Captain. Not bad for a knife-ear.
He matches him defensively, but currently offensively he absolutely obliterates him. 10A at S6 Ap-3 D3, or 14A S5 Ap-3 D2.
Assuming they didn't just give him an extra attack and take away his special rule.... GW rarely seems to just buff non marine units without taking stuff away, but I'm happy to be wrong.
They could balance it with +3 attacks when charging, charged or intervention, as that's pretty much what A4 doubled is.
I mean I'm assuming the extra damage on a 6 wound is gone in exchange for...the extra damage that he's getting on all his stuff. Which is great tbh - I hate "thing on a 6" rules.
Hellebore wrote: I hope they keep his abilities so that the phoenix lords evoke that supernatural demigod immortal warrior trope a little harder than they used to.
I'm hoping that he's still got at least a 5++ and I'm hoping that is representative of the CWE phoenix lord profiles:
M7" WS2+ BS2+ S4 T4 W6 A5 Ld9 Sv2+
5++
Is the minimum I expect for them all to be viable.
With obvious mods based on their aspects etc - Asurmen would be +1A, Zar might have a better invulnerable in melee etc.
Given the ability on the shadow specter pheonix lord, which is a 4++ save entitled "Shadow Spectres Pheonix Lord" I'm guessing all Pheonix Lords and Equivalents will be rocking a 4++.
Imateria wrote: Venom profile is out in the wild now, only things to report is that it's A3 now and that Bladevanes are +1S instead of a set S4.
Well thats good news for Reavers. They can get +1s from multiple sources.
Definitely, though remains to be seen if Cursed Blade remains unchanged.
I need a macro to add a wallstreetbets style preface to every post relating to new rumors/leaks acknowledging that everything can change and it's all speculation based on available info and assumption that nothing else changes.
All the cron traits pretty much stayed the same, after all. And it's not like cb was really tearing it up.
Imateria wrote: Venom profile is out in the wild now, only things to report is that it's A3 now and that Bladevanes are +1S instead of a set S4.
Well thats good news for Reavers. They can get +1s from multiple sources.
Definitely, though remains to be seen if Cursed Blade remains unchanged.
I need a macro to add a wallstreetbets style preface to every post relating to new rumors/leaks acknowledging that everything can change and it's all speculation based on available info and assumption that nothing else changes.
All the cron traits pretty much stayed the same, after all. And it's not like cb was really tearing it up.
True, and to be honest Cursed Blade is one I would expect to stay roughly the same.
Imateria wrote: Venom profile is out in the wild now, only things to report is that it's A3 now and that Bladevanes are +1S instead of a set S4.
Well thats good news for Reavers. They can get +1s from multiple sources.
Definitely, though remains to be seen if Cursed Blade remains unchanged.
I need a macro to add a wallstreetbets style preface to every post relating to new rumors/leaks acknowledging that everything can change and it's all speculation based on available info and assumption that nothing else changes.
All the cron traits pretty much stayed the same, after all. And it's not like cb was really tearing it up.
I'd really like it if Poison Tongue was less garbage in the new book, but I won't get my hopes up.
I'd really like it if Poison Tongue was less garbage in the new book, but I won't get my hopes up.
They had a really cool redeploy stratagem, but I always felt that it should have been a generic Drukhari one.
Maybe I was just the God-King of Foresight but, in spite of exclusively playing Poison Tongue for most of 8th, I almost never used that stratagem.
I don't know, I usually just looked at the board after my opponent and I had finished deploying and generally couldn't see anything I wanted or needed to move (and given their speed, most of my stuff could just redeploy itself on Turn 1 anyway). Or if there was something I wanted to move, it wasn't a Poison Tongue unit. And apparently my Coven Haemonculus would rather take a Demolisher Cannon on the jaw than listen to my Archon.
In any case, the things I liked most about Poison Tongue was the artefact. I loved the idea of the Soul Seeker because I loved the idea of an Archon-Assassin, wielding a gun that no one could hide from. Makes me think of Rip Van Winkle's gun from Hellsing. Sadly, it didn't actually work out that way in practise (I think in my entire history, I managed to kill one guard Commander and one SM Lieutenant), but by God I tried to make that damn gun work.
I also quite liked Poison Tongue Lhamaeans, prior to their being nerfed into utter oblivion. I had a little suicide squad of them and they actually performed well in numerous games.
