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Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 00:19:16


Post by: Salt donkey


While the codex is still relatively new, it’s pretty apparent that the army is wildly OP . Currently sitting at a 58-18-2 or a 74% winrate (numbers stolen from a reddit post). That puts the codex at a tournament win % at around what ironhands were getting pre-any nerfs. No that’s not an exaggeration, iron hands had around a 77% win rate when their codex first dropped, meaning drukhari are only slightly worse than that book.

Some of the comes from them being a hard counter to SM (which for now make up a significant chunk of the meta) and some of that comes from armies having not adjusted to the way drukhari plays. That said it’s a lot harder to adjust to a 70% win rate army than a 60% army, because there are less weaknesses in a 70% win rate army.

So will GW nerf Drukhari. They probably should. Invalidating SM entirely might make some here on Dakka happy, but probably isn’t in the best interest of GWs $$$ line. Also many armies simply don’t have fun playing against DE. Maybe Tau like the matchup, but that by itself won’t fix that army.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 00:26:51


Post by: yukishiro1


The stupid bajillion attack Succubus will get nerfed in the FAQ, not even GW is silly enough to think that interaction is really ok. That may tone things down a bit.

After that, give it some time and things will probably balance out a bit. Or else the next codex will just be even more broken and everyone will forget about Drukhari because Ad Mech will be even more problematic.

If Drukhari really stay above 70% win rate obviously GW will do something about it sooner or later.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 00:30:05


Post by: Slayer-Fan123


yukishiro1 wrote:
The stupid bajillion attack Succubus will get nerfed in the FAQ, not even GW is silly enough to think that interaction is really ok.

This is the same rules team that gave us things like Scatterbikes, Castellans lasting several months longer than they should have, and the incredibly play tested Iron Hands supplement.

Trust me when I say they're grossly incompetent and nothing is shocking to me anymore. What IS shocking is people still defending them when we catch these rules Day 1 of release (and hell, even BEFORE release when we get leaks).


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:04:39


Post by: yukishiro1


I'm the last person to defend GW's "release it broke then let the community fix it" approach. That we expect them to release broken nonsense and consider it a victory if it's fixed within a month sorta says it all re: how low our collective expectations are.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:10:56


Post by: Daedalus81


yukishiro1 wrote:
The stupid bajillion attack Succubus will get nerfed in the FAQ, not even GW is silly enough to think that interaction is really ok. That may tone things down a bit.


In addition the reavers will be going to 20 points. I don't think this particular period is necessarily emblematic of the codex as those two things make for pretty wild lists.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:13:04


Post by: yukishiro1


Nobody's been actually playing with 10 point Reavers. At least I really hope no TO has been gutless enough to allow that...


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:13:44


Post by: Daedalus81


yukishiro1 wrote:
I'm the last person to defend GW's "release it broke then let the community fix it" approach. That we expect them to release broken nonsense and consider it a victory if it's fixed within a month sorta says it all re: how low our collective expectations are.


So, which things from DG, BA, DW, SW, Necrons have been hilariously OP?

Or is a single model with a specific setup really the only dead horse we're beating here?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote:
Nobody's been actually playing with 10 point Reavers. At least I really hope no TO has been gutless enough to allow that...


No idea. Research time.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:30:10


Post by: AnomanderRake


 Daedalus81 wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
I'm the last person to defend GW's "release it broke then let the community fix it" approach. That we expect them to release broken nonsense and consider it a victory if it's fixed within a month sorta says it all re: how low our collective expectations are.


So, which things from DG, BA, DW, SW, Necrons have been hilariously OP?...


"Broken" can also mean "wildly underpowered and pointless". Personally I'm of the opinion that playing Deathwatch is quite similar to playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics right now.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:33:50


Post by: Daedalus81


- Still nobody has provided me with a single streamed game where Space Marines beat Drukhari. Not one. Please show me, I'm waiting. There are plenty of new Drukhari games online.

- Here are BCP stats from the last week, my source is Art of War. Drukhari were 58 - 18 - 2. That's a 74% winrate.

- In that week 26 players took Drukhari. Of those, 13 went undefeated.


That's the post that the claim made. I just went through 4/11 to 4/17 and found no GTs. Of the 16 games I saw four DE in the top 10. Only one took first place with just two wins in a two round tournament.

I'll check this week and the week before that.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:34:26


Post by: Gadzilla666


yukishiro1 wrote:Nobody's been actually playing with 10 point Reavers. At least I really hope no TO has been gutless enough to allow that...

I would hope not, considering they already fixed that in the updated CA document.

AnomanderRake wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
I'm the last person to defend GW's "release it broke then let the community fix it" approach. That we expect them to release broken nonsense and consider it a victory if it's fixed within a month sorta says it all re: how low our collective expectations are.


So, which things from DG, BA, DW, SW, Necrons have been hilariously OP?...


"Broken" can also mean "wildly underpowered and pointless". Personally I'm of the opinion that playing Deathwatch is quite similar to playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics right now.

Sooo......Deathwatch are CSM now? Welcome aboard! Pick up your spikes to the left please.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:36:11


Post by: yukishiro1


That's not the correct use of the term "dead horse."

But if you really want to get into it...even in 9th edition alone, we had a bunch of badly thought out or proofread stuff in the core rules (remember Daemon Prince Super Friends?), and initial 9th edition points were a joke too. Then Space Marines had the hilariously stupid Apothecary rezzing Primario cart fiasco. And that's just off the top of my head.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:40:31


Post by: Daedalus81


Some 10 point reavers:

Reavers [14 PL, 145pts]: *Random x 2* (Combat Drug), 3x Grav-talon
. Arena Champion: Splinter Rifle
. 6x Reaver: 6x Bladevanes, 6x Splinter Pistol, 6x Splinter Rifle
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance


And some more:

Reavers [10 PL, 135pts]: *Random x 2* (Combat Drug), 3x Grav-talon
. Arena Champion: Splinter Rifle
. 5x Reaver: 5x Bladevanes, 5x Splinter Pistol, 5x Splinter Rifle
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance




Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote:
That's not the correct use of the term "dead horse."

But if you really want to get into it...even in 9th edition alone, we had a bunch of badly thought out or proofread stuff in the core rules (remember Daemon Prince Super Friends?), and initial 9th edition points were a joke too. Then Space Marines had the hilariously stupid Apothecary rezzing Primario cart fiasco. And that's just off the top of my head.


I expect you had to reach fairly deep for those, because those things didn't even impact the game ( thanks COVID ) and the points are still largely standing outside the obvious errors. Perhaps I am not recalling as much, because so few games were played?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Three evens 4/18 to 4/20.

One has no DE.

One has a 3rd place WWT with 10 point reavers

Reavers [10 PL, 120pts]: *Random x 2* (Combat Drug)
. Arena Champion: Heat Lance
. 6x Reaver: 6x Bladevanes, 6x Splinter Pistol, 6x Splinter Rifle
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance

Reavers [10 PL, 120pts]: *Random x 2* (Combat Drug)
. Arena Champion: Heat Lance
. 6x Reaver: 6x Bladevanes, 6x Splinter Pistol, 6x Splinter Rifle
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat Lance


Off to 4/4 to 4/10.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:55:59


Post by: yukishiro1


Are you sure they didn't take less than 2000 points to make up for that? I.e. that it's not just how it's being displayed in the list software?

Anyone running 10 point reavers right now is not just "that guy," it's an actively illegal list. It's already been fixed. But I can't imagine any serious TO would have allowed it even back before it was fixed, it was so obviously a typo.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:56:08


Post by: Gadzilla666


You're KIDDING ME! The date on that download is February 4th. That's over 2 months ago. What the hell are those TOs looking at?

Edit: Ok, that makes sense Yukishiro1.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 01:58:49


Post by: yukishiro1


I don't know for sure that's the case, just throwing out random ideas. I find it hard to believe anyone's really running 10 point reavers. I guess I could be wrong. It would make me sad though.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 02:03:34


Post by: Daedalus81


Here we go - Death or Glory Warhammer 40k TTS League: Season 3

4 DE in the top 10. 2 round tournament only one with a loss. Hilariously one had 10 point Reavers and one did not. If they didn't have 10 point Reavers they had Dark Lotus ( except the one with 20 point Reavers ).

That's kind of it. I don't know if Reavers or Dark Lotus won games, but I can't find the number of games referenced. Does anyone know of a GT or two?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote:
I don't know for sure that's the case, just throwing out random ideas. I find it hard to believe anyone's really running 10 point reavers. I guess I could be wrong. It would make me sad though.


To get up to 78 games in a week they had to have pulled in RTTs, which are wild west territory. I can't seem to find any GTs other than the one above ( which is being played over 5 weeks ). This is the list from the one with 20 10 point reavers:


Spoiler:
++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Aeldari - Drukhari) [60 PL, -2CP, 780pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Detachment Command Cost [-2CP]

Obsession: Cult of the Cursed Blade

+ Stratagems +

Prizes from the Dark City (1 Relic) [-1CP]

+ HQ +

Succubus [4 PL, -1CP, 75pts]: Agoniser, Archite Glaive, The Triptych Whip, Tolerated Ambition: Precision Blows. Show Stealer

+ Troops +

Wyches [3 PL, 50pts]
. Hekatrix: Hekatarii blade, Splinter pistol
. 4x Wych: 4x Hekatarii blade, 4x Splinter Pistol

Wyches [6 PL, 60pts]
. Hekatrix: Hekatarii blade, Splinter pistol
. 5x Wych: 5x Hekatarii blade, 5x Splinter Pistol

Wyches [6 PL, 60pts]
. Hekatrix: Hekatarii blade, Splinter pistol
. 5x Wych: 5x Hekatarii blade, 5x Splinter Pistol

+ Elites +

Mandrakes [4 PL, 75pts]
. 4x Mandrake: 4x Baleblast, 4x Glimmersteel blade
. Nightfiend

Mandrakes [4 PL, 75pts]
. 4x Mandrake: 4x Baleblast, 4x Glimmersteel blade
. Nightfiend

+ Fast Attack +

Reavers [14 PL, 145pts]: 3x Grav-Talon
. Arena Champion
. 6x Reaver: 6x Bladevanes, 6x Splinter pistol, 6x Splinter rifle
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat lance

Reavers [14 PL, 145pts]: 3x Grav-Talon
. Arena Champion
. 6x Reaver: 6x Bladevanes, 6x Splinter pistol, 6x Splinter rifle
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat lance
. Reaver with special weapon (up to 1 for 3 models): Heat lance

+ Dedicated Transport +

Raider [5 PL, 95pts]: Dark Lance, Splinter Racks

++ Patrol Detachment 0CP (Aeldari - Drukhari) [66 PL, 14CP, 1,219pts] ++

+ Configuration +

Battle Size [12CP]: 3. Strike Force (101-200 Total PL / 1001-2000 Points)

Detachment Command Cost

Obsession: *Custom Kabal*

Raiding Force

+ No Force Org Slot +

Court of the Archon [5 PL, 94pts]
. Medusae
. Sslyth
. Sslyth
. Sslyth
. Sslyth

+ HQ +

Archon [5 PL, 90pts]: Blast Pistol, Huskblade, The Djin Blade, Warlord, Hatred Eternal, Splintered Genius

Drazhar [6 PL, 135pts]

+ Troops +

Trueborn Kabalite Warriors [8 PL, 135pts]
. 6x Kabalite Warrior: 6x Splinter Rifle
. Kabalite warrior with Heavy Weapon: Dark Lance
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Sybarite: Splinter Rifle

Kabalite Warriors [3 PL, 50pts]
. 3x Kabalite Warrior: 3x Splinter Rifle
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Sybarite: Splinter Rifle

Kabalite Warriors [3 PL, 50pts]
. 3x Kabalite Warrior: 3x Splinter Rifle
. Kabalite Warrior with special weapon: Blaster
. Sybarite: Splinter Rifle

+ Elites +

Incubi [4 PL, 80pts]
. 4x Incubi: 4x Klaive
. Klaivex: Demiklaives

+ Fast Attack +

Scourges [7 PL, 100pts]
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Solarite: Shardcarbine

Scourges [7 PL, 100pts]
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Scourge with Special / Heavy weapon: Blaster
. Solarite: Shardcarbine

+ Dedicated Transport +

Venom [4 PL, 80pts]: Grisly Trophies, Splinter Cannon, Twin splinter rifle

Venom [4 PL, 80pts]: Grisly Trophies, Splinter Cannon, Twin splinter rifle

Venom [4 PL, 75pts]: Splinter Cannon, Twin splinter rifle

Venom [4 PL, 75pts]: Splinter Cannon, Twin splinter rifle

Venom [4 PL, 75pts]: Splinter Cannon, Twin splinter rifle

++ Total: [128 PL, 12CP, 1,999pts] ++


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 02:08:32


Post by: bullyboy


Wait, I thought DA were OP, did we forget them already?
Its certainly too early to make a rational decision on them yet. People have yet to develop counters or seriously planned their lists around them. But they will.

Just fix the dumb things right now (razor flail succubus)


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 02:25:55


Post by: Daedalus81


 bullyboy wrote:
Wait, I thought DA were OP, did we forget them already?
Its certainly too early to make a rational decision on them yet. People have yet to develop counters or seriously planned their lists around them. But they will.

Just fix the dumb things right now (razor flail succubus)


In the original post they complained:

Still nobody has provided me with a single streamed game where Space Marines beat Drukhari. Not one. Please show me, I'm waiting. There are plenty of new Drukhari games online.


Which is a pretty narrow place to look and I'd wonder how much those DE won by.

My gut feeling is a lot of marines lists were really ill equipped to handle DE. How does one kill 20 wyches and a succubus before they get to you when all you have is assault termies and MM ABs?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 02:35:14


Post by: Salt donkey


 bullyboy wrote:
Wait, I thought DA were OP, did we forget them already?
Its certainly too early to make a rational decision on them yet. People have yet to develop counters or seriously planned their lists around them. But they will.

Just fix the dumb things right now (razor flail succubus)


The difference between DA and this is people just. Assumed DA where good based on their rules alone. Once playtesting against them actually happened it became the apparent that their initial hype was overblown and the army was around a mid 50% win rate army at best.

Drukhari meanwhile have won in many events they’ve shown up in. Their win rate is far above 50%, even discounting 10 points reaver. A succubus nerf will help, but I doubt it fully solves the issue.





Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 02:42:20


Post by: Daedalus81


Salt donkey wrote:
Their win rate is far above 50%, even discounting 10 points reaver. A succubus nerf will help, but I doubt it fully solves the issue.


Can you help me find GTs where they won a lot? I'm having a hard time tracking any down in April.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 02:45:08


Post by: Argive


Salt donkey wrote:
 bullyboy wrote:
Wait, I thought DA were OP, did we forget them already?
Its certainly too early to make a rational decision on them yet. People have yet to develop counters or seriously planned their lists around them. But they will.

Just fix the dumb things right now (razor flail succubus)


The difference between DA and this is people just. Assumed DA where good based on their rules alone. Once playtesting against them actually happened it became the apparent that their initial hype was overblown and the army was around a mid 50% win rate army at best.

Drukhari meanwhile have won in many events they’ve shown up in. Their win rate is far above 50%, even discounting 10 points reaver. A succubus nerf will help, but I doubt it fully solves the issue.





What events? And how many events have they won ?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 02:47:02


Post by: drbored


What's next?

OP Sisters of Battle, followed closely by OP Orks, and so it continues.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 03:04:48


Post by: the_scotsman


drbored wrote:
What's next?

OP Sisters of Battle, followed closely by OP Orks, and so it continues.


And before that, DG had a month of super-spiked winrate, and before that, DA had one, and before that, Necrons had one...

it's wild, it's almost like a new codex leads to new surprises that hit the meta hard until people adjust to it and then the winrate drops back down.

Should GW throw in a few more codexes where they actively choose not to give an army the means to compete in tournaments like DW, would that be an improvement in your eyes?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 03:10:38


Post by: cuda1179


I know that Drukhari are Op right now, but I'm actually happy for them. They spent decades as GW's neglected stepchild. They deserve at least a couple months in the sun.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 03:12:51


Post by: bat702


Actually Games-workshop engineered Covid, just so they could trick people into buying more product, ie give them the excuse to do a faction creep strategy


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 03:28:22


Post by: Gadzilla666


I'm noticing a pattern:

-New codex is announced. Previews and leaks trickle out: Players of faction lament "Oh no! We're going to suck! Why did they change that? And that?"

-Codex is leaked in full/released: Players of faction rejoice "This is great! We're actually good again! Huzzah!"

-Armies using new codex start showing up at tournaments and flgs: Meta is unprepared for army with new forms of offensive/defensive stats and abilities. Faction wins a lot. Players of other factions despair "OP! OP! OP! NERF! NERF! NEERRFF!"

-Meta adjusts to new codex. Win rate comes down to reasonable levels.

-New codex is announced.........


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 03:35:41


Post by: bat702


Gadzilla, you aren't wrong, but I see it more as games-workshop teasing you with codex releases to key word "tempt" players to buy new armies. As each new army could easily generate 1k in revenue. The tease part is indicated in the slow and purposely rules updates/balance changes/ ie new codexes. I would even argue they can't even get simple stuff right, and are making all kinds of typos in their updates just to feign being dumb to fool us even more.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 03:46:51


Post by: Salt donkey


 Argive wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
 bullyboy wrote:
Wait, I thought DA were OP, did we forget them already?
Its certainly too early to make a rational decision on them yet. People have yet to develop counters or seriously planned their lists around them. But they will.

Just fix the dumb things right now (razor flail succubus)


The difference between DA and this is people just. Assumed DA where good based on their rules alone. Once playtesting against them actually happened it became the apparent that their initial hype was overblown and the army was around a mid 50% win rate army at best.

Drukhari meanwhile have won in many events they’ve shown up in. Their win rate is far above 50%, even discounting 10 points reaver. A succubus nerf will help, but I doubt it fully solves the issue.





What events? And how many events have they won ?


Quite a few, I counted 3 from just this last weekend in a short amount of time. One of was a 21 man tournament (onslaught Gt qualifier). In fact anytime a Drukhari show up, there’s a nearly %100 shot they will at least end up in upper half of lists.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 03:49:06


Post by: yukishiro1


Give it a month and a few actual big events. If they're still performing similar a month from now - especially after the FAQ presumably fixes the dumbest thing in the book - it'll be fair to start concluding they really are a problem.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 04:20:28


Post by: Wyldhunt


In addition to drukhari being pretty good against marines and also being new (thus having a bit of a gotcha factor) and also having a couple obviously/probably broken things (flail succubus and reaver prices), I wonder if this is partly a matter of drukhari being the first 9th edition faction out that leans hard into offense at the cost of defense.

Necrons, DG, and marines in general are all factions that I associate with defense. Drukhari have poisoned weapons that don't care about the toughness of DG, elite 'crons, and gravis units. A lot of their D1 weapons became D2. They gained a few sources of mortal wounds, and some of their existing sources got a bit better. Units that would previously have been wounding necron warriors on 4+ or 5+ can now pretty reliably do so on a 3+ or 4+ instead, and they potentially have some bonus AP splashed in there as well.

So if your army has a lot of points invested in "shields" and drukhari are pretty good at being "shield breakers," you might be getting countered a little. But drukhari are also heckin' fragile. The changes to their defenses are either pretty horizontal or else a nerf (mostly in the case of coven units). So I'm wondering how things will look when we get some other offense-heavy factions that don't invest as heavily into defense as marines do. Maybe drukhari are kind of the paper to "tough armies'" rock waiting to meet their paper?

I don't know. Newkhari definitely got a pretty big power boost (kind of lazy design imo), but the only things that really jump out at me as being too good are the million attack succubus and the reavers. Take those away, and it seems like marines ought to be able to do okay against them. Bolters wound their vehicles on 5+ and reduce their saves to a 5+ on turns 2 and 3. Heavy bolters wound their transports on a 4+ and each failed 5+ invul takes away 1/3rd of a venom's health. It feels like things ought to shake out reasonably evenly between these factions. Except 'crons. Drukhari seem well-equipped to handle those guys.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 04:23:58


Post by: bat702


I wouldnt mind to see Astra-militarum horde lists gun down a bunch of cheap raiders and paper-armor wyches with their mass las-gun volleys and heavy weapons (especially if they get buffed in their new codex which every faction is being)

Also will be brutal to see horde ork lists chop down some T3 space elves in close-combat


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 04:32:44


Post by: Spoletta


Drukhari are incredibly strong and are indeed winning left and right, but:

- They have a few interactions that are unlikely to survive the FAQ, which are boosting them a lot.

- The gotcha factor has been already mentioned, but here it is on a completely different level. Drukhari play a completely different game compared to other factions. Their bag of tricks is plentiful.

- This is the first non-elite faction released. If you look at the meta, until now it has polarized toward taking as many elite units as possible, while progressively reducing the troops. This is a good approach against elite armies, but Drukhari are countered by troops mostly. Without troops to stop them, Drukhari are cutting through the meta like an hot knife in butter.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 06:18:33


Post by: Bosskelot


Currently they do seem incredibly strong and on top of that are almost hyper-focused to kill Marines which, like Harlequins, will always boost their relative power up (since this is a power armour game, always has been, always will be)

Most of that strength is just the insane cost-efficiency of a lot of their units but something like that is hard to balance with an army archetype like Drukhari. Paradoxically I don't really think they're a total glass cannon, but nor do I think their defensive bonuses make them that difficult to kill, at least on a lot of the units people are most afraid of.

It really comes down to the transports being hyper cost efficient, especially for their durability. But the army is solely reliant, from a mechanical and theme perspective, on those transports to function. In a lot of ways Drukhari need slightly undercosted transports because you basically need to take one for almost every single unit in your army. Maybe that is just the way to fix it; bump those points costs up on things like Incubi but keep the transports cheap.

There are also a few egregious FAQ issues too, specifically I think Dark Technomancers is the most obvious one since it's such an obvious no-brainer pick/choice/combination that either GW rules writers are more incompetent than previously thought or it's actually just deliberate and is signposted as being the competitive choice.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 06:25:43


Post by: yukishiro1


Dark Technomancers is fine for a lot of stuff and ridiculous for other stuff. Seems like really poor subfaction design in that it totally cookie-cutters you into certain things, and those certain things are just ridiculously better than they are with any other trait. Subfaction traits shouldn't make certain units or wargear choices literally twice as good as they otherwise would be, that's always going to be a nightmare to balance.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 06:32:09


Post by: Salt donkey


Wyldhunt wrote:
In addition to drukhari being pretty good against marines and also being new (thus having a bit of a gotcha factor) and also having a couple obviously/probably broken things (flail succubus and reaver prices), I wonder if this is partly a matter of drukhari being the first 9th edition faction out that leans hard into offense at the cost of defense.

Necrons, DG, and marines in general are all factions that I associate with defense. Drukhari have poisoned weapons that don't care about the toughness of DG, elite 'crons, and gravis units. A lot of their D1 weapons became D2. They gained a few sources of mortal wounds, and some of their existing sources got a bit better. Units that would previously have been wounding necron warriors on 4+ or 5+ can now pretty reliably do so on a 3+ or 4+ instead, and they potentially have some bonus AP splashed in there as well.

So if your army has a lot of points invested in "shields" and drukhari are pretty good at being "shield breakers," you might be getting countered a little. But drukhari are also heckin' fragile. The changes to their defenses are either pretty horizontal or else a nerf (mostly in the case of coven units). So I'm wondering how things will look when we get some other offense-heavy factions that don't invest as heavily into defense as marines do. Maybe drukhari are kind of the paper to "tough armies'" rock waiting to meet their paper?

I don't know. Newkhari definitely got a pretty big power boost (kind of lazy design imo), but the only things that really jump out at me as being too good are the million attack succubus and the reavers. Take those away, and it seems like marines ought to be able to do okay against them. Bolters wound their vehicles on 5+ and reduce their saves to a 5+ on turns 2 and 3. Heavy bolters wound their transports on a 4+ and each failed 5+ invul takes away 1/3rd of a venom's health. It feels like things ought to shake out reasonably evenly between these factions. Except 'crons. Drukhari seem well-equipped to handle those guys.


Thing is the old adage of “the best defense, is a good offense” comes into play here. It takes exactly 2 turns for most of the Drukhari army to be in your face. At that point it’s very likely many of your units will already be dead. That limits the amount units you’ll have to return damage with, meaning the drukhari army will feel a lot more durable than it is.

In that vain armies that do the best at countering dark Eldar are stuff with lots of indirect fire that can shoot the hiding drukhari stuff (IG) armies that also MSU well (sisters) armies that have units that won’t fully evaporate when hit by a Drukhari CC unit (DG, custodes), and finally Tau due to having scary overwatch.

The problem is when I say these armies have a good matchup, I mean they can win around 50% of the time. Also if you aren’t one of these armies... GL is all I’ll say.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 07:29:36


Post by: Canadian 5th


 the_scotsman wrote:
drbored wrote:
What's next?

OP Sisters of Battle, followed closely by OP Orks, and so it continues.


And before that, DG had a month of super-spiked winrate, and before that, DA had one, and before that, Necrons had one...

it's wild, it's almost like a new codex leads to new surprises that hit the meta hard until people adjust to it and then the winrate drops back down.

Should GW throw in a few more codexes where they actively choose not to give an army the means to compete in tournaments like DW, would that be an improvement in your eyes?

Show me that immediate duper spiked DA win rate Scottie.

Every source has basically looked at DA for the past couple if months and constantly wondered why they haven't had a spike yet. Now, just as they finally find a build it's looking like DE will hard counter them.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 08:20:59


Post by: Galas


TBH I have no problem agaisnt Drukhari with my horrible firewarrior and kroot hordes Tau spam list, funny enough.

I know some of the crazy things drukhari have that need to be faqed. But the winrate of the faction, I believe, is more than they are an antimeta army designed to kill all the other meta armies of the moment. Just like Harlequins are bananas agaisnt marines, custodes, etc... but dont make a gak agaisnt ork hordes, Drukhari are basically Harlequins+ and thats saying something.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 09:05:24


Post by: Aenar


While we should wait a month or two to have meaningful numbers, I think we can agree that they need to be toned down a bit.
Otherwise, the power creep gets out of control very quickly.

There's still 17 codices and 6 supplements (7 if they release a Black Templar one) to be released in 9th...


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 10:20:21


Post by: harlokin


"9th ed glass hammer faction does more damage than non-glass hammer armies"

Cue fauxrage, pearl clutching and neckbeard pulling....."Oh the power creep, won't someone please, think of the children?!?"


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 10:25:38


Post by: Karol


 harlokin wrote:
"9th ed glass hammer faction does more damage than non-glass hammer armies"

Cue fauxrage, pearl clutchinng and neckbeard pulling....."Oh the power creep, won't someone please, think of the children?!?"


Well before the dark eldar got their book, the problem with this was that the supposed glass hammer faction, was also more resilient and faster, then all other factions. So it is rather case of less of the same, and we should thank GW that they didn't get an idea to give DE transports a +4inv.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 10:50:27


Post by: Blackie


Salt donkey wrote:
While the codex is still relatively new, it’s pretty apparent that the army is wildly OP . Currently sitting at a 58-18-2 or a 74% winrate (numbers stolen from a reddit post). That puts the codex at a tournament win % at around what ironhands were getting pre-any nerfs. No that’s not an exaggeration, iron hands had around a 77% win rate when their codex first dropped, meaning drukhari are only slightly worse than that book.

Some of the comes from them being a hard counter to SM (which for now make up a significant chunk of the meta) and some of that comes from armies having not adjusted to the way drukhari plays. That said it’s a lot harder to adjust to a 70% win rate army than a 60% army, because there are less weaknesses in a 70% win rate army.

So will GW nerf Drukhari. They probably should. Invalidating SM entirely might make some here on Dakka happy, but probably isn’t in the best interest of GWs $$$ line. Also many armies simply don’t have fun playing against DE. Maybe Tau like the matchup, but that by itself won’t fix that army.


Lol, they're not OP at all. Simply they're the new thing in town and they're pretty anti meta. As soon as people adapt they won't be an "issue" anymore.

GW will nerf drukhari (or release an OP SM codex 2.0) because lots of SM players want to auto-win. Deathguard for example seems as powerful at last, probably even more solid. No one is screaming "Deathguard is OP!!" though, since it's basically another power/terminator armour based army, so it's somehow entitled to bully other players.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Canadian 5th wrote:

Show me that immediate duper spiked DA win rate Scottie.

Every source has basically looked at DA for the past couple if months and constantly wondered why they haven't had a spike yet. Now, just as they finally find a build it's looking like DE will hard counter them.


As long as everyone is tailoring against SM and most of those DA opponents are other SM, DA win rate won't be duper spiked. It doesn't mean they're worse than drukhari.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 11:30:00


Post by: the_scotsman


I'll be curious to see where we end up after the initial metashock and the obvious broken interactions/typos, but I can see some point adjustments down the line. A succubus does not, to me, feel like a 60pt hq. She's basically the perfect character duellist, which is what she's supposed to be, but she could still accomplish that job at 80pts just as well.

Hellions similarly seem like a side-grade rather than a down-grade from the (intended cost of) reavers. They trade mobility and defense for assault ranged weapons and D2 melee weapons.

Incubi could also probably use a bit of a points bump. The frustrating thing though is how many of the initial OP combos were in the dumb 'day 1 DLC' book which was DEFINITELY not playtested as much as the content from the codex.

The Cult of Strife content from Rust is just as much of a random balance-free scattershot as the SM 2.0 supplements are, and it definitely shows there wasn't a ton of oversight to it.

"Hey, what if we put in a warlord trait that let you get 28 attacks vs common targets with a 60pt hq?

Great, we'll put that one that lets you reroll all hits, some wounds and some opposing saves right next to another one that just give reroll wounds!"

"Hey, how about 1cp for a wych unit to get their 4++ out of combat if they destroy a unit?"

"Great, that's something wyches have needed to be able to do for ages. Say, should we be concerned that you could use this for 1cp on a unit of 20 hellions that doesn't usually get a 4++ invuln save even in combat...?"

"how about a relic whip that guarantees no fall back with the new improved no escape rule that even works on titanic stuff?"

"That sounds great but only if you also include a stratagem so you can take it on a s-"

"TAKE IT ON A SERGEANT jinx, hahah, don't worry that's also in there."


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 11:31:07


Post by: Crispy78


Karol wrote:
 harlokin wrote:
"9th ed glass hammer faction does more damage than non-glass hammer armies"

Cue fauxrage, pearl clutchinng and neckbeard pulling....."Oh the power creep, won't someone please, think of the children?!?"


Well before the dark eldar got their book, the problem with this was that the supposed glass hammer faction, was also more resilient and faster, then all other factions. So it is rather case of less of the same, and we should thank GW that they didn't get an idea to give DE transports a +4inv.


I'm not sure who dark eldar were more resilient than, with their T3 and tee-shirt armour saves.

I'd say the problem with them before the 9th edition codex was that they were less of a glass hammer and more of a glass feather-duster.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 11:35:03


Post by: the_scotsman


Crispy78 wrote:
Karol wrote:
 harlokin wrote:
"9th ed glass hammer faction does more damage than non-glass hammer armies"

Cue fauxrage, pearl clutchinng and neckbeard pulling....."Oh the power creep, won't someone please, think of the children?!?"


Well before the dark eldar got their book, the problem with this was that the supposed glass hammer faction, was also more resilient and faster, then all other factions. So it is rather case of less of the same, and we should thank GW that they didn't get an idea to give DE transports a +4inv.


I'm not sure who dark eldar were more resilient than, with their T3 and tee-shirt armour saves.

I'd say the problem with them before the 9th edition codex was that they were less of a glass hammer and more of a glass feather-duster.


Probably referring to the fact that if you specifically compare weaponry that's way stronger than is necessary to harm a Raider a Raider is more durable for its points than a Rhino. That's had SM players whining since basically the 8th ed drukhari dex - the fact that instead of raiders just being strictly less tough against everything they're actually more tough vs high-powered antitank weaponry and less tough vs mid-strength anti-light vehicle weaponry.

The ideal gun to bring to the table vs drukhari is an autocannon profile. Wounds every vehicle on a 3, and only one multiwound unit in the entire codex has an armor save 2 better than its invuln save, so AP-1 is all you need.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 11:41:09


Post by: Salt donkey


 the_scotsman wrote:
I'll be curious to see where we end up after the initial metashock and the obvious broken interactions/typos, but I can see some point adjustments down the line. A succubus does not, to me, feel like a 60pt hq. She's basically the perfect character duellist, which is what she's supposed to be, but she could still accomplish that job at 80pts just as well.

Hellions similarly seem like a side-grade rather than a down-grade from the (intended cost of) reavers. They trade mobility and defense for assault ranged weapons and D2 melee weapons.

Incubi could also probably use a bit of a points bump. The frustrating thing though is how many of the initial OP combos were in the dumb 'day 1 DLC' book which was DEFINITELY not playtested as much as the content from the codex.

The Cult of Strife content from Rust is just as much of a random balance-free scattershot as the SM 2.0 supplements are, and it definitely shows there wasn't a ton of oversight to it.

"Hey, what if we put in a warlord trait that let you get 28 attacks vs common targets with a 60pt hq?

Great, we'll put that one that lets you reroll all hits, some wounds and some opposing saves right next to another one that just give reroll wounds!"

"Hey, how about 1cp for a wych unit to get their 4++ out of combat if they destroy a unit?"

"Great, that's something wyches have needed to be able to do for ages. Say, should we be concerned that you could use this for 1cp on a unit of 20 hellions that doesn't usually get a 4++ invuln save even in combat...?"

"how about a relic whip that guarantees no fall back with the new improved no escape rule that even works on titanic stuff?"

"That sounds great but only if you also include a stratagem so you can take it on a s-"

"TAKE IT ON A SERGEANT jinx, hahah, don't worry that's also in there."


Agreed that the day 1 DLC made no sense whatsoever. Everything else in that book forced armies to take massive restrictions to get their buffs, but cult of strife gets a ton of OP stuff for free. Honestly this could be an easy fix right here. Just restrict these buffs to an army that only takes cult of strife units or possibly a no mercenaries restriction instead.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also to those complaining that calling drukhari OP is the same as everyone calling DG, DA, SM OP, you’re just straight up using false equivalency.

All those armies were called OP purely on perception, but never had winrates to match this. People keep bringing up the “let the meta adjust” and use these armies as examples, but none of these broke a 60% win rates. Furthermore dark Eldar are far more complex than these armies. We’ve already seen that there are plenty of trap units and builds. As more people realize what the the best lists are, we’ll stop seeing as many 3-3 drukhari lists and more 5-1 and 6-0.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 12:06:47


Post by: the_scotsman


...All your data is from like, one weekend. AND the community has realized that there are obvious unintended rules interactions - unless you think it's likely that someone at GW actually considered the 'attack quadrupling' interaction between Competitive Edge and Razorflails.

What I'm saying is, I wouldn't be surprised if even after the meta adjusts to the presence of drukhari and the obvious unintentional stuff is 2-week FAQed out, they still required some points adjustments to be fair, but I dont' actually have any of that data until we start actually seeing them perform in tournaments bigger than 'the 23 person qualifier round for the bigger grand tournament in podunk kentucky 3 days after the codex dropped when nobody but the drukhari player had read it thoroughly.' I don't know if we can actually compare the performance of drukhari in the first week to another strong 'dex's first week performance - like, how was Death Guard looking in the 7 days after its codex launched? Do we actually know? Them and Necrons are the only other factions that really fundamentally shifted the playstyle to something people were unfamiliar with - every marine codex/supplement in 9th was basically just a solidification of what marines had been doing for a year and a half before that nobody else got to have any kind of answer for.

Fundamentally, drukhari are doing something that very few armies currently in the meta are doing - a massed assault out of efficient transport vehicles, though I suppose maybe the current meta bloody rose sisters lists are doing that IDK - and that directly feths with the current meta trend of heavy, expensive elite infantry units out of transports that are used to carving through unprotected infantry and expensive units. They also happen to have some highly efficient damage flat 2 options, which obviously hoses the dominant meta armies of marines and custodes pretty hard as well


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 13:44:07


Post by: PenitentJake


I've always been advocate for "Campaign book rules ONLY usable in Campaign Games."

I believe this is actually the intent, but GW stops short of printing that because sales.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 13:51:06


Post by: tneva82


 Gadzilla666 wrote:
I'm noticing a pattern:

-New codex is announced. Previews and leaks trickle out: Players of faction lament "Oh no! We're going to suck! Why did they change that? And that?"

-Codex is leaked in full/released: Players of faction rejoice "This is great! We're actually good again! Huzzah!"

-Armies using new codex start showing up at tournaments and flgs: Meta is unprepared for army with new forms of offensive/defensive stats and abilities. Faction wins a lot. Players of other factions despair "OP! OP! OP! NERF! NERF! NEERRFF!"

-Meta adjusts to new codex. Win rate comes down to reasonable levels.

-New codex is announced.........


2nd last is rather: next op codex gets released. Op codex stops competing when even more op comes. And gw pulled all limiters from power creep


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 13:59:52


Post by: Daedalus81


bat702 wrote:
Gadzilla, you aren't wrong, but I see it more as games-workshop teasing you with codex releases to key word "tempt" players to buy new armies. As each new army could easily generate 1k in revenue. The tease part is indicated in the slow and purposely rules updates/balance changes/ ie new codexes. I would even argue they can't even get simple stuff right, and are making all kinds of typos in their updates just to feign being dumb to fool us even more.


Ok, so I initially took your COVID engineering comment to be tongue in cheek, but it appears you're being serious. You aren't being serious are you?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote:
Give it a month and a few actual big events. If they're still performing similar a month from now - especially after the FAQ presumably fixes the dumbest thing in the book - it'll be fair to start concluding they really are a problem.


Agreed. We're a bit late for the 2 week FAQ as well it seems.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 14:11:05


Post by: Xenomancers


Outside of torpedo succubus and super drazar...they really arent that impressive.

They are fast and hit hard - but they die quickly. You will find as the "meta" is going to shift pretty soon to take all comers list because...every army requires different weapons to kill.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 14:17:48


Post by: Daedalus81


Salt donkey wrote:
Thing is the old adage of “the best defense, is a good offense” comes into play here. It takes exactly 2 turns for most of the Drukhari army to be in your face. At that point it’s very likely many of your units will already be dead. That limits the amount units you’ll have to return damage with, meaning the drukhari army will feel a lot more durable than it is.

In that vain armies that do the best at countering dark Eldar are stuff with lots of indirect fire that can shoot the hiding drukhari stuff (IG) armies that also MSU well (sisters) armies that have units that won’t fully evaporate when hit by a Drukhari CC unit (DG, custodes), and finally Tau due to having scary overwatch.

The problem is when I say these armies have a good matchup, I mean they can win around 50% of the time. Also if you aren’t one of these armies... GL is all I’ll say.


This is pretty much why I built the hexmark in optional deepstriking into my list. If they're crossing to my side I'm jumping to theirs and hopefully I have enough good shooting to take them out. I've been getting paired up with mostly custodes on TTS though.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 14:20:04


Post by: vict0988


 harlokin wrote:
"9th ed glass hammer faction does more damage than non-glass hammer armies"

Cue fauxrage, pearl clutching and neckbeard pulling....."Oh the power creep, won't someone please, think of the children?!?"

"My army is totally balanced, Drukhari players have a 70% win rate because we are so much better than all the other players.

Why can't some armies just be allowed to be as strong as they happen to be and by some armies I mean my army and by as strong as they happen to be I mean OP, because if they were weak I'd be raging."


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 14:22:16


Post by: Daedalus81


Salt donkey wrote:
All those armies were called OP purely on perception, but never had winrates to match this. People keep bringing up the “let the meta adjust” and use these armies as examples, but none of these broke a 60% win rates. Furthermore dark Eldar are far more complex than these armies. We’ve already seen that there are plenty of trap units and builds. As more people realize what the the best lists are, we’ll stop seeing as many 3-3 drukhari lists and more 5-1 and 6-0.


I am having a hard time sourcing the indicated win rates. I'm not seeing much on BCP aside from an unfinished GT.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 14:37:02


Post by: the_scotsman


 Xenomancers wrote:
Outside of torpedo succubus and super drazar...they really arent that impressive.

They are fast and hit hard - but they die quickly. You will find as the "meta" is going to shift pretty soon to take all comers list because...every army requires different weapons to kill.


Ok, sorry, I admit I was 100% wrong, Drukhari are unbeatable OP and need hotfix point adjustments in the 2-week FAQ. Sorry everybody.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 vict0988 wrote:
 harlokin wrote:
"9th ed glass hammer faction does more damage than non-glass hammer armies"

Cue fauxrage, pearl clutching and neckbeard pulling....."Oh the power creep, won't someone please, think of the children?!?"

"My army is totally balanced, Drukhari players have a 70% win rate because we are so much better than all the other players.

Why can't some armies just be allowed to be as strong as they happen to be and by some armies I mean my army and by as strong as they happen to be I mean OP, because if they were weak I'd be raging."


Drukhari have a 70% winrate because that appears to just be some thing some guy said without actual proof based purely on like 3 20-person events that have occurred in the ~2 weeks since the codex was released.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 15:02:32


Post by: Mr. Funktastic


We go through this same song and dance almost every single time a new codex comes out. "Faction x's new codex is OP, unbeatable, needs major nerfing" Of course a new codex is often going to look really good, especially in comparison to an 8th edition codex. It's the new hotness, the flavor of the month. There's always going to be a really good combo or strat that gets highlighted but you just need to give the meta time to figure them out like every other new codex.

From what I've heard from most codex reviews the Drukhari codex is actually pretty reasonably balanced for the most part. Yes, they're fast and hit very hard, but they're also made of wet toilet paper, they're supposed to be a glass cannon army. Also none of their faction secondaries are particularly good, which is a big part of why 9th codexes are a boon for the factions that have them, as most of those codexes have at least 1-2 good to great faction secondaries to pick from. In my mind, I don't think they've even overtaken DG and DA as one of the top 2 factions in the game yet, I'm hesitant to even put them above Sisters. In any case, I'm fully expecting to see another thread about people complaining about how OP the new Ad Mech codex is next month. Set your watches to it!


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 15:04:47


Post by: the_scotsman


Mr. Funktastic wrote:
We go through this same song and dance almost every single time a new codex comes out. "Faction x's new codex is OP, unbeatable, needs major nerfing" Of course a new codex is often going to look really good, especially in comparison to an 8th edition codex. It's the new hotness, the flavor of the month. There's always going to be a really good combo or strat that gets highlighted but you just need to give the meta time to figure them out like every other new codex.

From what I've heard from most codex reviews the Drukhari codex is actually pretty reasonably balanced for the most part. Yes, they're fast and hit very hard, but they're also made of wet toilet paper, they're supposed to be a glass cannon army. Also none of their faction secondaries are particularly good, which is a big part of why 9th codexes are a boon for the factions that have them, as most of those codexes have at least 1-2 good to great faction secondaries to pick from. In my mind, I don't think they've even overtaken DG and DA as one of the top 2 factions in the game yet, I'm hesitant to even put them above Sisters. In any case, I'm fully expecting to see another thread about people complaining about how OP the new Ad Mech codex is next month. Set your watches to it!


^there actualy already is one, seems the general opinion is that because Ironstrider Balistarii are getting better weaponry than a somewhat comparable unit (sentinels) still using a completely unchanged Index-era statline, Admech will be broken op busted.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 15:05:17


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 vict0988 wrote:
 harlokin wrote:
"9th ed glass hammer faction does more damage than non-glass hammer armies"

Cue fauxrage, pearl clutching and neckbeard pulling....."Oh the power creep, won't someone please, think of the children?!?"

"My army is totally balanced, Drukhari players have a 70% win rate because we are so much better than all the other players.