I'd really like it if Poison Tongue was less garbage in the new book, but I won't get my hopes up.
They had a really cool redeploy stratagem, but I always felt that it should have been a generic Drukhari one.
Maybe I was just the God-King of Foresight but, in spite of exclusively playing Poison Tongue for most of 8th, I almost never used that stratagem.
I don't know, I usually just looked at the board after my opponent and I had finished deploying and generally couldn't see anything I wanted or needed to move (and given their speed, most of my stuff could just redeploy itself on Turn 1 anyway). Or if there was something I wanted to move, it wasn't a Poison Tongue unit. And apparently my Coven Haemonculus would rather take a Demolisher Cannon on the jaw than listen to my Archon.
In any case, the things I liked most about Poison Tongue was the artefact. I loved the idea of the Soul Seeker because I loved the idea of an Archon-Assassin, wielding a gun that no one could hide from. Makes me think of Rip Van Winkle's gun from Hellsing. Sadly, it didn't actually work out that way in practise (I think in my entire history, I managed to kill one guard Commander and one SM Lieutenant), but by God I tried to make that damn gun work.
I also quite liked Poison Tongue Lhamaeans, prior to their being nerfed into utter oblivion. I had a little suicide squad of them and they actually performed well in numerous games.
That's really cool, I should have played something other than Flayed Skull.
I'd really like it if Poison Tongue was less garbage in the new book, but I won't get my hopes up.
They had a really cool redeploy stratagem, but I always felt that it should have been a generic Drukhari one.
Maybe I was just the God-King of Foresight but, in spite of exclusively playing Poison Tongue for most of 8th, I almost never used that stratagem.
I don't know, I usually just looked at the board after my opponent and I had finished deploying and generally couldn't see anything I wanted or needed to move (and given their speed, most of my stuff could just redeploy itself on Turn 1 anyway). Or if there was something I wanted to move, it wasn't a Poison Tongue unit. And apparently my Coven Haemonculus would rather take a Demolisher Cannon on the jaw than listen to my Archon.
In any case, the things I liked most about Poison Tongue was the artefact. I loved the idea of the Soul Seeker because I loved the idea of an Archon-Assassin, wielding a gun that no one could hide from. Makes me think of Rip Van Winkle's gun from Hellsing. Sadly, it didn't actually work out that way in practise (I think in my entire history, I managed to kill one guard Commander and one SM Lieutenant), but by God I tried to make that damn gun work.
I also quite liked Poison Tongue Lhamaeans, prior to their being nerfed into utter oblivion. I had a little suicide squad of them and they actually performed well in numerous games.
That's really cool, I should have played something other than Flayed Skull.
I played PT a few times and it always ended up feeling like the inferior version of Flayed Skull, I got a lot more out of FS, Black Heart and Obsidian Rose.
I'd really like it if Poison Tongue was less garbage in the new book, but I won't get my hopes up.
They had a really cool redeploy stratagem, but I always felt that it should have been a generic Drukhari one.
Maybe I was just the God-King of Foresight but, in spite of exclusively playing Poison Tongue for most of 8th, I almost never used that stratagem.
I don't know, I usually just looked at the board after my opponent and I had finished deploying and generally couldn't see anything I wanted or needed to move (and given their speed, most of my stuff could just redeploy itself on Turn 1 anyway). Or if there was something I wanted to move, it wasn't a Poison Tongue unit. And apparently my Coven Haemonculus would rather take a Demolisher Cannon on the jaw than listen to my Archon.
In any case, the things I liked most about Poison Tongue was the artefact. I loved the idea of the Soul Seeker because I loved the idea of an Archon-Assassin, wielding a gun that no one could hide from. Makes me think of Rip Van Winkle's gun from Hellsing. Sadly, it didn't actually work out that way in practise (I think in my entire history, I managed to kill one guard Commander and one SM Lieutenant), but by God I tried to make that damn gun work.
I also quite liked Poison Tongue Lhamaeans, prior to their being nerfed into utter oblivion. I had a little suicide squad of them and they actually performed well in numerous games.
That's really cool, I should have played something other than Flayed Skull.
I played PT a few times and it always ended up feeling like the inferior version of Flayed Skull, I got a lot more out of FS, Black Heart and Obsidian Rose.
Mechanically and competitively, I agree entirely.
I tried Flayed Skull in late-8th and it just felt like a vastly superior Poison Tongue.