Why can't some armies just be allowed to be as strong as they happen to be and by some armies I mean my army and by as strong as they happen to be I mean OP, because if they were weak I'd be raging."


we don't have real stats yet, and very little people adapted their lists to deal with more than PEQs


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 15:15:27


Post by: Mr. Funktastic


 the_scotsman wrote:
Mr. Funktastic wrote:
We go through this same song and dance almost every single time a new codex comes out. "Faction x's new codex is OP, unbeatable, needs major nerfing" Of course a new codex is often going to look really good, especially in comparison to an 8th edition codex. It's the new hotness, the flavor of the month. There's always going to be a really good combo or strat that gets highlighted but you just need to give the meta time to figure them out like every other new codex.

From what I've heard from most codex reviews the Drukhari codex is actually pretty reasonably balanced for the most part. Yes, they're fast and hit very hard, but they're also made of wet toilet paper, they're supposed to be a glass cannon army. Also none of their faction secondaries are particularly good, which is a big part of why 9th codexes are a boon for the factions that have them, as most of those codexes have at least 1-2 good to great faction secondaries to pick from. In my mind, I don't think they've even overtaken DG and DA as one of the top 2 factions in the game yet, I'm hesitant to even put them above Sisters. In any case, I'm fully expecting to see another thread about people complaining about how OP the new Ad Mech codex is next month. Set your watches to it!


^there actualy already is one, seems the general opinion is that because Ironstrider Balistarii are getting better weaponry than a somewhat comparable unit (sentinels) still using a completely unchanged Index-era statline, Admech will be broken op busted.


Not surprising ever since some of the datasheet leaks and weapons previews came out lol. For all we know Ironstriders might not get Core so they probably won't get Cawl rerolls anymore and all their Cognis weapons are assault now so if the Mars canticle stays the same they wouldn't benefit from it, and there's no guarantee they're keeping their +1 to wound stratagem, so if they want to stay competitive they would've needed a buff to their weapons and statlines. And in comparing them to IG Sentinels, it's a completely unfair comparison to compare a 9th codex unit to an 8th codex unit to me when you're comparing a book with shiny new rules made for the new edition to a 3+ year old book with rules made for a different edition. Just more people with their knee jerk reactions without having the whole picture to work with.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 15:20:37


Post by: Audustum


Salt donkey wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
In addition to drukhari being pretty good against marines and also being new (thus having a bit of a gotcha factor) and also having a couple obviously/probably broken things (flail succubus and reaver prices), I wonder if this is partly a matter of drukhari being the first 9th edition faction out that leans hard into offense at the cost of defense.

Necrons, DG, and marines in general are all factions that I associate with defense. Drukhari have poisoned weapons that don't care about the toughness of DG, elite 'crons, and gravis units. A lot of their D1 weapons became D2. They gained a few sources of mortal wounds, and some of their existing sources got a bit better. Units that would previously have been wounding necron warriors on 4+ or 5+ can now pretty reliably do so on a 3+ or 4+ instead, and they potentially have some bonus AP splashed in there as well.

So if your army has a lot of points invested in "shields" and drukhari are pretty good at being "shield breakers," you might be getting countered a little. But drukhari are also heckin' fragile. The changes to their defenses are either pretty horizontal or else a nerf (mostly in the case of coven units). So I'm wondering how things will look when we get some other offense-heavy factions that don't invest as heavily into defense as marines do. Maybe drukhari are kind of the paper to "tough armies'" rock waiting to meet their paper?

I don't know. Newkhari definitely got a pretty big power boost (kind of lazy design imo), but the only things that really jump out at me as being too good are the million attack succubus and the reavers. Take those away, and it seems like marines ought to be able to do okay against them. Bolters wound their vehicles on 5+ and reduce their saves to a 5+ on turns 2 and 3. Heavy bolters wound their transports on a 4+ and each failed 5+ invul takes away 1/3rd of a venom's health. It feels like things ought to shake out reasonably evenly between these factions. Except 'crons. Drukhari seem well-equipped to handle those guys.


Thing is the old adage of “the best defense, is a good offense” comes into play here. It takes exactly 2 turns for most of the Drukhari army to be in your face. At that point it’s very likely many of your units will already be dead. That limits the amount units you’ll have to return damage with, meaning the drukhari army will feel a lot more durable than it is.

In that vain armies that do the best at countering dark Eldar are stuff with lots of indirect fire that can shoot the hiding drukhari stuff (IG) armies that also MSU well (sisters) armies that have units that won’t fully evaporate when hit by a Drukhari CC unit (DG, custodes), and finally Tau due to having scary overwatch.

The problem is when I say these armies have a good matchup, I mean they can win around 50% of the time. Also if you aren’t one of these armies... GL is all I’ll say.


I think Custodes and DG are both better than 50% against them, once their comps adjust for the meta. Custodes have incredibly easy access to Hurricane Bolters, an extra fight interrupt, high leadership (to stop Tormentors), damage reduction and more 3++ than anyone else. DG have good T, lots of flamers, indirect fire and solid fight lasts. Mortarion, on any terrain where he is safe in his deployment zone, is incredibly powerful against DE. Soup for warptime and he's a nightmare. AdMech already looks to be very strong against them and might get better.

It's going to change the meta for sure. I'm not ready to say it's unbalanced though.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 15:51:18


Post by: vict0988


 VladimirHerzog wrote:

I don't know how strong they are, I am just making fun of harlokin for his post.

Besides some people will keep moving the goalpost and will never accept a nerf to their army. It is possible to both accept that we don't know yet and accept that it looks like Drukhari are going to be the best faction until the next codex comes out instead of strawmanning the people that say Drukhari are too good.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 15:53:20


Post by: bullyboy


Marine players will also need to look deeper in their respective codexes for solutions too, now that the big boogeyman is not other power armour.
Accelerator autocannons, judiciar in your central objective anvil to shut down one of the nasty assaulting units.
Id gladly run my Deathwatch vs newkhari.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 16:05:51


Post by: the_scotsman


I don't actually accept that drukhari will be the best army. I think they'll be above the power curve but that Death Guard has every tool in their toolkit to minorly adjust the lists that are currently eating SM alive to also eat Drukhari alive.

Drukhari hate many things that DG already has plenty of access to - applying -1T to drukhari almost always nets you a wound shift (T6 heavy stuff to T5, T4 medium stuff to T3, T3 light stuff to T2), popular DG weapon profiles like Blight Launchers are fantastic against drukhari, the foul blightspawn dunks on what they want to do extremely hard, and many of the strongest units out of the gate in the drukhari codex have that '2' in the damage profile right where DG want to see it.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 16:27:57


Post by: Sunny Side Up


 cuda1179 wrote:
I know that Drukhari are Op right now, but I'm actually happy for them. They spent decades as GW's neglected stepchild. They deserve at least a couple months in the sun.


Not sure how that serves anyone?

Plastic figures don't have feelings or care.

And dedicated OG Drukhari-players aren't gonna be happy when the tournament-crowd abuses the hell out of the army for few months and gives it a bad name for years to come. Ask any "I-am-actually-into-this-army-for-the-fluff-and-lore-and-all-that"-fan of Iron Hands, Ynnari, etc..


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 16:45:03


Post by: ccs


 Xenomancers wrote:
Outside of torpedo succubus and super drazar...they really arent that impressive.

They are fast and hit hard - but they die quickly. You will find as the "meta" is going to shift pretty soon to take all comers list because...every army requires different weapons to kill.


And when concerned I'll just take the weapon that kills the toughest target. If that overkills a space elf.... That's fine.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 17:55:08


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


When I take a look at my Custodes Bike List I built back at the end of 8th, and feel like the guy from The Waterboy:

"Oh no, WE SUCK AGAIN!"

Two Weeks later: "YOU CAN DO IT!"

Two more weeks later: "OH NO WE SUCK AGAIN!"


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 18:09:19


Post by: the_scotsman


FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
When I take a look at my Custodes Bike List I built back at the end of 8th, and feel like the guy from The Waterboy:

"Oh no, WE SUCK AGAIN!"

Two Weeks later: "YOU CAN DO IT!"

Two more weeks later: "OH NO WE SUCK AGAIN!"


I mean....yeah, if you make a list based around one single unit and weapons loadout, that's extremely likely to happen to you. Particularly if you buy in at a higher point in that unit's competitive power, when you know that the attentions of games workshop's balancing team are going to be on it.

The only way to really guarantee you're not going to experience the balance pendulum swings that I've been able to figure out is to build purposefully un-optimized, wide, diverse lists, with individual squads built competently towards a given role, but not usually having many instances of any one thing that's particularly powerful in that given role.

For armies that have limited rosters like Custodes or my own harlequins, that's almost impossible, and I've had some incredibly frustrating experiences with the ways GW has changed that army in particular in the past - the squad I built to be 'anti-infantry' having to be completely rebuilt when GW changed the respective roles of all the Harlequin melee weapons in 8th from 7th, the fact that one of the two weapons you can equip both models that come in the box was given the Grenade keyword so literally only one model at a time is allowed to use them, and the fact that GW had a range weapon list with exactly 3 items on it, and they were unable throughout all of 8th to not make one of the two an absolute joke compared to the other.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
ccs wrote:
 Xenomancers wrote:
Outside of torpedo succubus and super drazar...they really arent that impressive.

They are fast and hit hard - but they die quickly. You will find as the "meta" is going to shift pretty soon to take all comers list because...every army requires different weapons to kill.


And when concerned I'll just take the weapon that kills the toughest target. If that overkills a space elf.... That's fine.


So far in my experience with them, that's been the primary problem with MEQs fighting drukhari. They'll have a squad of, say, 4 eradicators with the heavy rifles and the multi-melta upgrade, and they'll point it at a raider and fething OBLITERATE IT dealing like 25 unsaved wounds...and the squad inside gets out, taking 1-2 casualties and requiring yet more firepower to take down, and there are 3 more raiders sitting there untouched ready for the passengers to jump out with the turn 2 advance and charge and crash the entirety of the SM lines.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 18:19:54


Post by: FezzikDaBullgryn


My bike list was bland, but fun to play. Especially when I make zoomy and boomy sounds to simulate their fart powered engines.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 19:16:30


Post by: Tyel


Wouldn't be surprised if there were a few nerfs, as quite a lot of choice seem very aggressively pointed. Admittedly though this was true in 8th on initial codex release - but then Knights came out 2 months later and the pax-Castellan began. (And then 18 months later DE did get nerfs but they had long ceased to define the meta.)

But I'd echo others that DE just seem designed to smash standard Marine style lists - which tend to be a few characters, 3*5 basic troops and then a few more chunky elite units. DE just lurk in their transports then go jump on those elite units (and their charge range is incredible, so you can't really hide), massacre them and consequently there's nothing to counter with. I feel a more MSU sort of style would do better - because you can set up for trades.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 19:21:53


Post by: yukishiro1


Drukhari perform really well against elite but not super high defense units, i.e. normal space marines. They don't do nearly so well against stuff that can put lots of cheap trash on the table to screen, and they also do less well against really durable stuff that can take that charge on the chin and still have enough left to respond. Somewhat ironically I think they'd also have a harder time against transport-heavy lists, which is not something you see much in the meta right now aside from, well, Drukhari.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 19:46:15


Post by: Tyel


I guess it depends on how many transports we are talking about - but I think part of the issue is that a heavy raider list is getting a lot of dark lances. (Or Disintegrators - which are still decent at killing MEQ - and decent versus lots of things if you are happy to roll on Dark Technomancers, which you probably are.)

I feel you are more likely to pop their transports than they are to blast yours.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/22 20:44:55


Post by: Bosskelot


You aren't taking Dizzies on your vehicles anymore. The new Dark Lance with new Black Heart is so value and it's also cheaper.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 02:18:30


Post by: RandomHeretic


My meta has been having an extremely hard time dealing with the DE build that has risen to the top. It has beaten multiple marines, death guard, sisters, harlies,Tyranids, necrons and wins the DE mirror match (if the DE bring a balanced list) without really breaking a sweat. It is just running 32 beefed up flamers and basically an entire list of T6 and T7 bodies.

Read a battle report here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/mwdqe5/tyranids_vs_new_drukhari_2000pt_written_battle/

No idea if this stuff will be FAQd, but hopefully it helps your discussion.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 02:30:47


Post by: Salt donkey


Reading through this thread it's apparent most people haven't been playing against at all optimized DE builds, and than making claims the army is fine. It would be like facing marine builds not using eradicators, bladeguard vets, MM attack bikes, interceptors ect and then saying the army is fine because intercessors die pretty easy for their points. (although quite frankly, the army is fine even with all this stuff).

How do I know this? 2 reasons. First is because most of the people agreeing with are DE players who actually know what's good in the codex. They're the ones saying cult of strife and Dark tecnomancers are a major problem.

Second is that the people who see the army as fine are bring up things like; Kabals, dark lances, venoms, scourges, ect and only look at Drazhar and the super succubus as problems. However, the best list atm is one that exclusively spams dark technomancer liquefier guns and doesn't use any of things, baring dark lances listed, in my second point. I'm not sure how anyone beats this list btw, and I'm still not even sure the codex is solved. People have argued this is also an oversight. but if you know GW at all, you can't just assume all of these "oversights" will just get fixed in the first FAQ and everything will be peachy.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 02:34:09


Post by: yukishiro1


DT with flamers is indeed problematic, as I said above it's really poor design to have a trait that makes certain weapons literally more than twice as good as they normally are.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 04:39:26


Post by: Wyldhunt


I haven't been able to get any games in since the new codex dropped. Is DT liquifier spam really that hard to counter? Sincere question. We're talking about a very short-ranged weapon taken on platforms that don't generally have any other shooting mounted in transports that have comparable firepower to a razorback but with less durability against low AP weapons. I'm sure DT liquifiers are good (especially against marines), but is that really something you can build a competitive army around? Seems like most armies would have a range advantage, comparable or superior firepower (liquifiers are good, but they're likely the only shooting on the squads that take them), and the ability to shut down those liquifiers by diving into melee. And sure, wracks don't hate being in melee, but DT wracks also don't have any of the rules that make them particularly good in melee either. And a 5++/5+++ is solid, but isn't that less durable against most things things than a simple power armor save?

Again, sincere questions. I'm wondering what I'm not seeing.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 05:11:04


Post by: Spoletta


The DT spam doesn't care about durability. It still follows the DE concept of forcing trades and coming out ahead. 5 wracks with liquifiers may be really easy to take out, but they will also take out pretty much anything within 2x their point cost range.

The DT interaction with liquifiers is surely one of those things that really need a FAQ.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 06:10:34


Post by: Bosskelot


Wyldhunt wrote:
I haven't been able to get any games in since the new codex dropped. Is DT liquifier spam really that hard to counter? Sincere question. We're talking about a very short-ranged weapon taken on platforms that don't generally have any other shooting mounted in transports that have comparable firepower to a razorback but with less durability against low AP weapons. I'm sure DT liquifiers are good (especially against marines), but is that really something you can build a competitive army around? Seems like most armies would have a range advantage, comparable or superior firepower (liquifiers are good, but they're likely the only shooting on the squads that take them), and the ability to shut down those liquifiers by diving into melee. And sure, wracks don't hate being in melee, but DT wracks also don't have any of the rules that make them particularly good in melee either. And a 5++/5+++ is solid, but isn't that less durable against most things things than a simple power armor save?

Again, sincere questions. I'm wondering what I'm not seeing.


It all comes down to points and points efficiency.

Yeah, I guess everything you wrote is more or less correct but you are not taking points costs into account anywhere. When you're able to basically back 30+ Liquifiers into lists because Wracks and Grots are incredibly aggressively priced it doesn't really matter. A unit of 5 Wracks with 2 Liquifiers is something like 60 points and it can easily wipe a unit of like Intercessors no problem. Tagging them in combat is also a potentially bad idea because they're flamers and you can easily just get destroyed in Overwatch. I've heard anecdotes of 5 Sanguinary Guard being killed when charging 5 Wracks.

5++/5+++ on an 8 point model is more than solid too.

Oh and the range is negligible. DE have the transports to get into range and stay protected, and 9th is fought at very short ranges on average, focusing around mid-table brawls. You just park half of your Wracks and Grots aggressively mid-board and dare people to shift you. The other half continues to wait in transports to pounce and counterpunch anything it sees.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 06:11:57


Post by: Marin


Wyldhunt wrote:
I haven't been able to get any games in since the new codex dropped. Is DT liquifier spam really that hard to counter? Sincere question. We're talking about a very short-ranged weapon taken on platforms that don't generally have any other shooting mounted in transports that have comparable firepower to a razorback but with less durability against low AP weapons. I'm sure DT liquifiers are good (especially against marines), but is that really something you can build a competitive army around? Seems like most armies would have a range advantage, comparable or superior firepower (liquifiers are good, but they're likely the only shooting on the squads that take them), and the ability to shut down those liquifiers by diving into melee. And sure, wracks don't hate being in melee, but DT wracks also don't have any of the rules that make them particularly good in melee either. And a 5++/5+++ is solid, but isn't that less durable against most things things than a simple power armor save?

Again, sincere questions. I'm wondering what I'm not seeing.


Probably because of the raiders, raider can move, advance and than the flamers can still shoot, that give them the range and the raider give them protection.
The question is are liquifiers even decent without DT or GW again make the interaction that certain things dont work without certain combos.
I assume since only SM(DG are also SM) and necrons have codexes and they have similar boring(sleep on objectives) play style that is countered by drukhari and the rest factions are simply under powered 8th dexes, there is no one who can hard counter them and force them to put in the list not the optimal SM killing units.
Having in mind the codex is new and tournaments list are 2-3 weeks old, i`ll assume that from the end of next week we will see the real stats, since people will adjust their list.
But yes currently drukhari seem stronger, than the other factions. Codex releases are also slow and we are not sure what will happen when everything is released, the things that are super strong now, could be super average latter, so big nerfs can cripple the faction in the long run.
Typical GW things, nothing really to see here.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 06:44:20


Post by: addnid


RandomHeretic wrote:
My meta has been having an extremely hard time dealing with the DE build that has risen to the top. It has beaten multiple marines, death guard, sisters, harlies,Tyranids, necrons and wins the DE mirror match (if the DE bring a balanced list) without really breaking a sweat. It is just running 32 beefed up flamers and basically an entire list of T6 and T7 bodies.

Read a battle report here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Tyranids/comments/mwdqe5/tyranids_vs_new_drukhari_2000pt_written_battle/

No idea if this stuff will be FAQd, but hopefully it helps your discussion.


Great batrep, seems you did all you could, if I was you I wouldn’t change my list, just wait for GW to intervene, no way dark technomancers is staying as it currently is. Just play against other armies, but if you have a tournament, well just accept that nids can’t do anything against liquéfier spam. Actually it is not just nids, I only see DA and DG resisting a bit to liquiefier spam. I have faith the nerf bat will fall within the next two months, GW have improved their response time. I think we are seeing the first real feth up in terms of 9th Ed codex, it will be corrected, it is no big deal really, 40k has so many armies, and luckily many players have more than one. Especially Druka players, who are often veteran players (at least in my neck of woods)


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 06:56:57


Post by: yukishiro1


Custodes do ok against liquifier spam too. If you can keep them wounding on no better than a 4+ and keep your save a 3+ or better, it's bearable, and if you can get your save to a 2+ (Allarus w/ strat, SS Guard in cover), it bounces off pretty harmlessly.

Not many factions have T5+ and a 1+/3++ or better save, though, and anything less than that and it just melts stuff.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 07:48:42


Post by: Not Online!!!


Sunny Side Up wrote:
 cuda1179 wrote:
I know that Drukhari are Op right now, but I'm actually happy for them. They spent decades as GW's neglected stepchild. They deserve at least a couple months in the sun.


Not sure how that serves anyone?

Plastic figures don't have feelings or care.

And dedicated OG Drukhari-players aren't gonna be happy when the tournament-crowd abuses the hell out of the army for few months and gives it a bad name for years to come. Ask any "I-am-actually-into-this-army-for-the-fluff-and-lore-and-all-that"-fan of Iron Hands, Ynnari, etc..


This.

I don't think any Non formation player was happy with some of the factions op formations that skewed the game and lead to interventions against specific units.
Neither was i happy at the time when R&H got abused with the purge formation and the vraks supplement.
It's the same as to why CSM players are unhappy if they play a legion that has no access to slaanesh but still wan'ts to field the shooty units (because cacophony singlehandedly hiked the price on many units)

These excesses have and will lead to more issues down the line. GW will compensate except when gw does that there's like a 75% chance they'll overcompensate.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 08:15:20


Post by: addnid


yukishiro1 wrote:
Custodes do ok against liquifier spam too. If you can keep them wounding on no better than a 4+ and keep your save a 3+ or better, it's bearable, and if you can get your save to a 2+ (Allarus w/ strat, SS Guard in cover), it bounces off pretty harmlessly.

Not many factions have T5+ and a 1+/3++ or better save, though, and anything less than that and it just melts stuff.


Ah yes custodes too, good point. They also have an ignore ap 1 or 2 strat. Though I think druka will just outmanoeuvre custodes and concentrate fire on a few key units, and custo will lose (even if they can preent being tabled). Custodes bikes will die in droves to liquefiers though


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 10:46:58


Post by: Tyel


In some ways I'm glad the rise of the DT mass liquifier build has happened, because it confirms my ability to mathhammer a codex.

But yeah - its horrendous and will surely be nerfed hard. I don't think this is a Xeno on Inner Circle prediction - this will destroy casual FLGSs over the world.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 11:28:28


Post by: harlokin


Tyel wrote:
In some ways I'm glad the rise of the DT mass liquifier build has happened, because it confirms my ability to mathhammer a codex.

But yeah - its horrendous and will surely be nerfed hard. I don't think this is a Xeno on Inner Circle prediction - this will destroy casual FLGSs over the world.


It was horrible when it first came out in PA, and how GW missed the interaction with auto-hit weapons is just ......frustrating.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 11:53:12


Post by: Not Online!!!


It's GW.....
Considering their quality isn't great and they produced Obsec rules that didn't work for whole factions what did you expect, that they'd not screw up the magnitude of rulessources they had and distilled into a codex?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 11:54:11


Post by: Arbitrator


Codex Creep's just a feature now, rather than due to incompetence. But you'll keep buying into it so it's not like GW care.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 12:09:07


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Arbitrator wrote:
Codex Creep's just a feature now, rather than due to incompetence. But you'll keep buying into it so it's not like GW care.

Probably only 50% itentional though.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 12:24:11


Post by: PenitentJake


yukishiro1 wrote:
DT with flamers is indeed problematic, as I said above it's really poor design to have a trait that makes certain weapons literally more than twice as good as they normally are.


I get this, and don't entirely disagree.

But just to play devil's advocate, aren't bolters twice as good in Marine hands?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 13:28:06


Post by: Spoletta


That's a general rule of all the 11 marine factions, and as a consequence bolters are costed with bolter discipline in mind.

This is not the same.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 15:11:37


Post by: the_scotsman


A DT wrack squad in 1/2 of a raider does have a 60% points return vs MEQ, that is extremely solid for sure. It also autohits, which limits what you can do to defend against it.

.....DT should just be +1 to wound and eliminate the All Consuming limitation. Army wide rules that powerful are just silly.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 15:35:37


Post by: bullyboy


So a skew list taking advantage of a single rules interaction is what defines a codex? These lists often do not survive the nerfbat, and I expect that will eventually happen with DT. GW will just need to see more data before making the cut


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 15:36:08


Post by: the_scotsman


Can we also please note that a xenos faction is coming out of the gate fairly clearly ahead of the power curve and of the people who play them regularly only two seem to be saying "nah theyre fine no nerfs coming down the pipe"?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one of them is Dakkas current resident living meme?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 16:31:47


Post by: Xenomancers


 bullyboy wrote:
So a skew list taking advantage of a single rules interaction is what defines a codex? These lists often do not survive the nerfbat, and I expect that will eventually happen with DT. GW will just need to see more data before making the cut

Not to dig at you personally. DA did survive the nerf bat. So GW track record is not good here.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 16:40:06


Post by: Mad Doc Grotsnik


 the_scotsman wrote:
Can we also please note that a xenos faction is coming out of the gate fairly clearly ahead of the power curve and of the people who play them regularly only two seem to be saying "nah theyre fine no nerfs coming down the pipe"?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one of them is Dakkas current resident living meme?


Ahhh, the old “Paper is over powered, Scissors fine, thank you, Rock” quandary.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 16:52:01


Post by: bullyboy


 Xenomancers wrote:
 bullyboy wrote:
So a skew list taking advantage of a single rules interaction is what defines a codex? These lists often do not survive the nerfbat, and I expect that will eventually happen with DT. GW will just need to see more data before making the cut

Not to dig at you personally. DA did survive the nerf bat. So GW track record is not good here.


Because that was a perceived problem that hasn't been backed up by tournament data. It also isn't a single skew build.
I doubt much will get hit by nerfbat, but if a list (like shown earlier with liquifier spam) consistently outperforms in tournaments, it will be managed.
It takes data, not speculation, which was what was used with DA.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 17:41:55


Post by: Eldarsif


Drukhari are a tough beast now, but barring crazy Rust rule interaction and Reaver misinformation I don't think they are the end of all creation. I have played many games against the new Drukhari and I have yet to lose with my Death Guard. I have to earn my victory while playing, but that is how the best games are supposed to be.

I am going to be honest and I think a lot of people got complacent in the old Marine meta expecting that marines was the only thing you were ever going to face. If you build your army just to kill a certain meta then you are going to be hit hard when it shifts.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/23 17:45:49


Post by: the_scotsman


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Can we also please note that a xenos faction is coming out of the gate fairly clearly ahead of the power curve and of the people who play them regularly only two seem to be saying "nah theyre fine no nerfs coming down the pipe"?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one of them is Dakkas current resident living meme?


Ahhh, the old “Paper is over powered, Scissors fine, thank you, Rock” quandary.


No mostly just mentioning it because during the two-year Reign of The Space Marine I recall oft being told "well, whenever a xenos army gets OP everyone just tells the marine players to 'git gud' and they're all defensive and mean about it!"

Here we are, most competitive players are saying Drukhari are Tier 1 good, we haven't seen any actually solid data but it's pretty clear from batreps and a few test games that there are some pretty wackadoodle combos in there, and all the drukhari players for the most part are saying 'yep, there's some zany stuff in that there book, hope they nerf it like this or that'.

Like at most you've got people salty at the extremely fast knee-jerk hate reaction from the fine folks who defended marines as A-OK for a full year and half now demanding heavy nerfs based on the data from like 3 20-man tournaments, and a couple folks one of whom is extremely notorious for his goofy takes on balance in denial and saying everything is fine.

Where's the 'git gud marine noobs'? where's the 'well marines were OP so I'm glad they get stomped on' that still on the reg gets thrown out at Eldar and Tau?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Eldarsif wrote:
Drukhari are a tough beast now, but barring crazy Rust rule interaction and Reaver misinformation I don't think they are the end of all creation. I have played many games against the new Drukhari and I have yet to lose with my Death Guard. I have to earn my victory while playing, but that is how the best games are supposed to be.

I am going to be honest and I think a lot of people got complacent in the old Marine meta expecting that marines was the only thing you were ever going to face. If you build your army just to kill a certain meta then you are going to be hit hard when it shifts.


I am looking forward to the test game I'm going to be playing against the only other drukhari player in my area with my Deathwatch. I think my TAC list should be in a decent place to take on what he's likely to throw at me, but we'll see.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/24 15:56:26


Post by: Turnip Jedi


 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Can we also please note that a xenos faction is coming out of the gate fairly clearly ahead of the power curve and of the people who play them regularly only two seem to be saying "nah theyre fine no nerfs coming down the pipe"?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one of them is Dakkas current resident living meme?


Ahhh, the old “Paper is over powered, Scissors fine, thank you, Rock” quandary.


I think it once more shows the limits of the much vaunted 'playtesting'. its might be happening but its clearly not testing to destruction, and I suspect the Rust book stuff, most likely Event related, didnt get any, along with pet ideas being left as is regardless of feedback


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/24 16:30:58


Post by: Umbros


 Turnip Jedi wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Can we also please note that a xenos faction is coming out of the gate fairly clearly ahead of the power curve and of the people who play them regularly only two seem to be saying "nah theyre fine no nerfs coming down the pipe"?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one of them is Dakkas current resident living meme?


Ahhh, the old “Paper is over powered, Scissors fine, thank you, Rock” quandary.


I think it once more shows the limits of the much vaunted 'playtesting'. its might be happening but its clearly not testing to destruction, and I suspect the Rust book stuff, most likely Event related, didnt get any, along with pet ideas being left as is regardless of feedback


Ignoring the Book of Rust, which...yeah it is what it is, the book is a really well done book. A huge variety of options and playstyles. Almost no bad units. Plenty of choice in terms of army construction.

I don't say this to deny that there are problems, but it is a wonderful book and an enormous improvement.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/24 16:54:33


Post by: SemperMortis


 the_scotsman wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Can we also please note that a xenos faction is coming out of the gate fairly clearly ahead of the power curve and of the people who play them regularly only two seem to be saying "nah theyre fine no nerfs coming down the pipe"?




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And one of them is Dakkas current resident living meme?


Ahhh, the old “Paper is over powered, Scissors fine, thank you, Rock” quandary.


No mostly just mentioning it because during the two-year Reign of The Space Marine I recall oft being told "well, whenever a xenos army gets OP everyone just tells the marine players to 'git gud' and they're all defensive and mean about it!"

Here we are, most competitive players are saying Drukhari are Tier 1 good, we haven't seen any actually solid data but it's pretty clear from batreps and a few test games that there are some pretty wackadoodle combos in there, and all the drukhari players for the most part are saying 'yep, there's some zany stuff in that there book, hope they nerf it like this or that'.

Like at most you've got people salty at the extremely fast knee-jerk hate reaction from the fine folks who defended marines as A-OK for a full year and half now demanding heavy nerfs based on the data from like 3 20-man tournaments, and a couple folks one of whom is extremely notorious for his goofy takes on balance in denial and saying everything is fine.

Where's the 'git gud marine noobs'? where's the 'well marines were OP so I'm glad they get stomped on' that still on the reg gets thrown out at Eldar and Tau?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Eldarsif wrote:
Drukhari are a tough beast now, but barring crazy Rust rule interaction and Reaver misinformation I don't think they are the end of all creation. I have played many games against the new Drukhari and I have yet to lose with my Death Guard. I have to earn my victory while playing, but that is how the best games are supposed to be.

I am going to be honest and I think a lot of people got complacent in the old Marine meta expecting that marines was the only thing you were ever going to face. If you build your army just to kill a certain meta then you are going to be hit hard when it shifts.


I am looking forward to the test game I'm going to be playing against the only other drukhari player in my area with my Deathwatch. I think my TAC list should be in a decent place to take on what he's likely to throw at me, but we'll see.


Well, i'll be honest, I have said in the past to several notorious Marine defenders to "git gud ya noobz". I especially loved saying that in 7th when I would beat Marine players at tournaments and they would sit there on their soap box and loudly proclaim to anyone who would listen that SM's were under powered garbage and Orkz were desperately in need of nerfs because they as a whole were OP. This carried over to Index 8th where I was running Kommandos and boyz and the SM players were running Girlyman gunlines and complaining that Orkz were OP and in need of nerfz. This further carried over into 8.5 where I would bring a unit of Tankbustas, suicide them near an Imperial Knight and use the grenade strat on them followed by shoot twice if it needed it Apparently Ork tankbustas were OP as well.

All of that is to say that in my limited experience, an unfortunate number of Space Marine players will complain about power level when their plan goes awry or when they just lose. Ive been told in no uncertain terms that Orkz boyz in 9th over powered because they were able to die slowly enough to hold objectives and win the game. Keep in mind between the end of 8th and 9th so far ork boyz have received...no buffz and have gone up in price 14%

As far as the "git gud" from deserving armies, I do remember a fair amount of Eldar players saying something similar when they were at the height of their 7th edition ridiculous level of power, D-cannon wraithknights, scatbikes, warpspiders etc. I do remember Tau players having a bit more humility as they slammed 3 riptides onto the table, they for the most part admitted it was broken OP nonsense, but in their defense it was also one of the few things they were able to do to keep from getting tabled turn 3.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/24 18:09:51


Post by: Tyel


SemperMortis wrote:
As far as the "git gud" from deserving armies, I do remember a fair amount of Eldar players saying something similar when they were at the height of their 7th edition ridiculous level of power, D-cannon wraithknights, scatbikes, warpspiders etc. I do remember Tau players having a bit more humility as they slammed 3 riptides onto the table, they for the most part admitted it was broken OP nonsense, but in their defense it was also one of the few things they were able to do to keep from getting tabled turn 3.


I think the history of 40k online is Eldar and Marine players calling the other entitled, while Chaos moan they've not had anything good since 2002.
Other factions are not really appearing in this film.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/24 18:51:25


Post by: alextroy


Tyel wrote:
SemperMortis wrote:
As far as the "git gud" from deserving armies, I do remember a fair amount of Eldar players saying something similar when they were at the height of their 7th edition ridiculous level of power, D-cannon wraithknights, scatbikes, warpspiders etc. I do remember Tau players having a bit more humility as they slammed 3 riptides onto the table, they for the most part admitted it was broken OP nonsense, but in their defense it was also one of the few things they were able to do to keep from getting tabled turn 3.


I think the history of 40k online is Eldar and Marine players calling the other entitled, while Chaos moan they've not had anything good since 2002.
Other factions are not really appearing in this film.
There were the minor storylines of Dark Eldar and Sister of Battle players saying, how nice that you've gotten anything, but these plot lines have been resolved


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 00:52:43


Post by: yukishiro1


It doesn't bode very well that a lot of the trouble (not all, there's also DT, but a lot) with Drukhari comes from the Day-1 DLC. It's not a good sign when the very first DLC creates or at least seriously contributes to what looks to be the first really broken army of 9th edition.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 01:04:20


Post by: Karol


Maybe for the enjoyment of the game it could be a problem, specially if someone doesn't play a good army. But w40k seems to be going through phases of having some factions be a lot more powerful then the other, and people are still buying the models and GW is doing more then alright.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 01:39:41


Post by: Catulle


Yes, yes, the worst thing ever is a glass cannon faction getting better at damage and worse at resilience. As opposed to more clearly delineating army roles.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Clearly, there's some bs... like, just put DT back to Wound rolls and it probably makes sense as an overwhelming obsession.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Half points reavers are clearly stupid (and honestly anyone passing them off so cheap in the interim is THAT fething GUY), but once the painfully RAW tourneys stop admitting that crap, we might get a reasonable assessment


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 02:02:34


Post by: Karol


The problem with stupid RAW crap is that unless GW FAQs is pre codex being out or just after the codex coming out, you can't really say the rules or point cost is wrong, if it stays unchanged for months.

It would take GW less then a few hours to write a post in an article on their site or on their facebook page saying that, they got architects and the reavers wrong, and that the FAQ is coming soon.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 02:27:48


Post by: Catulle


Well, of course it would, and I'd hope that it will. At least as much as I would hope you'd acknowledge when it happens. The Eldar shouldn't ever be as tough as humanity... They *ought* to cheat their way through by better technology.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 02:32:58


Post by: Karol


Then we end up with something as fun as +4inv blanket save on everything or stacking debuffs to hit from prior editions.

And while I imagine it has to be enjoyable to play with such a rule set. It is not very enjoyable to play against. In the end it comes down to carrying for the faction one plays. It is different for people with multiple armies or who can jump between w40k and AoS. Not very fun if you happen to play something like tau or gsc in 9th, and no matter if it is more or less casual minded store games.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 02:37:48


Post by: Catulle


I fear you may now be within the realm of, as we may say "making gak up..." might you care to expand on that?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 03:07:08


Post by: bullyboy


You keep saying Tau is not fun to play in 9th, but FSE seem to be able to compete in middle ranged competition. Can't comment on GSC.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 04:14:09


Post by: Daedalus81


Ok. Umm. Sisters. feth Mortifiers. Seriously...45 S6 AP2 attacks plus 18 HB shots for 180 points. And then...if it dies in melee on a 4+ is does D3 MW. My god.

And Warriors are nice and durable until you use 15 retributors and 4 cherubs on them. Going second hurt real bad.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 04:26:12


Post by: ccs


 Daedalus81 wrote:
Ok. Umm. Sisters. feth Mortifiers. Seriously...45 S6 AP2 attacks plus 18 HB shots for 180 points. And then...if it dies in melee on a 4+ is does D3 MW. My god.


Lol. That's the general reaction I've seen to these (and/or Repentia & Arco's) locally.

But seriously? It's as if every force is being intentionally designed to have some sort "My God" unit in it.
If you fight SoB you'll see Mortifiers. If you fight Drukhari you might well run into Liquifiers. Dark Angels & Transhuman. Etc etc etc.

So when we all have broken gak....


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 04:55:31


Post by: yukishiro1


Mortifiers aren't even the best unit in the SoB book. They're quite squishy for the points, and don't get most of the special rules (can't use miracle dice on them, no subfaction benefits, etc). They pack in a ton of offense per point, but sisters have plenty of other things that do that too.

Don't get me wrong, they're an arguably competitive choice. It says a lot about how strong SoB are that they aren't an auto-take.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 08:09:19


Post by: Karol


ccs 797783 11107495 wrote:

Lol. That's the general reaction I've seen to these (and/or Repentia & Arco's) locally.

But seriously? It's as if every force is being intentionally designed to have some sort "My God" unit in it.
If you fight SoB you'll see Mortifiers. If you fight Drukhari you might well run into Liquifiers. Dark Angels & Transhuman. Etc etc etc.

So when we all have broken gak....


It has two problems though. Stuff like SW being considered one of the worse types of marines, because they are locked out of being able to take the apothecary upgrade. And the second is the time it takes to update. With a 4+months delay in 9th ed, there is a high chance that, at least in this edition, some armies may not get their broken stuff at all, because the edition will end before that happens. Or they get it 1 month before the edition ends.


Don't get me wrong, they're an arguably competitive choice. It says a lot about how strong SoB are that they aren't an auto-take

Isn't it like eradictors? I would love to have a unit of 3 termintors running around with melta weapons. But marines have better stuff like attack bikes for example.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 09:38:46


Post by: mrFickle


Drukhari are OP because players are winning tournaments with them since their new codex release.

If this the full logic? Where do these tournament results come from and what statistics are provided.

Considering the Drukhari got a much needed new rule set maybe this has made playing Drukhari more enjoyable and therefore there are more Drukhari armies entered into tournaments? If half the entries are Drukhari it’s more likely they will win.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 09:40:36


Post by: AngryAngel80


What next ? Dogs and cats living together, Mass Hysteria !!


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 13:17:52


Post by: Irbis


 the_scotsman wrote:
No mostly just mentioning it because during the two-year Reign of The Space Marine I recall oft being told "well, whenever a xenos army gets OP everyone just tells the marine players to 'git gud' and they're all defensive and mean about it!"

Gee, if only that wasn't experience of every SM player for three whole editions, especially 6th and 7th when picking Tau or Eldar was pretty much autowin. Oh wait, it was, and the amount of smug GITGUD from people whining their broken to vastly above 8th edition IH level xeno armies sometimes managed to just draw with most minmaxed, broken SM armies with a casual list was insane

Here we are, most competitive players are saying Drukhari are Tier 1 good, we haven't seen any actually solid data but it's pretty clear from batreps and a few test games that there are some pretty wackadoodle combos in there, and all the drukhari players for the most part are saying 'yep, there's some zany stuff in that there book, hope they nerf it like this or that'.

Funny, because all I have seen so far is denial and downplaying of every single thing in the book. Unit of rich kids with gear bought by mom has twice the accuracy of SM veteran with 700 years of combat experience? "Totes balanced, bro". Already pretty strong unit gets massive buffs to entire statline for free? "It was uh, just bad before"! DE HQ now can do 50 attacks and deletes anything it touches? "It's kinda weak, honestly". Such rational, much wow.

Or how about first 6 months of 9th with Harlequins exceeding IH winrates with ease and the exact same people still screeching how OP!11!one! Space Marines are even though they were no longer in top 3 spot and denying Harlequins are in any way good? Because DE denial is just continuation of the whole edition long trend, not something new...

Like at most you've got people salty at the extremely fast knee-jerk hate reaction from the fine folks who defended marines as A-OK for a full year and half now demanding heavy nerfs based on the data from like 3 20-man tournaments, and a couple folks one of whom is extremely notorious for his goofy takes on balance in denial and saying everything is fine.

""Knee jerk"" aka people armed with actual math pointing out vast majority of SM factions outside of IH barely touched 50% and were by every sane definition OK? These ones? Sorry, I didn't know numbers and actual arguments were "hate" and "denial" now

Because funny, what I remember from these debates was hate, yes, but from people screeching how OP every single SM faction was. Yes, even DW, with their ~33% winrate, an argument so comical it made people making it into clowns on the spot...

Where's the 'git gud marine noobs'? where's the 'well marines were OP so I'm glad they get stomped on' that still on the reg gets thrown out at Eldar and Tau?

Have you read this forum? Like, at all, for more than 5 minutes?

I am looking forward to the test game I'm going to be playing against the only other drukhari player in my area with my Deathwatch. I think my TAC list should be in a decent place to take on what he's likely to throw at me, but we'll see.

I like how you fail to realize you just shot your own argument in both feet with demolisher cannon - DW, thanks to inept writers who botched 9th edition book in every possible way, have massive amounts of anti-DE stuff - and yet, you claim they are in merely 'OK' place to take on them. Gee, I wonder, what does this mean for balance for every SM faction that does not have these tailor made countermeasures? And that's pretty much all that needs to be said about 'accuracy' of the opinions above...


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 13:37:34


Post by: endlesswaltz123


Would Drukhari be such an issue on the old gaming board size? Honestly, this is a serious question.

I tend to think a lot of problems with specific factions this edition is due to the board size plus the requirement to pretty much have to take the mid field by turn 2 latest or you will lose on points, most likely taking it turn one.

This could easily be debunked as well, play test games on the old board size, and multi test them. If the justification for the board size change was to fall in line with standard furniture table sizes, then movement on units and range of weapons needs to be adjusted.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 13:38:40


Post by: the_scotsman


Damn I was beginning to wonder if this fairly reasonable converaation between people I could imagine as socially functional adults was even taking place on dakkadakka.

I gotta know what the massive amount of anti-DE stuff in DW is though - we get rr1s to hit in melee vs all Xenos, and we get a stratagem to ignore mods to hit vs eldar. Nothing in the codex actually calls out dark eldar specifically iirc. They certainly dont have as many weapons that are great to target de as admech and tau do.

In a perfect, balanced, fair game I would be going into this matchup going "wow, I am going to effortlessly smash these guys with my marines, this wont be any trouble at all!" I guess.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Would Drukhari be such an issue on the old gaming board size? Honestly, this is a serious question.

I tend to think a lot of problems with specific factions this edition is due to the board size plus the requirement to pretty much have to take the mid field by turn 2 latest or you will lose on points, most likely taking it turn one.

This could easily be debunked as well, play test games on the old board size, and multi test them. If the justification for the board size change was to fall in line with standard furniture table sizes, then movement on units and range of weapons needs to be adjusted.


The board size was in no way related to dining room tables, lol.

Its a factor of GWs standard boxed set box, which is based on GWs full uncut sprue size, which is determined by the injection molding machine.

The hew board certainly doesnt help balance, but it's not based on balance in any way. It's based on GW realizing people were making money off selling mats to play the game on and they were not, and now they can include a partial mat in every limited edition box.

Thats it. Anyone who thinks this decision had anything to do with game balance in any way is utterly deluded. Up until now, people just enjoyed that it penalized long-ranged armies like Tau and Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Its frankly amazing to me that so far nobody has noticed "Gwarsh, maybe these mobile armies like Slaanesh, Harlequins, and Dark Eldar are at some kind of advantage now that theyve sliced the back end of the board off and you now physically cannot deploy outside thejr threat range?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 13:51:07


Post by: Daedalus81


yukishiro1 wrote:
(can't use miracle dice on them, no subfaction benefits, etc).


Hmm, well, I think I need a word with my opponent on that. MD'd his charge.