That being said, when I consider the games I played, I actually can't think of many cases where the Flayed Skull bonuses would have made a substantial difference to the outcome.
I'd really like it if Poison Tongue was less garbage in the new book, but I won't get my hopes up.
They had a really cool redeploy stratagem, but I always felt that it should have been a generic Drukhari one.
Maybe I was just the God-King of Foresight but, in spite of exclusively playing Poison Tongue for most of 8th, I almost never used that stratagem.
I don't know, I usually just looked at the board after my opponent and I had finished deploying and generally couldn't see anything I wanted or needed to move (and given their speed, most of my stuff could just redeploy itself on Turn 1 anyway). Or if there was something I wanted to move, it wasn't a Poison Tongue unit. And apparently my Coven Haemonculus would rather take a Demolisher Cannon on the jaw than listen to my Archon.
In any case, the things I liked most about Poison Tongue was the artefact. I loved the idea of the Soul Seeker because I loved the idea of an Archon-Assassin, wielding a gun that no one could hide from. Makes me think of Rip Van Winkle's gun from Hellsing. Sadly, it didn't actually work out that way in practise (I think in my entire history, I managed to kill one guard Commander and one SM Lieutenant), but by God I tried to make that damn gun work.
I also quite liked Poison Tongue Lhamaeans, prior to their being nerfed into utter oblivion. I had a little suicide squad of them and they actually performed well in numerous games.
That's really cool, I should have played something other than Flayed Skull.
I have to say, I did like my PT list, even if the Archon-assassin tended to be a dismal failure.
The idea was to have him as my Warlord (with Soul Thirst to maintain the theme), and then a secondary Archon who'd go with 3 Lhamaeans as a suicide-squad. I'd often have some Cult units in the list as well, in which case the Succubus would join them.
The bulk of the list was Kabalites in Raiders/Venoms, plus a Ravager, some Mandrakes, and basically whatever else I felt like throwing in.
One of the core themes was that my points were as spread out as possible were absolutely no lynchpin units.
e.g. in spite of my desperation to make my Assassin-Archon actually work, he was in no way essential to my strategy (which was fortunate, under the circumstances). Similarly, even though I might have a Venom with Archon, Succubus and 3 Lhamaeans, they were never critical to my overall strategy. Though they actually did some pretty good work - taking down a Hive Tyrant, Cawl, even Rowboat himself. But it also meant that when their Venom went down and they were stranded far from any targets, it still wasn't a huge loss.
Aw man, I was hoping for more. I mean she's fine I guess, but she's the best pit fighter ever for gods sake. Make her attacks ignore invulns on 6s or something.
Extra attacks is fine, but like scotsman said, a bit boring honestly.
Edit: I remain hopeful though that she's going to have more cool rules in the codex.
So looks like the hair attacks and the +1 from her daggers have just been rolled in to her profile. Blades used to be AP -4 though, so that's a bit of a downgrade.
the_scotsman wrote: Well....this doesn't bode well for Combat Drugs still being a thing if they've changed Natural Perfection.
Which is a huge shame, CDs are one of the best aspects of drukhari and one of the few things that's legitimately interesting about them.
lelith seems perfectly functional if a bit boring. can't argue with 14 attacks, but she's just kind of a worse Drazar if he keeps the same rule.
I don't know, the old Natural Perfection ability just felt like a hand wave to get around the fact that she shouldn't have combat drugs, I much prefer this new version and it doesn't mean anything towards combat drugs themselves.
Really don't like the blades still being D1 or loosing a point of AP, as the preeminent gladiator of Commorragh she should be killing Space Marine Captains, not flailing aimlessly at them.
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Crispy78 wrote: So looks like the hair attacks and the +1 from her daggers have just been rolled in to her profile. Blades used to be AP -4 though, so that's a bit of a downgrade.
Edit - Oh, the +1 S is new...
I doubt it with regards to her hair, they were always separate attacks made with a different profile.
Crispy78 wrote: So looks like the hair attacks and the +1 from her daggers have just been rolled in to her profile. Blades used to be AP -4 though, so that's a bit of a downgrade.
Edit - Oh, the +1 S is new...
I doubt it with regards to her hair, they were always separate attacks made with a different profile.
Just seemed a coincidence that she used to be 4A + 1 for 2 daggers, + 2 for hair, and has now changed to 7A...