I made several mistakes on top of the ctan failing to connect on powers and flubbing all my anti-tank guns, which hurt.

I'd also like to see the extra 12" on that retributor strat go away.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
 endlesswaltz123 wrote:
Would Drukhari be such an issue on the old gaming board size? Honestly, this is a serious question.


You still start the same distance apart, so, even with a bigger board your only option would be to completely cede primary and hope there is enough terrain for you, but not for them.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 14:01:15


Post by: Quasistellar


Yeah, the changes to scoring and terrain make more difference than table size.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 14:38:10


Post by: Tyel


To go with the Tyranid-DE game - the Tyranid player would have had an extra 2" of depth to hide in which might have spared some models from first turn liquifiers - but not hugely so. (The DE player will also make different choices on where to place models if they can't shoot anything.)


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 15:03:42


Post by: Daedalus81


Tyel wrote:
To go with the Tyranid-DE game - the Tyranid player would have had an extra 2" of depth to hide in which might have spared some models from first turn liquifiers - but not hugely so. (The DE player will also make different choices on where to place models if they can't shoot anything.)


Not sure. It was a low scoring game since DE made no real attempt at primaries.

It may have been more appropriate for the nid player to reserve more and bring the DE in the come from both sides and divide them up.

Then he could have had the first strike and preserved his key units.

Whether or not DE are too strong in some aspects shouldn't mean we abandon adapting how we approach fighting them.

In my game against sisters I put the monolith into deepstrike, because I didn’t want to see it blasted turn 1, however I should have placed it.

Why? Multiple reasons.

1) he was going to castle the retributors for rerolls leaving me more space to deploy safely
2) if he was concerned about it it would have kept the retributors from focusing entirely the warriors
3) the monolith could have handily wiped more than a few mortifiers giving me more room to breathe
4) if my warriors weren't decimated I could have run up the board and dropped solar pulse and pulled off a couple of his squads

But this is a difficult decision since deepstrike happens before all deployment and so only experience would have given me enough insight.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 15:13:33


Post by: TangoTwoBravo


I think we are going to see a general points increase (not just fixing the Reavers). The Book of Rust rules interactions require adjustment (I think this book missed rigorous playtesting). Finally, Eviscerating Flyby either needs a cap on total Mortal Wounds or only generate MWs on a 6. I'd prefer to see a cap.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 15:33:11


Post by: the_scotsman


TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I think we are going to see a general points increase (not just fixing the Reavers). The Book of Rust rules interactions require adjustment (I think this book missed rigorous playtesting). Finally, Eviscerating Flyby either needs a cap on total Mortal Wounds or only generate MWs on a 6. I'd prefer to see a cap.


All fair. I really hope dark tech itself gets nerfed rather than the weapons/units it makes abusive. Itd suck to see a point nerf to liquifiers because theyre busted when you make them +1 to wound 2D.

I can see point nerfs to raiders, Wyches, succubi and hellions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I think we are going to see a general points increase (not just fixing the Reavers). The Book of Rust rules interactions require adjustment (I think this book missed rigorous playtesting). Finally, Eviscerating Flyby either needs a cap on total Mortal Wounds or only generate MWs on a 6. I'd prefer to see a cap.


Given the standard exchange rate for "mws on demand" appears to be 1cp for 2 basically anywhere on the board, and eviserating requires you to manage to move over a unit which means iys at least pretty unlikely turn 1 I think a cap of 6 or at lowest 5 makes sense. 6 would allow you to make full use out of it with Reavers (unit cap 12) who seem to be the less problematic unit using it.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 15:48:45


Post by: harlokin


Points aren't normally addressed with FAQs, unless they are printed wrong....as with the Reavers.

The Razorflail madness will be dealt with I'm sure.

Switching DT to wound rolls seems like an easy fix.

I wouldn't be averse to an Evicerating Flyby MW cap, but that said I'm not convinced that 20-strong Hellion units are actually managing to pull off mega damage outside of theoretical fever dreams.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 15:55:21


Post by: yukishiro1


 Daedalus81 wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:
(can't use miracle dice on them, no subfaction benefits, etc).


Hmm, well, I think I need a word with my opponent on that. MD'd his charge.



It's a common mistake, probably not deliberate cheating. I think they're actually the only unit in the book that has the Sisters keyword but not the Acts of Faith ability, which is what actually determines whether you can use miracle dice on that unit or not, so a lot of people don't realize they're excluded. It also means you don't get any dice when they destroy something, etc. They also lack sacred rights, so if they're running pure sisters, mortifiers don't get those bonuses either, so no exploding 6s or +1 to advance or charge either, for example.

They can use strats like advance and charge because that's keyed to being Sisters keyworded. But the lack of those things and also the lack of subfaction benefits is why they're so powerful in terms of base stats, and also why they aren't an autotake.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 15:57:26


Post by: Bosskelot


Eviscerating fly-By just stands out because a lot of other similar MW stratagems in 9th have had a cap applied to them.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 16:39:29


Post by: Daedalus81


 harlokin wrote:
Points aren't normally addressed with FAQs, unless they are printed wrong....as with the Reavers.


Well, Eradicators were published in the point sweep and then went up in their FAQ so it seems plausible.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 16:57:12


Post by: the_scotsman


No, my worry is they don't address DT/cult of strife rust content in the faq and just obliterate yhe units that use those things next CA.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 17:09:05


Post by: PenitentJake


Tyel wrote:
To go with the Tyranid-DE game - the Tyranid player would have had an extra 2" of depth to hide in which might have spared some models from first turn liquifiers - but not hugely so. (The DE player will also make different choices on where to place models if they can't shoot anything.)


Not without changing the measurements in the mission. Distances are measured in such a way on the maps that armies are the same distance apart no matter how big the board is- usually this means measuring from the centre line.

So even if you change board size, unless you extrapolate how big the deployment zone would be on a minimum size board, and then measure that distance from your resized board edge, the distance between armies doesn't change. If not for this design feature, they couldn't call it a minimum size.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 17:26:49


Post by: yukishiro1


On the new boards each deployment zone is shallower than the old boards. If you deploy on the line you're still an equal distance from the opponent's line, but not from their board edge. It makes a significant difference in your ability to stay out of range on T1.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 17:35:08


Post by: PenitentJake


True, but taking advantage of the extra 2 inches of depth puts you 2" further back from centre line objectives as well as your enemy, so you trade one problem for another in a progressive objective oriented mission.

Might be worth it, but it still isn't ideal.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 18:50:20


Post by: the_scotsman


PenitentJake wrote:
True, but taking advantage of the extra 2 inches of depth puts you 2" further back from centre line objectives as well as your enemy, so you trade one problem for another in a progressive objective oriented mission.

Might be worth it, but it still isn't ideal.


Except that the exact strategy the drukhari player employed in that game - disregard objectives, charge headlong into the enemy to inflict maximum turn 1 casualties before the enemy gets a chance to act - is made DIRECTLY easier by slicing those inches off the DZ. With that additional 2" the nid player would have tanked 6 fewer Liquifiers than he did in that game - the drukhari player used a strat to move 8", then rolled 6", 5", 5", 4" for advances. Only the 8" and 6" would have been in range.

Its not a game changer every game but against this kind of obnoxious skew the option to get up against ones DZ is supremely helpful.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 18:58:27


Post by: Daedalus81


 the_scotsman wrote:
PenitentJake wrote:
True, but taking advantage of the extra 2 inches of depth puts you 2" further back from centre line objectives as well as your enemy, so you trade one problem for another in a progressive objective oriented mission.

Might be worth it, but it still isn't ideal.


Except that the exact strategy the drukhari player employed in that game - disregard objectives, charge headlong into the enemy to inflict maximum turn 1 casualties before the enemy gets a chance to act - is made DIRECTLY easier by slicing those inches off the DZ. With that additional 2" the nid player would have tanked 6 fewer Liquifiers than he did in that game - the drukhari player used a strat to move 8", then rolled 6", 5", 5", 4" for advances. Only the 8" and 6" would have been in range.

Its not a game changer every game but against this kind of obnoxious skew the option to get up against ones DZ is supremely helpful.


I suspect the terrain wasn't very useable, but it is hard to judge from those shapes.

Also, if the DE player is willing to burn CP to run at you then opponents should be willing to burn CP to hide stuff. Secondaries are known before deploy. It should be relatively clear what is going to happen.

The other reason this list likely isn't popular ( and hasn't been so far ) is because you might go 5-0, but you won't score as well as other DE lists with a more rigorous approach to objectives. It's kind of like the guy on Counterstrike who only cared about KD ratio and didn't concern himself with the bomb.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 19:30:53


Post by: Umbros


I do wonder what points are balanced against - are they against the full range of 9th codexes, or a mixture? My understanding ws that they more or less wrote the 9th codexes at the same time and tested accordingly, which means at launch they aren't balanced to the game as is.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 20:01:35


Post by: vict0988


Umbros wrote:
I do wonder what points are balanced against - are they against the full range of 9th codexes, or a mixture? My understanding ws that they more or less wrote the 9th codexes at the same time and tested accordingly, which means at launch they aren't balanced to the game as is.

I've listened and watched a lot of playtester content and read the White Dwarf article on playtesting, it is my interpretation that they are balanced against unreleased rules. Hence the "everything will be better when everyone has their codex" attitude.

Why is Drukhari busted? It's because of those damn knife-ear podcasters, I've been saying they should have been kicked off the playtesting team for a while now. They couldn't catch the obvious imbalance in the rules for the Aspect Shrines in Phoenix Rising. The Dire Avengers overwatch bonus is no more impactful than the generic shooting bonus is while firing overwatch. /s


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 20:08:25


Post by: Daedalus81


A small tournament just finished with Nayden at the top with DE, Ynnari, and CW soup. His DE portion was DT with Drazhar, Succubus, 3x5 Wracks, 3 Grots, and 3 raiders. Ynnari was also DE - Visarch, Wyches, Brides, and Incubi.

2nd (WWW) was Mechanicus
3rd (WWW) was DE with 10 point reavers & DL/RF Succubus - played CSM soup, Sisters, and WS
4th (LWW) was CSM soup (Bile & DG)
5th (WWL) was DE with DL/RF Succubus - played DE, DA w/ Baneblade, Scions & Bullgryns
6th (WWL) was DE with 10 point reavers - played SW, Necrons, and Mechanicus
7th (WWL) was WS

One other DE (WLL) with DL/RF Succubus - played Orks, Nayden, and Necrons


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 20:19:47


Post by: StrayIight


 vict0988 wrote:
Umbros wrote:
I do wonder what points are balanced against - are they against the full range of 9th codexes, or a mixture? My understanding ws that they more or less wrote the 9th codexes at the same time and tested accordingly, which means at launch they aren't balanced to the game as is.

I've listened and watched a lot of playtester content and read the White Dwarf article on playtesting, it is my interpretation that they are balanced against unreleased rules. Hence the "everything will be better when everyone has their codex" attitude.

Why is Drukhari busted? It's because of those damn knife-ear podcasters, I've been saying they should have been kicked off the playtesting team for a while now. They couldn't catch the obvious imbalance in the rules for the Aspect Shrines in Phoenix Rising. The Dire Avengers overwatch bonus is no more impactful than the generic shooting bonus is while firing overwatch. /s


I think it's a more fundamental problem than this.

Full disclosure, I'm a Drukhari player and absolutely see some definite issues with regards to balance in the new Codex - a number of us have been discussing it at length (and pretty constructively and honestly) in the Drukhari tactics thread. It's a great book with some wonderful content, but I don't think anyone who's being truly objective can say there aren't some very obvious problems that need addressing too.

I think a big part of the issue is that GW does not have a robust, professional system for testing the content it is looking to release.

My whole career, I've worked in the software industry as professional QA. First in the games industry for a very major developer, then in aviation, working on the software civilian ATC use, and military fighter control systems for some countries.

There's a lot of overlap that I've observed between how you (attempt to) exhaustively test software, and how you could/should be testing a professionally produced game like 40K. Much of both essentially comes down to mathematics - an ISEB qualified tester knows there are tools and techniques to account for many elements in that area.

What GW appear to employ, is something more like a reward system where prominent members of the community can become part of the test group. That's not to say they can't provide valuable feedback, but they are not trained testers. There is not a robust test process in place in that environment.

You also cannot rely on the rules team and writers to properly test their own work - for exactly the same reason as you do not allow a developer to be the sole individual testing their software - testing needs to be independent.

Competitively (and I've never seen this mentioned bizarrely), there's also a big issue of 'fairness' when prominent competitive players are members of the playtesting group - as many are/have been. They have early access to rules, lists, testing of lists, that isn't available to others - that's a distinct advantage. I know of at least one occasion in 8th where a test group member won a major event with a brand new codex.

I think these are discussions worth having as a community. These issues are not just happening with the DE codex - they're occurring in release after release.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 20:46:57


Post by: Elfric


is this Astartes player suicide watch thread?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 20:56:59


Post by: yukishiro1


GW didn't used to do playtesting at all, they consider it big progress to dole out playtester "status" to influencers to keep them on side. I'm sure most of those people genuinely do their best, but they're unpaid volunteers there on sufferance, you're never going to get good results from a program like that. I'm sure most of the people involved try to do their best, but the whole program is just a big joke.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 20:59:50


Post by: StrayIight


yukishiro1 wrote:
GW didn't used to do playtesting at all, they consider it big progress to dole out playtester "status" to influencers to keep them on side. I'm sure most of those people genuinely do their best, but they're unpaid volunteers there on sufferance, you're never going to get good results from a program like that. I'm sure most of the people involved try to do their best, but the whole program is just a big joke.


Them being unpaid volunteers is definitely part of the issue. It's far easier to ignore a member of the public who is grateful to be included, than a paid member of staff you're employing to be critical.

It's very clearly a system that isn't working in it's current form.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 21:13:10


Post by: Quasistellar


 StrayIight wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
Umbros wrote:
I do wonder what points are balanced against - are they against the full range of 9th codexes, or a mixture? My understanding ws that they more or less wrote the 9th codexes at the same time and tested accordingly, which means at launch they aren't balanced to the game as is.

I've listened and watched a lot of playtester content and read the White Dwarf article on playtesting, it is my interpretation that they are balanced against unreleased rules. Hence the "everything will be better when everyone has their codex" attitude.

Why is Drukhari busted? It's because of those damn knife-ear podcasters, I've been saying they should have been kicked off the playtesting team for a while now. They couldn't catch the obvious imbalance in the rules for the Aspect Shrines in Phoenix Rising. The Dire Avengers overwatch bonus is no more impactful than the generic shooting bonus is while firing overwatch. /s


I think it's a more fundamental problem than this.

Full disclosure, I'm a Drukhari player and absolutely see some definite issues with regards to balance in the new Codex - a number of us have been discussing it at length (and pretty constructively and honestly) in the Drukhari tactics thread. It's a great book with some wonderful content, but I don't think anyone who's being truly objective can say there aren't some very obvious problems that need addressing too.

I think a big part of the issue is that GW does not have a robust, professional system for testing the content it is looking to release.

My whole career, I've worked in the software industry as professional QA. First in the games industry for a very major developer, then in aviation, working on the software civilian ATC use, and military fighter control systems for some countries.

There's a lot of overlap that I've observed between how you (attempt to) exhaustively test software, and how you could/should be testing a professionally produced game like 40K. Much of both essentially comes down to mathematics - an ISEB qualified tester knows there are tools and techniques to account for many elements in that area.

What GW appear to employ, is something more like a reward system where prominent members of the community can become part of the test group. That's not to say they can't provide valuable feedback, but they are not trained testers. There is not a robust test process in place in that environment.

You also cannot rely on the rules team and writers to properly test their own work - for exactly the same reason as you do not allow a developer to be the sole individual testing their software - testing needs to be independent.

Competitively (and I've never seen this mentioned bizarrely), there's also a big issue of 'fairness' when prominent competitive players are members of the playtesting group - as many are/have been. They have early access to rules, lists, testing of lists, that isn't available to others - that's a distinct advantage. I know of at least one occasion in 8th where a test group member won a major event with a brand new codex.

I think these are discussions worth having as a community. These issues are not just happening with the DE codex - they're occurring in release after release.


This is all pretty obvious but I don't see it changing any time soon. There just wouldn't be that great of a ROI for paying professional testers.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 21:19:47


Post by: PenitentJake


 Daedalus81 wrote:



The other reason this list likely isn't popular ( and hasn't been so far ) is because you might go 5-0, but you won't score as well as other DE lists with a more rigorous approach to objectives. It's kind of like the guy on Counterstrike who only cared about KD ratio and didn't concern himself with the bomb.



The other reason(s) this list isn't popular is that it uses the troops option that is twice as expensive because they come in boxes of 5 instead of 10, it is embarrassingly skew/waac, it's boring to collect and look at on the table and literally the only reason I can think of to take it is to win and (rightfully) earn the title of TFG for bringing it.

Yes, you can exploit a rules interaction that was overlooked and will likely be nerfed and have a fair chance to stomp faces all day long. But if you bring 32 liquifier guns to the table, does stomping face all day really make for your boring looking army that you had to take out a second mortgage to pay for, or the fact that everyone will mock you as TFG for the rest of your gaming "career"?

Could you even take any pride in the win? I mean, I don't play tournaments, so maybe the attitude expressed by bringing a list like this is more common than I realize; I've seen people say that it's not a player's responsibility to avoid bringing something broken, and it's the company's responsibility to limit the possibility that something broken can built. I get that, and don't entirely disagree. But the argument itself just sounds like something an @$$h0l3 would say: "It's not my responsibility to so say 'please,' it's YOUR responsibility to not depend on and expect others to adhere to out-dated notions of manners; It's not my responsibility to say sorry, it's your responsibility to not be offended by my actions in the first place."

This is why so many casuals are repulsed by meta-chasing. This guy would get exactly one game against me and any of the folks I play with, and we'd mock him and people like him amongst ourselves behind closed doors for the rest of our collective lives, and we'd tell the story without dropping his name to every noob we ever taught as an example of how not to play the game... Or make friends.

But I guess we're all different, with unique points of view.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 21:28:22


Post by: addnid


They could just hire like two guys for a start, two pros vetting a codex / supplément would have surely seen most of the stuff that is wrong with current Drukari, at least the obvious things everyone here agrees on


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/25 21:38:54


Post by: StrayIight


 addnid wrote:
They could just hire like two guys for a start, two pros vetting a codex / supplément would have surely seen most of the stuff that is wrong with current Drukari, at least the obvious things everyone here agrees on


It's probably what I would do. Have an experienced test manager and a senior tester write a test plan and scripts for the volunteer group to use, alongside guiding their efforts via mentoring and more directed testing. That alone would make a huge difference.

At a guess, knowing tester wages - especially in the entertainment sector - that'd cost GW maybe £45-50K a year. A little more if they're feeling generous. Those staff wouldn't produce anything tangible, but the gains in your reputation and goodwill from the player base in having a more robust ruleset, is very hard to put a price on...


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 00:01:28


Post by: yukishiro1


Balance isn't a priority for GW; they are a company that sells plastic, the rules are only useful to the extent they sell more plastic. The most sales are generated by a game with balance that is not so far out of whack that people quit over it, but with enough stirring of the pot to get people constantly buying new stuff. I don't think they usually go out of their way to specifically overtune or undertune stuff, but by the same token, they have no real incentive to hire paid playtesters when the current approach sells tons of plastic just fine.

The only way I can see them really changing how they write rules and do balance is if there is a concerted fan boycott and campaign, and we all know that's not remotely in the cards.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 00:24:23


Post by: StrayIight


yukishiro1 wrote:
Balance isn't a priority for GW; they are a company that sells plastic, the rules are only useful to the extent they sell more plastic. The most sales are generated by a game with balance that is not so far out of whack that people quit over it, but with enough stirring of the pot to get people constantly buying new stuff. I don't think they usually go out of their way to specifically overtune or undertune stuff, but by the same token, they have no real incentive to hire paid playtesters when the current approach sells tons of plastic just fine.

The only way I can see them really changing how they write rules and do balance is if there is a concerted fan boycott and campaign, and we all know that's not remotely in the cards.


I fully agree. I believe GW has even said so themselves in the past - they're primarily a model making company.
It makes you wonder how aware they are though of how necessary the lore and rules are at propping up that model making business? Both really rely on the other.

I don't think many people would deny they make some of the most exceptional miniatures on the market. I suspect many in the community, outside the die hard fans, would likely also not deny that they are often lacking in the way they support their games in terms of rules and writing.

For very little expense (especially given their profit margins currently), you get a whole lot of gain in the area where they are weak. I'm certain at least as much to offset that cost (it just wouldn't require a large paid team in my estimation), while enjoying a better reputation as company with a more professional product.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 00:36:39


Post by: TangoTwoBravo


 Elfric wrote:
is this Astartes player suicide watch thread?


Ask not for whom the bell tolls


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 00:42:04


Post by: Daedalus81


 StrayIight wrote:
I fully agree. I believe GW has even said so themselves in the past - they're primarily a model making company.


Taking a statement from an investor report doesn't mean GW only cares about making plastic or that they don't understand the value of good rules. That level of introspection is too fine of a detail that few investors will ever care about. Miniatures are the core business and that's what gets talked about ( alongside IP ).

There probably isn't a way to truly find if they truly care about rules. There probably hasn't been a lot of turnover in that department so until some disgruntled employee appears we may never know.

Spoiler:
Our ambitions remain clear: to make the best fantasy miniatures in the world, to engage and inspire our customers, and to sell our products globally at a profit. We intend to do this forever. Our decisions are focused on long-term success, not short-term gains.

The first element - we make high quality miniatures. We understand that what we make may not appeal to everyone, so to recruit and rerecruit customers we are absolutely focused on making our models the best in the world. In order to continue to do that forever and to deliver a decent return to our owners, we sell them for a price that we believe represents the investment in their quality.

The second element is that we make fantasy miniatures based in our endless, imaginary worlds. This gives us control over the imagery and styles we use and ownership of the intellectual property (IP).

The third element is that we are customer focused. We talk to our customers. We aim to communicate in an open, fun way. Whoever and wherever our customers are, and in whichever way they want to engage with Warhammer, we will do our utmost to support them. The fourth element is the global nature of our business. We seek out our customers all over the world. We believe that our customers carry our Warhammer hobby gene and to help find them we have two key tools: our retail chain and our online content. In retail we continue to apply our tried and tested approach of recruiting customers - in our own stores, by showcasing the Warhammer hobby and offering a fantastic customer experience. Online our offering has never been richer. Through Warhammer-community.com and social media we reach thousands of new people every day, showing them the very best aspects of the Warhammer hobby and inviting them to join our global community of enthusiastic fans.


We design all of our products at our HQ in Nottingham. Employing 231 people, the design studio creates all the IP and all the associated miniatures, artwork, games and publications that we sell. Annually, these specialist staff produce hundreds of new sculpts, illustrations, rules, stories etc. enabling us to deliver new products every week and continue to keep our customers engaged and excited.




Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 00:47:33


Post by: StrayIight


 Daedalus81 wrote:

Taking a statement from an investor report doesn't mean GW only cares about making plastic


I don't think anyone is saying that's their only concern, just probably a primary one based on what we know.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

or that they don't understand the value of good rules.


If they do, they aren't great at investing in them and demonstrating that. We can see - with many, many examples - that things are getting released full of errors and issues. Basic proof-reading at times is an issue.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 00:52:52


Post by: Cynista


GW pretty much said around a year ago when 9th was being previewed that their intention was to make everything bigger and better. Everything is more deadly and everything has more special sauce. And that's fine if you add granularity to things like wounds and damage, which they are doing (inconsistently) so I do think it's a case that if every book is treated with the same care and attention, 9th will be well balanced this time next year.

My worry is that when codexes aren't given enough special sauce they are left out in the cold. This happened to Necrons in 8th edition and so far they also have the weakest of the 9th edition books and it isn't even close IMO. If a handful of other factions get and underwhelming book compared to say, Death Guard or Dark Eldar (polar opposite play styles but both very good) then you will simply end up with the haves and have nots and that is really bad for the game


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 00:57:47


Post by: Tyran


Corporations are mostly reactive, not innovative. The reason why testing is so important in many industries is because they learned the hard way, with billions of losses.

GW meanwhile exists in a far safer environment. No one is dying and/or suing GW for millions in the case of a rule error. Nor do they have to comply to government enforced quality and security standards. Nor does GW has to worry about billions of loses for having to recall entire product launches.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 05:27:00


Post by: Crix


As others have said, I just hope the problems with DT and BoR are addressed with a scalpel and not a sledgehammer. I can see GW making liquifiers unusable, while not touching DT, the thing that makes them egregious. So me who plays Coven of Twelve loses a tool in my kit because some ne’er do wells abused a trait for two weeks in tournaments.

The reaver points should be FAQ’d. I’m not a fan of the BoR out of principal and even less so that it way overpowers an already powerful obsession. I think it should be for narrative only, or limited to a Cult of Strife army only. Dark Tecnomancers will be interesting. Maybe requiring a hot roll for all weapons to use it would be enough? Taking away the wound or damage buff? Looking at several lists with 6+ liquifiers means the crosshairs are really on that trait... Finally, I agree there should be a mortal wound cap; most if not all other strats and wargears have those limitations.

Ultimately, I just want to continue having a competitive, fast moving transport reliant army to play with. I feel DE finally have that. They should be toned down though, but not made unplayable. I don’t trust GW to hit that sweet spot when the time comes.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 06:01:01


Post by: Salt donkey


Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 06:41:15


Post by: StrayIight


Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


In fairness, DG put in a decent showing. They placed 13th, went 4-1 and only missed out on the top ten on points. They were also the only list that defeated the 9th place Drukhari list.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 07:09:50


Post by: vict0988


 StrayIight wrote:
Spoiler:
 vict0988 wrote:
Umbros wrote:
I do wonder what points are balanced against - are they against the full range of 9th codexes, or a mixture? My understanding ws that they more or less wrote the 9th codexes at the same time and tested accordingly, which means at launch they aren't balanced to the game as is.

I've listened and watched a lot of playtester content and read the White Dwarf article on playtesting, it is my interpretation that they are balanced against unreleased rules. Hence the "everything will be better when everyone has their codex" attitude.

Why is Drukhari busted? It's because of those damn knife-ear podcasters, I've been saying they should have been kicked off the playtesting team for a while now. They couldn't catch the obvious imbalance in the rules for the Aspect Shrines in Phoenix Rising. The Dire Avengers overwatch bonus is no more impactful than the generic shooting bonus is while firing overwatch. /s


I think it's a more fundamental problem than this.

Full disclosure, I'm a Drukhari player and absolutely see some definite issues with regards to balance in the new Codex - a number of us have been discussing it at length (and pretty constructively and honestly) in the Drukhari tactics thread. It's a great book with some wonderful content, but I don't think anyone who's being truly objective can say there aren't some very obvious problems that need addressing too.

I think a big part of the issue is that GW does not have a robust, professional system for testing the content it is looking to release.

My whole career, I've worked in the software industry as professional QA. First in the games industry for a very major developer, then in aviation, working on the software civilian ATC use, and military fighter control systems for some countries.

There's a lot of overlap that I've observed between how you (attempt to) exhaustively test software, and how you could/should be testing a professionally produced game like 40K. Much of both essentially comes down to mathematics - an ISEB qualified tester knows there are tools and techniques to account for many elements in that area.

What GW appear to employ, is something more like a reward system where prominent members of the community can become part of the test group. That's not to say they can't provide valuable feedback, but they are not trained testers. There is not a robust test process in place in that environment.

You also cannot rely on the rules team and writers to properly test their own work - for exactly the same reason as you do not allow a developer to be the sole individual testing their software - testing needs to be independent.

Competitively (and I've never seen this mentioned bizarrely), there's also a big issue of 'fairness' when prominent competitive players are members of the playtesting group - as many are/have been. They have early access to rules, lists, testing of lists, that isn't available to others - that's a distinct advantage. I know of at least one occasion in 8th where a test group member won a major event with a brand new codex.

I think these are discussions worth having as a community. These issues are not just happening with the DE codex - they're occurring in release after release.

Interesting post

I don't think playtesters getting an unfair advantage is a problem, the same applies to any other game right?

I was thinking GW could work with another game company, perhaps Creative Assembly with whom they a relationship in the Total War Warhammer series or Blizzard with their competitive RTS Starcraft or at least get a QA tester to do a speaking gig to help develop the testing methodology. Do you regularly take classes and certifications as a QA tester?

Things have to be very broken when models that should cost 5 cost 55 and models that should cost 20 cost 10, that's not just a playtesting issue, that's a lack of proof-reading the points, if GW cannot even proof-read their points costs right then what does it matter if their testing team becomes great at their job? That is why I think hiring full time paid playtesters is unneeded.

A restaurant can serve Wagyu ribeye steak, the best beef in the world or find a cheap cut of beef that is normally very tough and prepare it right by using a sous vide cooker and still make a delicious and tender piece of beef at a fraction of the cost. Instead of having to continually pay for the Wagyu full time playtester GW should get the sous vide QA speaker and change the way they use their unpaid playtesters to make a great product.

 addnid wrote:
They could just hire like two guys for a start, two pros vetting a codex / supplément would have surely seen most of the stuff that is wrong with current Drukari, at least the obvious things everyone here agrees on

They already have professional 40k players looking at the rules, do you really think a QA tester is that much better than someone who plays the game for a living?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 07:32:20


Post by: StrayIight


 vict0988 wrote:

Do you regularly take classes and certifications as a QA tester?


Not generally, or at least not specific to testing as a discipline. A professional tester will typically have passed an ISEB exam and be certified, that comes in three levels, the important one day to day being the foundation level.
A lot of industry testers will also get involved with programming languages like Python etc, and so may then take up whatever certifications are expected by an organisation with regards to additional things like that.

 vict0988 wrote:

Things have to be very broken when models that should cost 5 cost 55 and models that should cost 20 cost 10, that's not just a playtesting issue, that's a lack of proof-reading the points


Yup! Reavers recently are a horrendously obvious dropped ball in this regard. I suspect however they're centrally referencing data like points and the like internally (if there is anything in place beyond 'look in a semi recent book') isn't working for them too.

 vict0988 wrote:

They already have professional 40k players looking at the rules, do you really think a QA tester is that much better than someone who plays the game for a living?


I'd have to disagree a little bit here. Firstly I don't know if there's such a thing as professional 40K player as yet. There certainly isn't the sort of event prizes in this game to make that viable. Maybe through commission painting, coaching services etc you might make the hobby a living? There's certainly a group of elite players who know the game well though.

Though I wouldn't say it's a matter of better, a proper QA tester brings techniques and methodology to the table that an enthusiastic elite player simply doesn't have: Boundary analysis, equivalence partitioning and so on. They're not all directly applicable to all elements of 40K necessarily, but many are.
That said, they can be taught. Maybe the way forward would be just to have a few people come in temporarily and just help put some structure in place that they can then carry on using?

I've no definitive answers really - I don't think we can have any without some more idea of what's happening internally there. But certainly we all recognise there are issues, and things that can be done better. Here's hoping


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 07:55:59


Post by: Not Online!!!


It certainly would be better if GW would even listen to their testers, cue IH.
I think these playtesters that know the game "well enough" would bring far more to the table if GW corporate would not intervene against them / Ruleswriters actually listen.

Edit: another issue is that GW treats rules sales as recurring spending, and monetisation of veterans.
I dare say it's one of their highest margine profits (printing done in china mostly or the UK) and it's one which they can expect recurring investments of players.

Which makes the recent already supplement DLC^'s for new codices excactly what the gameing industry pulled with what is in essence cut content.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 08:06:53


Post by: StrayIight


Not Online!!! wrote:
It certainly would be better if GW would even listen to their testers, cue IH.
I think these playtesters that know the game "well enough" would bring far more to the table if GW corporate would not intervene against them / Ruleswriters actually listen.


Yeah, this was a massive issue in the games industry too. As QA you'd take a lot of flak from players and the community for not finding some obvious issue(s).
Reality is, we almost always do find it. It's reported and development want to fix that issue. Both departments care about the game they're making.
Execs though? Not so much. They don't play games, they make money for shareholders and want that ship date met. So the developers are told in no uncertain terms to leave it as is, and it's released in that state, possibly getting fixed in a later update.

And we all look like a bunch of amateurs.

The play testing group very likely have much the same frustration. I can't believe they aren't seeing and reporting at least some of this stuff that's slipping through.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 08:14:05


Post by: Not Online!!!


 StrayIight wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
It certainly would be better if GW would even listen to their testers, cue IH.
I think these playtesters that know the game "well enough" would bring far more to the table if GW corporate would not intervene against them / Ruleswriters actually listen.


Yeah, this was a massive issue in the games industry too. As QA you'd take a lot of flak from players and the community for not finding some obvious issue(s).
Reality is, we almost always do find it. It's reported and development want to fix that issue. Both departments care about the game they're making.
Execs though? Not so much. They don't play games, they make money for shareholders and want that ship date met. So the developers are told in no uncertain terms to leave it as is, and it's released in that state, possibly getting fixed in a later update.

And we all look like a bunch of amateurs.

The play testing group very likely have much the same frustration. I can't believe they aren't seeing and reporting at least some of this stuff that's slipping through.


Well, occams razor and such applies, except anyone slightly familiar with the industry and i count GW in the gaming industry since it's fundamentally the same industry, knows that QA only really get's used to find the most obvious mistakes that are easy to manage to fix before the deadline is met and something needs to be released.

Quite frankly i don't envy you or anyone in there especially for the larger corporations, simply because it isn't "fun" or imo "productive" when you supposedly have to be critical for your job and then get basically ignored on 80-90% of the issues you bring up, simply because "MuSt MeEt CoNsUmEr DeAdLinE fOR sPenDinG pErIOd"...
It's the same reason why i pretty much stopped buying tripple A games. Certainly never anymore at around release.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 08:19:50


Post by: addnid


 addnid wrote:
They could just hire like two guys for a start, two pros vetting a codex / supplément would have surely seen most of the stuff that is wrong with current Drukari, at least the obvious things everyone here agrees on

They already have professional 40k players looking at the rules, do you really think a QA tester is that much better than someone who plays the game for a living?


Well we could hope that a QA tester, on the payroll, would have more weight in the matter than a player who will be invited to come playtest for free.

But I agree with those here who think some of these things are reported yet ignored by execs. But I think overlooking things like 10 point reavers is basically the same as succubus with a million attacks for 60 points, oversight and lazy design both come from not dedicating enough person months for the writing the damn things. Execs would be happy to publish good stuff I think, as long as the deadlines are met. They just need to do a better job without it taking more time, and I think pros are needed, as well as "gamers who know the game".

Perhaps a few freelance QA pros would be a safer attempt than adding people on the payroll, as it was suggested. They could train the "gamers who know the game" to work fast and efficiently, so deadlines are met with the OP stuff caught well in advance.

It would be great if GW was more transparent on how they did all this, it would be good for their "community outreach" I think. Certainly would not cost them much financially, and they are currently in a "no release" time bubble, so I guess they have staff (who's job is to engage with the gamer community) with spare time on their hands, who could try and write something.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 08:24:57


Post by: Not Online!!!



in technical matters and statistics and especially for explanation of interaction as to why something is broken, yes, a technical QA specialists are better for that and for a deeper understanding that is "scientifically" explainable which would especially help for further developments and evolution of the rulesset.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 09:12:30


Post by: Blackie


10ppm reavers don't matter though as everyone plays them as if they cost 20ppm. The italian version of the drukhari codex has already the cost of 20ppm printed correctly, like other translations.

Succubus is cheaper than it should be, granted, but we're talking about +15 or 20 points on a 1000-2000 points list, or 30/40 if there are two. I don't think that makes an army "OP", and even if that model has lots of potential it's still a melee only and ultra squishy unit. We're not talking about SM with 300 points of free stuff .

I don't like to repeat myself but if people struggle against drukhari just tailor against them. It has always been accepted to tailor against SM, why not doing it against drukhari? It's no surprise they win tournaments when most of the players design their lists to counter heavy elites. It's the same reason why old and crappy green tides make good results.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 09:29:19


Post by: addnid


 Blackie wrote:
10ppm reavers don't matter though as everyone plays them as if they cost 20ppm. The italian version of the drukhari codex has already the cost of 20ppm printed correctly, like other translations.

Succubus is cheaper than it should be, granted, but we're talking about +15 or 20 points on a 1000-2000 points list, or 30/40 if there are two. I don't think that makes an army "OP", and even if that model has lots of potential it's still a melee only and ultra squishy unit. We're not talking about SM with 300 points of free stuff .

I don't like to repeat myself but if people struggle against drukhari just tailor against them. It has always been accepted to tailor against SM, why not doing it against drukhari? It's no surprise they win tournaments when most of the players design their lists to counter heavy elites. It's the same reason why old and crappy green tides make good results.


You can't tailor against DT liquiefiers, and anyway you can't tailor against 10% of the meta, when all the players who only have power armour armies are going to be 50% at the very least of the playerbase attending the tournament.
Many good players I know have lost even when tailoring against them. But hey, try playing against a good druka player (you play orks that I know, perhaps you also play other armies, try the one you think is best), and see for yourself
I am pretty certain you will, at least slightly, change your mind.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 09:59:16


Post by: Ordana


Sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "we're a model company not a rules company" arguably lead to the death of WHFB and the depths of 7th edition.

I assume the reason, as mentioned before in this thread, is the same as it almost always is.
QA finds these problems, and then they are ignored.

And as often happens with supplements, multiple rules from multiple locations not tested in conjunction with eachother.
Was the Book of Rust tested? was it tested with the new drukari rules? who knows.

That's why I disliked PA, it broke things more then it fixed and now GW is doing these extra rules books right from the start.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:04:24


Post by: Slipspace


There have been a few comments from current playtesters that indicate the problem may be more with GW not listening than the quality of the playtesting. Chef, from Tabletop Tactics, for example, has heavily implied they brought up the issue of the Necron Doomsday Cannon being too unreliable at D6 shots, D6 damage but that was obviously ignored. There were similar reports way back during 7th edition WHFB when the Dark Elf army book was playtested and the designer of that book ignored the testers. That book was one of the most broken in that edition.

There may also be problems with how the playtesting is done. I'd expect initial testing to probably concentrate on getting the feel right, maybe with some pre-made typical lists. But later testing should use the full rules to allow stress testing of combos and give testers a fuller picture of the army. I'm not sure that happens.

Things like the 10ppm Reavers should also be a day-1 fix. The mistake is almost certainly because the MFM, the WD version of the same and the DE Codex points were all pulled from the same source so once it's noticed once it should really be fixed immediately if the error has already been printed.

As a DE player it does look like there are several things that are pushing them into broken rather than just very powerful. DT is the obvious one but the ease with which you can spam DL is also a problem, as is the stupid Succubus combo. There are likely several other things that are a little too powerful, like Incubi, but at the moment they're being overshadowed by the uber-broken stuff. I hope GW takes a measured approach to the fixes here. Some can likely be done with points but others will need errata, such as DT. Increasing the cost of Liquifiers would be the wrong way to fix them, for example.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:13:35


Post by: the_scotsman


Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


1) Drukhari
2) Admech
3) Harlequins
4) Chaos Soup (technically majority Thousand Sons)
5) Aeldari (mostly Harlequins)
6) Deathwatch
7) Space Wolves
8) Chaos Soup
9) Drukhari
10) Adepta Sororitas

Yeah, seriously, what a nightmare meta. It was vastly more healthy and fair back when we had to break up the top placings by listing them as "iron hands, salamanders, iron hands, imperial fists, harlequins, white scars, raven guard, iron hands"


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:14:25


Post by: harlokin


Slipspace wrote:


As a DE player it does look like there are several things that are pushing them into broken rather than just very powerful. DT is the obvious one but the ease with which you can spam DL is also a problem, as is the stupid Succubus combo. There are likely several other things that are a little too powerful, like Incubi, but at the moment they're being overshadowed by the uber-broken stuff. I hope GW takes a measured approach to the fixes here. Some can likely be done with points but others will need errata, such as DT. Increasing the cost of Liquifiers would be the wrong way to fix them, for example.


As a Drukhari player, I disagree.

The Reaver points are an obvious error.

DT has always been obnoxious, the the interaction with auto-hit Liquifiers needs a reasonable fix.

The Razorflail combo is laughable, and needs stamping on; frankly the faction could have done without the stuff from BoR altogether.

The rest is perfectly fine, your self flagellation over the codex is baffling.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:15:52


Post by: the_scotsman


Slipspace wrote:

Things like the 10ppm Reavers should also be a day-1 fix. The mistake is almost certainly because the MFM, the WD version of the same and the DE Codex points were all pulled from the same source so once it's noticed once it should really be fixed immediately if the error has already been printed.


The Drukhari codex was almost certainly to print when the error was sent out in the MFM. They're just going at their usual pace because (most likely) this is yet another case of GW underestimating just how depraved the competitive tournament community is when it comes to taking advantage of every possible broken thing and they didn't think it was all that urgent to day-1 FAQ it if it had already been FAQ'd in the MFM.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:22:28


Post by: Crix


Harlokin wrote:


As a Drukhari player, I disagree.

The Reaver points are an obvious error.

DT has always been obnoxious, the the interaction with auto-hit Liquifiers needs a reasonable fix.

The Razorflail combo is laughable, and needs stamping on; frankly the faction could have done without the stuff from BoR altogether.

The rest is perfectly fine, your self flagellation over the codex is baffling.



This friend. Though OP not surprising for someone with salt in their username I suppose.

Another thing to consider is that things like wyches, succubus, and incubi straddle a thin line between usable and unusable. How many editions has melee and these models in particular been rubbish? There are glaring things that need specific fixes. Everything else is just grown (I think?) people whining about new hotness. The sad thing is it’s these people who cry the loudest and contribute to getting things “nerfed”.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:22:37


Post by: the_scotsman


 harlokin wrote:
Slipspace wrote:


As a DE player it does look like there are several things that are pushing them into broken rather than just very powerful. DT is the obvious one but the ease with which you can spam DL is also a problem, as is the stupid Succubus combo. There are likely several other things that are a little too powerful, like Incubi, but at the moment they're being overshadowed by the uber-broken stuff. I hope GW takes a measured approach to the fixes here. Some can likely be done with points but others will need errata, such as DT. Increasing the cost of Liquifiers would be the wrong way to fix them, for example.



DT has always been obnoxious, the the interaction with auto-hit Liquifiers needs a reasonable fix.




DT as it stands would still be broken if overcharging an autohit weapon guaranteed you the mortal wounds. 1 single mortal wound (or D3 for a cronos, whatever) that you get a 5+ fnp against and that will almost never remove a liquifier from the squad is not a sufficient drawback to the absurd power of this trait.

Doubling the damage of a gak-ton of damage 1 ranged weapons is just never going to be sufficiently balanced, and I don't think GW realized quite how much upping the base strength of a liquifier to 4 and the cronos weapons to S5 would make the trait busted. You can fire a DT liquifier at a tank and wound on 4s to deal 2.5 damage on average - a more effective antitank gun than an unmodified Dark Lance.

Keeping it working as-is but removing the +1 damage and making it not All-Consuming is, IMO, the best fix. It puts it in line with all the other damage-boosting custom traits but makes it the 'high risk/high reward' option.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:26:44


Post by: harlokin


 the_scotsman wrote:
 harlokin wrote:
Slipspace wrote:


As a DE player it does look like there are several things that are pushing them into broken rather than just very powerful. DT is the obvious one but the ease with which you can spam DL is also a problem, as is the stupid Succubus combo. There are likely several other things that are a little too powerful, like Incubi, but at the moment they're being overshadowed by the uber-broken stuff. I hope GW takes a measured approach to the fixes here. Some can likely be done with points but others will need errata, such as DT. Increasing the cost of Liquifiers would be the wrong way to fix them, for example.



DT has always been obnoxious, the the interaction with auto-hit Liquifiers needs a reasonable fix.




DT as it stands would still be broken if overcharging an autohit weapon guaranteed you the mortal wounds. 1 single mortal wound (or D3 for a cronos, whatever) that you get a 5+ fnp against and that will almost never remove a liquifier from the squad is not a sufficient drawback to the absurd power of this trait.