Crispy78 wrote: So looks like the hair attacks and the +1 from her daggers have just been rolled in to her profile. Blades used to be AP -4 though, so that's a bit of a downgrade.
Edit - Oh, the +1 S is new...
I doubt it with regards to her hair, they were always separate attacks made with a different profile.
Just seemed a coincidence that she used to be 4A + 1 for 2 daggers, + 2 for hair, and has now changed to 7A...
Maybe, or hopefully they've realised that keeping our dedicated combat characters to the same basic stats they've had since 3rd ed is stupid. I know, shouldn't get my hopes up....
It's a little odd that our premier duellist seems to now excel at chaff-clearing, but I guess SM characters aren't allowed to be threatened by lowly Xeno scum.
....so are we assuming she's losing A League Apart or something? because she absolutely dumpsters the feth out of most marine characters if she keeps A League Apart.
EDIT: Ah, I get it ,she only attacks twice if she kills something. yeah, that's disappointing. I guess the idea is, she does about 3 unsaved wounds on average vs 4++ MEQ, and survives most wargear configurations of marine HQs. So the assumption is in duelling situations she wins in 2 rounds, and in situations where you charge her into a squad of stuff or into weaker characters she gets to fight twice and doesn't get tied up.
Is there a limit to how many times a model is allowed to fight again?
Otherwise, my initial reaction was "Wait, is this an infinite fight again so long as she kills one model each time?" Then I figured that might actually be powerful so no way GW would allow xenos to have something like that.
Is there a limit to how many times a model is allowed to fight again?
Otherwise, my initial reaction was "Wait, is this an infinite fight again so long as she kills one model each time?" Then I figured that might actually be powerful so no way GW would allow xenos to have something like that.
It says any, so only 1 time
In my mind another good thing is that the blades ingnore ++ saver, but that would bhe too much overkill i guess
Because dark eldar have no fluff, she basically doesn't fight...anyone. ever. We have no idea how she compares to the various other 'duelist' fluff characters out there.
Because dark eldar have no fluff, she basically doesn't fight...anyone. ever. We have no idea how she compares to the various other 'duelist' fluff characters out there.
Shes a legend in the arena, a place where every kind of horror/warrior/prisoner fights
in the ynnari book she kills a carnifex easily while facing yvraine
Because dark eldar have no fluff, she basically doesn't fight...anyone. ever. We have no idea how she compares to the various other 'duelist' fluff characters out there.
Shes a legend in the arena, a place where every kind of horror/warrior/prisoner fights
in the ynnari book she kills a carnifex easily while facing yvraine
The problem is her rules in the past have always been better suited for blending redshirts and mooks rather than fighting other characters.
Because dark eldar have no fluff, she basically doesn't fight...anyone. ever. We have no idea how she compares to the various other 'duelist' fluff characters out there.
Shes a legend in the arena, a place where every kind of horror/warrior/prisoner fights
in the ynnari book she kills a carnifex easily while facing yvraine
The problem is her rules in the past have always been better suited for blending redshirts and mooks rather than fighting other characters.
Because ANY kind of xeno cant win vs the posterboys, we are the bag to punch when some marine wants to look cool
Rember when the avatar of the elven god of war got choked? i remember
Because dark eldar have no fluff, she basically doesn't fight...anyone. ever. We have no idea how she compares to the various other 'duelist' fluff characters out there.
Shes a legend in the arena, a place where every kind of horror/warrior/prisoner fights
in the ynnari book she kills a carnifex easily while facing yvraine
The problem is her rules in the past have always been better suited for blending redshirts and mooks rather than fighting other characters.
Plus fighting in an arena =/= able to fight on the battlefield
It is very likely there is more to her profile than we know, but it is overall disappointing. I like the idea of generating mortal wounds on a 6+ or 5+ to wound to show that she is deadly, even if her blows aren't thunderhammer/ork powerclaw/daemon fist level of powerful. It would better reflect her deadly grace.
If I were writing her rules, I would give her a bonus against multi-wound models as they lose wounds to reflect her gaining momentum, picking them apart for the crowd. Something like, if her opponent (non-vehicle) is at 50% or less wounds, her damage goes up to 2 or she generates mortal wounds. Something to show that she is toying with her prey before the killing blow.
I definitely agree that the invuln saves should be reduced in general.
Barely anyone did, honestly. It took a while to get used to them not being the same 