Doubling the damage of a gak-ton of damage 1 ranged weapons is just never going to be sufficiently balanced, and I don't think GW realized quite how much upping the base strength of a liquifier to 4 and the cronos weapons to S5 would make the trait busted. You can fire a DT liquifier at a tank and wound on 4s to deal 2.5 damage on average - a more effective antitank gun than an unmodified Dark Lance.

Keeping it working as-is but removing the +1 damage and making it not All-Consuming is, IMO, the best fix. It puts it in line with all the other damage-boosting custom traits but makes it the 'high risk/high reward' option.


You are of course correct. I still have a grudge against DT because of PA.

I think that it would be nice if the nerf impacted Wracks spamming Liquifiers more than say Cronos, who could do with a bit of oomph.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Crix wrote:
Slipspace wrote:


As a Drukhari player, I disagree.

The Reaver points are an obvious error.

DT has always been obnoxious, the the interaction with auto-hit Liquifiers needs a reasonable fix.

The Razorflail combo is laughable, and needs stamping on; frankly the faction could have done without the stuff from BoR altogether.

The rest is perfectly fine, your self flagellation over the codex is baffling.



This friend. Though OP not surprising for someone with salt in their username I suppose.

Another thing to consider is that things like wyches, succubus, and incubi straddle a thin line between usable and unusable. How many editions has melee and these models in particular been rubbish? There are glaring things that need specific fixes. Everything else is just grown (I think?) people whining about new hotness. The sad thing is it’s these people who cry the loudest and contribute to getting things “nerfed”.



I agree, it's going to take seeing how they function in play over an extended period to be able to really judge. I have seen a few people waxing lyrical about the POWAH of Drazhar plus 10 Incubi, but the reality there is that it overkills whatever it attacks, and then gets shot to pieces.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:30:47


Post by: Slipspace


Crix wrote:
 harlokin wrote:
Slipspace wrote:


As a Drukhari player, I disagree.

The Reaver points are an obvious error.

DT has always been obnoxious, the the interaction with auto-hit Liquifiers needs a reasonable fix.

The Razorflail combo is laughable, and needs stamping on; frankly the faction could have done without the stuff from BoR altogether.

The rest is perfectly fine, your self flagellation over the codex is baffling.



This friend. Though OP not surprising for someone with salt in their username I suppose.

Another thing to consider is that things like wyches, succubus, and incubi straddle a thin line between usable and unusable. How many editions has melee and these models in particular been rubbish? There are glaring things that need specific fixes. Everything else is just grown (I think?) people whining about new hotness. The sad thing is it’s these people who cry the loudest and contribute to getting things “nerfed”.



Good to see we're having a reasonable conversation here with no sense of hyperbole. Apparently suggesting that Incubi and DL may be slightly undercosted is "self flagellation" and "whining". Both those things have been completely overshadowed by the obvious problems of DT and the blender Succubus but I think both probably need looking at more carefully, though not necessarily changed at this point. Incubi are probably borderline and there is definitely a danger they slip back into overcosted garbage again but they are really effective for only 16 points each. DL are probably OK in a world where the MM is as effective as it is but I think both could do with taking a little bit of a hit. In the case of the DL it's more down to the fact it's available on one of our two transports for very cheap and is clearly just a superior option to the Disintegrator. That's not exactly new for DE since GW always seem to trouble with the balance between those two weapons.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:31:10


Post by: Eldarsif


There have been a few comments from current playtesters that indicate the problem may be more with GW not listening than the quality of the playtesting. Chef, from Tabletop Tactics, for example, has heavily implied they brought up the issue of the Necron Doomsday Cannon being too unreliable at D6 shots, D6 damage but that was obviously ignored. There were similar reports way back during 7th edition WHFB when the Dark Elf army book was playtested and the designer of that book ignored the testers. That book was one of the most broken in that edition.


The biggest problem in game design is often a game designer's ego. You can point out all the big flaws in their plan, but they'll ignore it because they are the game designer and have a hard time admitting that they might have miscalculated.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:35:35


Post by: Slipspace


 Eldarsif wrote:
There have been a few comments from current playtesters that indicate the problem may be more with GW not listening than the quality of the playtesting. Chef, from Tabletop Tactics, for example, has heavily implied they brought up the issue of the Necron Doomsday Cannon being too unreliable at D6 shots, D6 damage but that was obviously ignored. There were similar reports way back during 7th edition WHFB when the Dark Elf army book was playtested and the designer of that book ignored the testers. That book was one of the most broken in that edition.


The biggest problem in game design is often a game designer's ego. You can point out all the big flaws in their plan, but they'll ignore it because they are the game designer and have a hard time admitting that they might have miscalculated.


Absolutely. Receiving criticism is something not a lot of people are very good at. As a web designer part of my job involves watching people interact with sites I design. It's a humbling experience and initially it was very difficult to remove my ego from the process so I'd blame the users instead of properly using their feedback. That inability to receive and process criticism was apparently the biggest issue with the old Dark Elf army book for WHFB. It wouldn't surprise me if similar issues are still plaguing the design process and vague justifications like "flavour" or "style" get used to justify keeping bad decisions.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:36:56


Post by: harlokin


Not wishing to give GW too much benefit of the doubt, but there is also the possibilty that multiple playtesters are giving GW contradictory feedback.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:41:32


Post by: PenitentJake


I feel like I've seen it a few times from different folks now (though that could be inaccurate), but the content from the BoR is not content that was cut or held back from dexes.

Quite simply, you could not put supplement material for one subfaction in a dex- you'd have to do it for ALL the subfactions in a dex in order for it to make sense.

AoR's could fit in a dex... Maybe. It would still be awkward, because some of them amount to a subfaction lock, but there are ways to build an AoR that allows units from all subfaction


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:42:02


Post by: the_scotsman


Slipspace wrote:
Crix wrote:
 harlokin wrote:
Slipspace wrote:


As a Drukhari player, I disagree.

The Reaver points are an obvious error.

DT has always been obnoxious, the the interaction with auto-hit Liquifiers needs a reasonable fix.

The Razorflail combo is laughable, and needs stamping on; frankly the faction could have done without the stuff from BoR altogether.

The rest is perfectly fine, your self flagellation over the codex is baffling.



This friend. Though OP not surprising for someone with salt in their username I suppose.

Another thing to consider is that things like wyches, succubus, and incubi straddle a thin line between usable and unusable. How many editions has melee and these models in particular been rubbish? There are glaring things that need specific fixes. Everything else is just grown (I think?) people whining about new hotness. The sad thing is it’s these people who cry the loudest and contribute to getting things “nerfed”.



Good to see we're having a reasonable conversation here with no sense of hyperbole. Apparently suggesting that Incubi and DL may be slightly undercosted is "self flagellation" and "whining". Both those things have been completely overshadowed by the obvious problems of DT and the blender Succubus but I think both probably need looking at more carefully, though not necessarily changed at this point. Incubi are probably borderline and there is definitely a danger they slip back into overcosted garbage again but they are really effective for only 16 points each. DL are probably OK in a world where the MM is as effective as it is but I think both could do with taking a little bit of a hit. In the case of the DL it's more down to the fact it's available on one of our two transports for very cheap and is clearly just a superior option to the Disintegrator. That's not exactly new for DE since GW always seem to trouble with the balance between those two weapons.


yeah, an Incubi could probably be like 18pts and you could probably bump the body of a raider up 5 and the cost of the dissie down 5.

The problem is, GW seems perfectly capable of doing subtle buffs, but not subtle nerfs, and I'm not really sure why. Probably because they're doing the "PR math" and they understand that people who hate a unit want to see it blasted into the stone age and unusable, while a large range of small buffs across an underpowered army is likely to make people go 'oh, that's nice' while being unlikely to create new meta boogey-men.

If they nerfed an OP unit to the point where it was simply a balanced, usable choice, the delusional powergamers who spammed it before would be just as unhappy as if it were actually underpowered and unusable and the people who wanted blood would not be sufficiently slaked by the thrill of a two hundred point nerf to the Castellan or the Wraithknight's guns becoming glorified lascannons or whatever.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:51:58


Post by: Slipspace


PenitentJake wrote:
I feel like I've seen it a few times from different folks now (though that could be inaccurate), but the content from the BoR is not content that was cut or held back from dexes.

Quite simply, you could not put supplement material for one subfaction in a dex- you'd have to do it for ALL the subfactions in a dex in order for it to make sense.

AoR's could fit in a dex... Maybe. It would still be awkward, because some of them amount to a subfaction lock, but there are ways to build an AoR that allows units from all subfaction


I agree singling out one subfaction for extra material in their own Codex would be a bit of an issue. I don't think singling out that subfaction in a completely separate book is any less of an issue, though. The end result is the same, except you now have rules spread across multiple books so GW can make more profit.

Things like AoR could go into the Codex but they could equally be released in one go through a supplement that applies to all armies. They could also not exist at all and I think most people wouldn't mind. One of GW's biggest problems is the ever-expanding number of rules they write. Eventually they break something because they can't keep up with their own release schedule. You can see the same thing with Formations in 7th. Everyone remembers the really broken ones but nobody mentions the much larger numbers of useless Formations that weren't worth jumping through all the hoops necessary to field them. The broken ones were so bad they made the game unplayable if you didn't have access to good ones of your own.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 11:55:50


Post by: Crix


Well my ‘whining’ drop was in regards to the OP and the overall sentiment of cry of nerfing new books past the outright broken things routine we always go through.

If I’m not mistaken, the Iron Hands fixes were enough to lessen the abuse, while still giving honest IH fans a book to use competitively. For every one of those fixes though, there’s seemingly more “let’s nerf all commissars ever and let’s never sell a castellan again.” That’s the worry from people getting defensive when people aim targeters at a new book.

Also I fudged up my quote up there between Slipspace and Harlokin lol. My apologies


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:01:09


Post by: Blackie


 addnid wrote:


You can't tailor against DT liquiefiers, and anyway you can't tailor against 10% of the meta, when all the players who only have power armour armies are going to be 50% at the very least of the playerbase attending the tournament.



Yes, you can. Spam cheap bodies and/or T8 models. Spam weapons that are good against those targets. Kill wracks also isn't that hard. I typically expect to lose 30-45 boyz per turn assuming they have 5++ under the KFF so it shouldn't be hard to remove at least 15-20 wracks per turn. Pure DT lists have lots of potential but not much staying power, they're very glass cannon armies.

Tournaments always work with the rock/paper/scissor attitude in mind. Refusing to adapt in order to counter that 10% is a choice. Tournaments are also a tiny fraction of the total games count, most of us just do pick up games or pre-arranged ones.

 addnid wrote:

Many good players I know have lost even when tailoring against them. But hey, try playing against a good druka player (you play orks that I know, perhaps you also play other armies, try the one you think is best), and see for yourself
I am pretty certain you will, at least slightly, change your mind.


I've played drukhari for years, just sold the army one year ago but I'm still watching batreps from the best youtuber players (Skared, Lawrence Baker...).

The codex is definitely good but I don't really see anything OP in there, aside a few smaller combos. Nothing that really breaks the meta anyway. Deathguard for example looks really nasty to play against. Of course if people refuse to adapt they can't protest then.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:07:02


Post by: vict0988


 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


1) Drukhari
2) Admech
3) Harlequins
4) Chaos Soup (technically majority Thousand Sons)
5) Aeldari (mostly Harlequins)
6) Deathwatch
7) Space Wolves
8) Chaos Soup
9) Drukhari
10) Adepta Sororitas

Yeah, seriously, what a nightmare meta. It was vastly more healthy and fair back when we had to break up the top placings by listing them as "iron hands, salamanders, iron hands, imperial fists, harlequins, white scars, raven guard, iron hands"

How many Drukhari players were in the event and how big was the event? What do you think the meta is going to look like 6 months from now if nothing changes on the rules front?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:10:00


Post by: Salt donkey


Oh yes. The old “GW can’t design rules well” debate/discussion has shown up in full force to derail yet another thread. My count is at 10 for how many times this has happened, but I didn’t start counting until 8th Ed and I don’t look at every thread so I’m sure the number of times this topic has been talked to death is mich much higher.

Yes ego and corporate interests do play in part in making the rules less balanced, but the reality is 40k’s main problem with balance comes from its rules complexity. 40k bar none is the most rules-wise complex game I’ve ever played, and my 2 other favorite games are chess and MTG (granted chess doesn’t have a very complex rulesset). That said I’ve played all the big tabletop games at some point. From x-wing, to warmahordes, to twilight imperium, I’ve done many a gamee. All are less complex to 40k. Maybe original warhammer fantasy beats 40k in complexity, but that’s the only example I can think of right of the bat.

So why do a bring this all up? Because as game complexity increases, so does the chances to make balancing errors. As you increase the number variables, words, and rules a game has, you also increase the chances that some of these interact in ways you don’t expect. A seemly innocuous saving throw rules wording can suddenly grant a unit a 2++ with the help of another rule which gets them a +1 to their saving throw. Including a rule that stops a unit from taking weapon options can also stop it from getting more models in the unit due that also being listed under options. Etc Etc.

This drukhari codex to me is the perfect example of this. GW wanted this army to have lots of confusing, complex, bizzare rules to help match the fluff of the army, but in doing so they opened up too many ways for the rules to interact in ways they didn’t intend. You could argue that some of this should have caught ahead of time (and in fact, some of it really should) but hindsight is 20/20 especially when other people do a lot of legwork of finding broken interactions. To me, GWs Main mistake was they decided this army should have as many options as it does.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:14:57


Post by: Slipspace


Crix wrote:
Well my ‘whining’ drop was in regards to the OP and the overall sentiment of cry of nerfing new books past the outright broken things routine we always go through.

If I’m not mistaken, the Iron Hands fixes were enough to lessen the abuse, while still giving honest IH fans a book to use competitively. For every one of those fixes though, there’s seemingly more “let’s nerf all commissars ever and let’s never sell a castellan again.” That’s the worry from people getting defensive when people aim targeters at a new book.

Also I fudged up my quote up there between Slipspace and Harlokin lol. My apologies


No problem

The IH nerfs were pretty decent, IIRC. They were pretty harsh but got the job done but it's a little worrying they only happened because of how extremely oppressive the IH were. I think I'd prefer to see a more incremental approach from GW to points changes. Let the players know and make a small change with the caveat you're still keeping a unit under review so you can expect more changes in the near future. I'm not expecting changes every week but at least something a bit more responsive than they are now to stop this boom or bust problem they've had in the past.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:21:59


Post by: TangoTwoBravo


They have the option of simply declaring that Charandon is for "narrative" play and "not intended for competitive events." If they don't they might find that Tournament Organizers/circuits do that for them. They could be a little more targeted and simply remove the Drukhari section for a detailed rework followed up by a White Dwarf.

They could then do much more surgical work on the Codex: some points increases for Raiders, cap Eviscerating Flyby etc.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:24:47


Post by: the_scotsman


 vict0988 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


1) Drukhari
2) Admech
3) Harlequins
4) Chaos Soup (technically majority Thousand Sons)
5) Aeldari (mostly Harlequins)
6) Deathwatch
7) Space Wolves
8) Chaos Soup
9) Drukhari
10) Adepta Sororitas

Yeah, seriously, what a nightmare meta. It was vastly more healthy and fair back when we had to break up the top placings by listing them as "iron hands, salamanders, iron hands, imperial fists, harlequins, white scars, raven guard, iron hands"

How many Drukhari players were in the event and how big was the event? What do you think the meta is going to look like 6 months from now if nothing changes on the rules front?


Don't know, I don't use the app people generally seem to use for the super-detailed data on the event.

I figure if no rules for drukhari are changed in 6th months, they might reach the insane heady heights of 5-7% play rate and their main competition will probably be the currently strong factions plus whatever factions in the next 6 codexes are particularly powerful.

I hear there's a codex coming out pretty soon that has access to an absolute gak-ton of S6-S7 mid-AP multidamage firepower backed up by glass cannon melee that seems to be a fairly solid counter to drukhari already given the second-place finish here, which faced and beat at least one drukhari army during the tournament.

Is this where the goalposts are at now? A top 10 finish with 8 different codexes represented and people are going to woogle their hands and go 'doooom and gloooooooooom are a 'comin....'


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:26:19


Post by: Spoletta


TangoTwoBravo wrote:
They have the option of simply declaring that Charandon is for "narrative" play and "not intended for competitive events." If they don't they might find that Tournament Organizers/circuits do that for them. They could be a little more targeted and simply remove the Drukhari section for a detailed rework followed up by a White Dwarf.

They could then do much more surgical work on the Codex: some points increases for Raiders, cap Eviscerating Flyby etc.


The last chapter approved removed Vigilus, so there are precedents to stuff like that.

By the way, GW is quite tame with nerfs recently. When was the last time they went really heavy on a nerf? Probably not in 9th.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:27:09


Post by: the_scotsman


Salt donkey wrote:
To me, GWs Main mistake was they decided this army should have as many options as it does.


*side-eyes space marine weapon list that has as many options for different kinds of Bolt weapon as the Tau codex has different kinds of ranged weapon, where each subfaction has access to its own 6 relics, warlord traits, psychic powers and 12 stratagems, who can take custom chapter traits and still retain all core chapter bonuses*

Yeah? the options present in the DRUKHARI codex are excessive?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:27:10


Post by: Salt donkey


 vict0988 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


1) Drukhari
2) Admech
3) Harlequins
4) Chaos Soup (technically majority Thousand Sons)
5) Aeldari (mostly Harlequins)
6) Deathwatch
7) Space Wolves
8) Chaos Soup
9) Drukhari
10) Adepta Sororitas

Yeah, seriously, what a nightmare meta. It was vastly more healthy and fair back when we had to break up the top placings by listing them as "iron hands, salamanders, iron hands, imperial fists, harlequins, white scars, raven guard, iron hands"

How many Drukhari players were in the event and how big was the event? What do you think the meta is going to look like 6 months from now if nothing changes on the rules front?


So glad you asked Vict! By my count (and anyone can correct me if I’m wrong) there where 7 drukhari our 108 players in this event. Of those 7 the winner went 5-0, 2 went 4-1, 3 went 3-2 and 1 went 1-3 drop (his list spammed talos, which from what I’ve seen are one of the worst units in the new book).

So yeah clear nothing to worry about as that combined winrate is only 23/11 (or a 67.6% winrate) much less than the 70% + we where talking about earlier. Just ignore the fact that dropping the 1 bad list gets us to a 73.33% win rate. I’m sure no one will start playing this army now that it is winning around the same as Ynnari in their prime.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:27:56


Post by: the_scotsman


Spoletta wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
They have the option of simply declaring that Charandon is for "narrative" play and "not intended for competitive events." If they don't they might find that Tournament Organizers/circuits do that for them. They could be a little more targeted and simply remove the Drukhari section for a detailed rework followed up by a White Dwarf.

They could then do much more surgical work on the Codex: some points increases for Raiders, cap Eviscerating Flyby etc.


The last chapter approved removed Vigilus, so there are precedents to stuff like that.

By the way, GW is quite tame with nerfs recently. When was the last time they went really heavy on a nerf? Probably not in 9th.


Ah, someone who doesn't play Genestealer Cults I see!

Just because the nerfs didn't make any logical sense in 9th doesn't mean they weren't heavy-handed.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 12:36:13


Post by: addnid


Salt donkey wrote:
Oh yes. The old “GW can’t design rules well” debate/discussion has shown up in full force to derail yet another thread. My count is at 10 for how many times this has happened, but I didn’t start counting until 8th Ed and I don’t look at every thread so I’m sure the number of times this topic has been talked to death is mich much higher.
- - - -
This drukhari codex to me is the perfect example of this. GW wanted this army to have lots of confusing, complex, bizzare rules to help match the fluff of the army, but in doing so they opened up too many ways for the rules to interact in ways they didn’t intend. You could argue that some of this should have caught ahead of time (and in fact, some of it really should) but hindsight is 20/20 especially when other people do a lot of legwork of finding broken interactions. To me, GWs Main mistake was they decided this army should have as many options as it does.


I totally agree with you that these druka issues come from "confusing, complex, bizzare rules to help match the fluff". I mean the intent is great, and I am very happy for druka players to have such a flavorfull codex, but such a huge heap of special rules requires a "day X FAQ" at the very least.
GW could have gone a safer way and just buff a few things here and there, especially since they don't care to put too much effort into doing a precise job about it. Their enthusiastic and naive approach to this release is really at the heart of all its issues.
Anyway IH was a nice fix and they can nicely fix this too if they want. But will they do it and when will they do it ?

I have a little team event on may 8th and I am lucky only one player of each team will be using getting power from all our pain (unlimited pain, unlimited power). We are all preparing rivers of salt for these players too: "But I have been playing them for 10 years !" -> "Yeah, keep talking and keep playing easy mode 40k, if that is what you like doing with your free time"
Hah hah might as well have a good time about it


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 13:06:01


Post by: vict0988


Salt donkey wrote:
Oh yes. The old “GW can’t design rules well” debate/discussion has shown up in full force to derail yet another thread.
Spoiler:
My count is at 10 for how many times this has happened, but I didn’t start counting until 8th Ed and I don’t look at every thread so I’m sure the number of times this topic has been talked to death is mich much higher.

Yes ego and corporate interests do play in part in making the rules less balanced, but the reality is 40k’s main problem with balance comes from its rules complexity. 40k bar none is the most rules-wise complex game I’ve ever played, and my 2 other favorite games are chess and MTG (granted chess doesn’t have a very complex rulesset). That said I’ve played all the big tabletop games at some point. From x-wing, to warmahordes, to twilight imperium, I’ve done many a gamee. All are less complex to 40k. Maybe original warhammer fantasy beats 40k in complexity, but that’s the only example I can think of right of the bat.

So why do a bring this all up? Because as game complexity increases, so does the chances to make balancing errors. As you increase the number variables, words, and rules a game has, you also increase the chances that some of these interact in ways you don’t expect. A seemly innocuous saving throw rules wording can suddenly grant a unit a 2++ with the help of another rule which gets them a +1 to their saving throw. Including a rule that stops a unit from taking weapon options can also stop it from getting more models in the unit due that also being listed under options. Etc Etc.

This drukhari codex to me is the perfect example of this. GW wanted this army to have lots of confusing, complex, bizzare rules to help match the fluff of the army, but in doing so they opened up too many ways for the rules to interact in ways they didn’t intend. You could argue that some of this should have caught ahead of time (and in fact, some of it really should) but hindsight is 20/20 especially when other people do a lot of legwork of finding broken interactions. To me, GWs Main mistake was they decided this army should have as many options as it does.

Do you know what studio you are Stanning? The "we hadn't considered using the two flamer stratagems together that we printed in the same book" studio. You know that right?
 the_scotsman wrote:
Spoiler:
 vict0988 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


1) Drukhari
2) Admech
3) Harlequins
4) Chaos Soup (technically majority Thousand Sons)
5) Aeldari (mostly Harlequins)
6) Deathwatch
7) Space Wolves
8) Chaos Soup
9) Drukhari
10) Adepta Sororitas

Yeah, seriously, what a nightmare meta. It was vastly more healthy and fair back when we had to break up the top placings by listing them as "iron hands, salamanders, iron hands, imperial fists, harlequins, white scars, raven guard, iron hands"

How many Drukhari players were in the event and how big was the event? What do you think the meta is going to look like 6 months from now if nothing changes on the rules front?


Don't know, I don't use the app people generally seem to use for the super-detailed data on the event.

I figure if no rules for drukhari are changed in 6th months, they might reach the insane heady heights of 5-7% play rate and their main competition will probably be the currently strong factions plus whatever factions in the next 6 codexes are particularly powerful.

I hear there's a codex coming out pretty soon that has access to an absolute gak-ton of S6-S7 mid-AP multidamage firepower backed up by glass cannon melee that seems to be a fairly solid counter to drukhari already given the second-place finish here, which faced and beat at least one drukhari army during the tournament.


Is this where the goalposts are at now? A top 10 finish with 8 different codexes represented and people are going to woogle their hands and go 'doooom and gloooooooooom are a 'comin....'

I don't know how strong Drukhari are. I'm just saying that if Drukhari are a free ride to winning games then they are going to get played more, just because Drukhari are not winning every tournament yet does not mean they won't once there is at least one DT liquifier spam player at every event or whatever Drukhari army happens to be best. The only time I have said Drukhari was op was in a strawman quote of some Drukhari poster after he strawmanned other people and to do my knife-ear skit.

I have also said that dark lances are undercosted, which they are compared to dissies. I think lots of people are going to be ripping apart their minis, real sad. I also said it looks like Drukhari are going to be OP, but it is not something I would put money on.

8 codexes in a top 10 is far above what you would expect in a perfectly balanced meta just like you wouldn't expect 6 dice to end up 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 every time you rolled them together. If we somehow start seeing that amount of top 10 diversity regularly I would be overjoyed.

@Salt donkey interesting thanks. I'm not too worried, I am terrible at 9th, I figure it'll be a month or two before I am ready to play competitively anyways, either Drukhari will have been nerfed or it will have turned out that it was just a lucky streak at the start of the life of the Codex or worst case scenario I can grumble and gloat that I sensed which way the wind was blowing.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 13:20:17


Post by: Spoletta


 the_scotsman wrote:
Spoletta wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
They have the option of simply declaring that Charandon is for "narrative" play and "not intended for competitive events." If they don't they might find that Tournament Organizers/circuits do that for them. They could be a little more targeted and simply remove the Drukhari section for a detailed rework followed up by a White Dwarf.

They could then do much more surgical work on the Codex: some points increases for Raiders, cap Eviscerating Flyby etc.


The last chapter approved removed Vigilus, so there are precedents to stuff like that.

By the way, GW is quite tame with nerfs recently. When was the last time they went really heavy on a nerf? Probably not in 9th.


Ah, someone who doesn't play Genestealer Cults I see!

Just because the nerfs didn't make any logical sense in 9th doesn't mean they weren't heavy-handed.


No, I don't follow GSC a lot. Which is strange since I mainly play Tyranids.
That said, what happened to GSC in 9th? Has anything changed for them (obviously except for the initial point document)?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 13:35:04


Post by: Karol


Well at least it is good to be confused about rules that seem too good. That is way better then being in the same state about bad rules.

Good stuff stays fun to play for longer, and really good stuff can survive even nerfs. So all in all it is a good situation for people playing dark eldar.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 13:35:43


Post by: Marin


Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


You mean that one of the best USA players, that is playtesterand have atlest 2-3 times the games than most of the playtester won the tournament playing good army is should never happen ?
There were like 7 DE players that is like 6% of all the players. I would not say DE are too strong, but at least get your facts correct.
Also Brad Chester sad he have huge advantage, because the list of that tournament are 2 weeks old and the opponents have not yet adjusted their lists.
Still the fist 15 are pretty diverse, having in mind what factions currently have codex.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 13:36:45


Post by: Karol


Spoletta 797783 11108483 wrote:
No, I don't follow GSC a lot. Which is strange since I mainly play Tyranids.
That said, what happened to GSC in 9th? Has anything changed for them (obviously except for the initial point document)?


They are like imperial knights, and army with core mechanics writen around ideas that do not work or do not exist in 9th ed. Plus on top of everything souping up tyranids does not work as well for them as it does for other armies.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Marin 797783 11108494 wrote:
You mean that one of the best USA players, that is playtesterand have atlest 2-3 times the games than most of the playtester won the tournament playing good army is should never happen ?
There were like 7 DE players that is like 6% of all the players. I would not say DE are too strong, but at least get your facts correct.
Also Brad Chester sad he have huge advantage, because the list of that tournament are 2 weeks old and the opponents have not yet adjusted their lists.
Still the fist 15 are pretty diverse, having in mind what factions currently have codex.


Okey, so what is the DE win rate, if one cuts off the master playtester and the person that came with a random list, is it above 50% and if so by how much? Because the excuse that it is being played by good players, seems to be valid for some armies and for others it does not.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 13:49:32


Post by: the_scotsman


Karol wrote:
Spoletta 797783 11108483 wrote:
No, I don't follow GSC a lot. Which is strange since I mainly play Tyranids.
That said, what happened to GSC in 9th? Has anything changed for them (obviously except for the initial point document)?


They are like imperial knights, and army with core mechanics writen around ideas that do not work or do not exist in 9th ed. Plus on top of everything souping up tyranids does not work as well for them as it does for other armies.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Marin 797783 11108494 wrote:
You mean that one of the best USA players, that is playtesterand have atlest 2-3 times the games than most of the playtester won the tournament playing good army is should never happen ?
There were like 7 DE players that is like 6% of all the players. I would not say DE are too strong, but at least get your facts correct.
Also Brad Chester sad he have huge advantage, because the list of that tournament are 2 weeks old and the opponents have not yet adjusted their lists.
Still the fist 15 are pretty diverse, having in mind what factions currently have codex.


Okey, so what is the DE win rate, if one cuts off the master playtester and the person that came with a random list, is it above 50% and if so by how much? Because the excuse that it is being played by good players, seems to be valid for some armies and for others it does not.


I mean... I don't think spamming Talos is a "random list" it's a skew list it's just not one that worked.

If you cut out the dude that's an extremely well-known competitive player who got to playtest the list beforehand you get a 62% winrate, if you also for whatever reason also cut out the one dude that did badly because...I don't know, you're trying to construct a narrative? then they're at 68%.

...based on these 7 players. Using the version of the codex without the obvious busted gak FAQ'd out, one of which is a straight-up typo on a unit you can spam the absolute hell out of.

I don't even subscribe to any kind of 'the players are highly skilled' excuse at this point. This version of the codex is essentially like if the Sm codex came out and space marine bikers were accidentally 15 points per model, and people were like "OMG White Scar lists are DOMINATING!!! How could this be????"


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 14:06:23


Post by: Karol


A skew has to work to work. 7 flyers was a skew lists or pox walkers being spawned out of pink horrors. 30 dark reapers with raven flocks making them shot over and over again was skew. taking mass talos is like me playing a termintor army, it is not a skew if it does not work.

Also it is not just that one event. People around the world seem to be pointing out that DE are feeling really good.

Plus the thing about GW and typos or point costs. I would like to point out that there were multiple cases of people thinking, that something just has to be wrong points or a typo, but it was either never fixed or GW just let it work like that for years. And include myself in that group, specially in the first half of 8th ed.

I just hope that GW doesn't do their regular way of fixing stuff by making it so bad no one wants to use it, after people buy multiple boxs of it. Was never a big fan of that.

I mean look how they fixed the MM issues and marines. They killed aggresors, because of the salamanders interactions, they put in to the book. And then nerfed eradictors, somehow missing the fact that a points hike makes the already very good attack bikes just a more mobile version of them.

I don't think DE are too good. To be that GW would have to do something crazy, like give them a blanket +4inv on transports like harlis have. But they are very good. The question is, for people in the know and much smarter then me about DE, would nering the reavers, jetbikers and tech stuff kill DE playability.

I don't know, I hope it wouldn't.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 14:09:08


Post by: Marin


 the_scotsman wrote:
Karol wrote:
Spoletta 797783 11108483 wrote:
No, I don't follow GSC a lot. Which is strange since I mainly play Tyranids.
That said, what happened to GSC in 9th? Has anything changed for them (obviously except for the initial point document)?


They are like imperial knights, and army with core mechanics writen around ideas that do not work or do not exist in 9th ed. Plus on top of everything souping up tyranids does not work as well for them as it does for other armies.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Marin 797783 11108494 wrote:
You mean that one of the best USA players, that is playtesterand have atlest 2-3 times the games than most of the playtester won the tournament playing good army is should never happen ?
There were like 7 DE players that is like 6% of all the players. I would not say DE are too strong, but at least get your facts correct.
Also Brad Chester sad he have huge advantage, because the list of that tournament are 2 weeks old and the opponents have not yet adjusted their lists.
Still the fist 15 are pretty diverse, having in mind what factions currently have codex.


Okey, so what is the DE win rate, if one cuts off the master playtester and the person that came with a random list, is it above 50% and if so by how much? Because the excuse that it is being played by good players, seems to be valid for some armies and for others it does not.


I mean... I don't think spamming Talos is a "random list" it's a skew list it's just not one that worked.

If you cut out the dude that's an extremely well-known competitive player who got to playtest the list beforehand you get a 62% winrate, if you also for whatever reason also cut out the one dude that did badly because...I don't know, you're trying to construct a narrative? then they're at 68%.

...based on these 7 players. Using the version of the codex without the obvious busted gak FAQ'd out, one of which is a straight-up typo on a unit you can spam the absolute hell out of.

I don't even subscribe to any kind of 'the players are highly skilled' excuse at this point. This version of the codex is essentially like if the Sm codex came out and space marine bikers were accidentally 15 points per model, and people were like "OMG White Scar lists are DOMINATING!!! How could this be????"


How i sad before, to many players were not prepared to fight the new menace and we have to many armies without codex.
Even if win rate drops army with 60% WR is probably a problem, but i would not bother to panic and just swing the nerf bat.
Instead they should start fixing the unintended interactions, like 3 patrol giving 2 extra CP and the the multiple attack WT.
We are not in IH territory, IH were generally winning 9 from 10 events and have multiple top 3 finishes in the some tournament.

And ofcourse the quality of the player matters, there is statistical evidence that good players perform better on multiple accessions.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 14:11:08


Post by: Daedalus81


Spoiler:
Salt donkey wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


1) Drukhari
2) Admech
3) Harlequins
4) Chaos Soup (technically majority Thousand Sons)
5) Aeldari (mostly Harlequins)
6) Deathwatch
7) Space Wolves
8) Chaos Soup
9) Drukhari
10) Adepta Sororitas

Yeah, seriously, what a nightmare meta. It was vastly more healthy and fair back when we had to break up the top placings by listing them as "iron hands, salamanders, iron hands, imperial fists, harlequins, white scars, raven guard, iron hands"

How many Drukhari players were in the event and how big was the event? What do you think the meta is going to look like 6 months from now if nothing changes on the rules front?


So glad you asked Vict! By my count (and anyone can correct me if I’m wrong) there where 7 drukhari our 108 players in this event. Of those 7 the winner went 5-0, 2 went 4-1, 3 went 3-2 and 1 went 1-3 drop (his list spammed talos, which from what I’ve seen are one of the worst units in the new book).

So yeah clear nothing to worry about as that combined winrate is only 23/11 (or a 67.6% winrate) much less than the 70% + we where talking about earlier. Just ignore the fact that dropping the 1 bad list gets us to a 73.33% win rate. I’m sure no one will start playing this army now that it is winning around the same as Ynnari in their prime.


I'm feeling like this is a bit of an overreach, but maybe I'm wrong.

First thing to point out ( again ) is that none of these spammed DT, because it isn't a good list. It wins games, but doesn't win tournaments.

9th (LWWWW) lost to Morty DG and struggled a bit vs Necrons.

The next at 23rd (LLWWW) narrowly lost to Necrons and then solidly beaten by Necrons. He would go on to play a list with 15 Rubrics / Magnus / 2DPs / 15 Spawn and a DA list that was... dreadnoughts and intercessors.

27th (LWWWL) lost to DG and DE. He barely beat Orks by 1 point.

49th (WWLLW) won his first game 31 to 18 against the Talos DE. Lost to Custodes and narrowly to WS. His final opponent was Iron Hands with actual CSM, dreads, and terminators...

DE are strong. I don't think they're sweep the tournament strong as a near 70% WR would imply.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 14:51:34


Post by: the_scotsman


Karol wrote:
A skew has to work to work. 7 flyers was a skew lists or pox walkers being spawned out of pink horrors. 30 dark reapers with raven flocks making them shot over and over again was skew. taking mass talos is like me playing a termintor army, it is not a skew if it does not work.

Also it is not just that one event. People around the world seem to be pointing out that DE are feeling really good.

Plus the thing about GW and typos or point costs. I would like to point out that there were multiple cases of people thinking, that something just has to be wrong points or a typo, but it was either never fixed or GW just let it work like that for years. And include myself in that group, specially in the first half of 8th ed.

I just hope that GW doesn't do their regular way of fixing stuff by making it so bad no one wants to use it, after people buy multiple boxs of it. Was never a big fan of that.

I mean look how they fixed the MM issues and marines. They killed aggresors, because of the salamanders interactions, they put in to the book. And then nerfed eradictors, somehow missing the fact that a points hike makes the already very good attack bikes just a more mobile version of them.

I don't think DE are too good. To be that GW would have to do something crazy, like give them a blanket +4inv on transports like harlis have. But they are very good. The question is, for people in the know and much smarter then me about DE, would nering the reavers, jetbikers and tech stuff kill DE playability.

I don't know, I hope it wouldn't.


In this situation, however, we know it is, in fact, a typo.

It first came out in the MFM 2021, they were 10pts per model. Then, they FAQ'ed the MFM, making them 20 points per model again.

The ONLY REASON that this is being played right now is because TECHNICALLY the new codex is a more recent source of rules than the FAQ'ed MFM, and the only change in points between the FAQ'ed MFM and the new codex is...you guessed it....20pt reavers going back down to 10pts.

If any competitive player were ever curious, like "hey, why does everyone outside of the tournament scene think we're human scum who'd steal a social security check from a granny to pay for warhammer models?" this is the exact kind of situation you want to look at for that.

To answer your question, no, I don't think nerfing Reavers (which are the jetbikers, the unit's full name is Reaver Jetbikes) or removing the crazy succubus combo would destroy DE competitively. It's a solid, deep codex with a ton of good options and builds. For example, Artists of the Flesh is another very nice Haemonculus Covens trait that DOESNT rely on transforming a flamer into a melta gun using busted subfaction traits and instead runs covens using the playstyle they're actually supposed to have - durability.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 14:59:24


Post by: Spoletta


Reavers aren't even 10 points if you want to go pure RAW. They are undefined, so you should ask the TO on which point value to use (which will be 20).

That is because the ENG dex has it at 10, and the other ones have it at 20.

We usually assume that the ENG is the right one, but there is nothing RAW about that.
RAW, you have 2 publications with the same publishing date which give discordant info.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 15:02:06


Post by: Daedalus81


Spoletta wrote:
Reavers aren't even 10 points if you want to go pure RAW. They are undefined, so you should ask the TO on which point value to use (which will be 20).


Lots of TOs are permitting 10. Maybe no one bothered to ask? Or they didn't bother to rule upfront. Even this recent 100+ player one though the use is limited there. Otherwise a list with 10 or 20 of them has a 100 to 200 point handicap over the opponent.

I think most DE lists are successful despite Reavers. They just don't help the problem.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 15:19:30


Post by: Salt donkey


Not sure what 10 point reavers have to with the discussion on this last GT. Revers where 20 points here, so that’s a mute point.

As far as my main point on the tournament itself, why is it ok to remove the winner of the tournament from win-rate consideration simply because he is a good player? The 3rd place harli player has been using this army for a while and is a tourney vet, should we remove him from counting towards the clown’s rate? No because good players use good armies, and that helps boost win rates.

Btw I wasn’t advocating ignoring the bad drukhari list from counting towards win rates either. The point was that a 68% win rate is still horrible and for as many people are saying “let the meta adjust, then things will get better” there is also exist an element “let of Drukhari players adjust, then things will get worse,” element as well.

Sorry guys but the only keeping this army from being viewed as meta cancer is it’s low play rates, but there’s a zero percent chance these rates will stay very low with results like these. Then we stop seeing 2 drukhari lists in the top 10 of a major, and instead start seeing 4-6 (possible more).



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 15:30:05


Post by: Daedalus81


Salt donkey wrote:
Not sure what 10 point reavers have to with the discussion on this last GT. Revers where 20 points here, so that’s a mute point.

As far as my main point on the tournament itself, why is it ok to remove the winner of the tournament from win-rate consideration simply because he is a good player? The 3rd place harli player has been using this army for a while and is a tourney vet, should we remove him from counting towards the clown’s rate? No because good players use good armies, and that helps boost win rates.

Btw I wasn’t advocating ignoring the bad drukhari list from counting towards win rates either. The point was that a 68% win rate is still horrible and for as many people are saying “let the meta adjust, then things will get better” there is also exist an element “let of Drukhari players adjust, then things will get worse,” element as well.

Sorry guys but the only keeping this army from being viewed as meta cancer is it’s low play rates, but there’s a zero percent chance these rates will stay very low with results like these. Then we stop seeing 2 drukhari lists in the top 10 of a major, and instead start seeing 4-6 (possible more).



It is wildly more complex than just a win rate.

At least 3 of those games were against lists from low tier armies / lists that don't understand their own army / people who took things they like. Don't get me wrong - I love spawn, but there is presently no way to properly support 15 of them. Several games were won by under 10 points.

Not every pilot knows their own army or opponent armies well enough to get wins ( e.g. my beatdown by mortifiers ). That's why we need multiple tournaments to truly get a sense of the problem.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 15:37:31


Post by: bullyboy


 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Motor city mayhem just happened, a nice 109 man GT with some great players. And would you look at that
Drukhari won it! Despite the fact that the army wasn’t that represented it also bagged another top placing as well. Oh and hey no DG here either, and the only real SM list was a space wolves army that has the best matchup against drukhari out of all marine chapters. It’s almost like this book is warping the meta.


1) Drukhari
2) Admech
3) Harlequins
4) Chaos Soup (technically majority Thousand Sons)
5) Aeldari (mostly Harlequins)
6) Deathwatch
7) Space Wolves
8) Chaos Soup
9) Drukhari
10) Adepta Sororitas

Yeah, seriously, what a nightmare meta. It was vastly more healthy and fair back when we had to break up the top placings by listing them as "iron hands, salamanders, iron hands, imperial fists, harlequins, white scars, raven guard, iron hands"


Right?
This look wonderful, and WTF...Deathwatch? That's awesome. Lots of xenos to kill


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 15:43:15


Post by: Canadian 5th


 StrayIight wrote:
If they do, they aren't great at investing in them and demonstrating that. We can see - with many, many examples - that things are getting released full of errors and issues. Basic proof-reading at times is an issue.

I guess WotC (D&D 5e and MtG) and Paizo (Pathfinder and Starfinder) are also bad because they occasionally ship products that have errors. They must be twice as bad though given that they're solely a rules-based business.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 15:48:05


Post by: the_scotsman


Salt donkey wrote:
Not sure what 10 point reavers have to with the discussion on this last GT. Revers where 20 points here, so that’s a mute point.

As far as my main point on the tournament itself, why is it ok to remove the winner of the tournament from win-rate consideration simply because he is a good player? The 3rd place harli player has been using this army for a while and is a tourney vet, should we remove him from counting towards the clown’s rate? No because good players use good armies, and that helps boost win rates.

Btw I wasn’t advocating ignoring the bad drukhari list from counting towards win rates either. The point was that a 68% win rate is still horrible and for as many people are saying “let the meta adjust, then things will get better” there is also exist an element “let of Drukhari players adjust, then things will get worse,” element as well.

Sorry guys but the only keeping this army from being viewed as meta cancer is it’s low play rates, but there’s a zero percent chance these rates will stay very low with results like these. Then we stop seeing 2 drukhari lists in the top 10 of a major, and instead start seeing 4-6 (possible more).



I would argue the only thing keeping this army being viewed as "meta cancer" would be the fact that it came out literally a couple weeks ago. At the tail end of a pandemic that's keeping most people from playing games.

People were talking about excluding the 5-0 guy from consideration as he was a playtester for the new book. He's actually had a chance to figure out how the army plays against multiple types of opponents, unlike, say, basically everybody there who played against drukhari probably.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:04:08


Post by: addnid


 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Not sure what 10 point reavers have to with the discussion on this last GT. Revers where 20 points here, so that’s a mute point.


I would argue the only thing keeping this army being viewed as "meta cancer" would be the fact that it came out literally a couple weeks ago. At the tail end of a pandemic that's keeping most people from playing games.
People were talking about excluding the 5-0 guy from consideration as he was a playtester for the new book. He's actually had a chance to figure out how the army plays against multiple types of opponents, unlike, say, basically everybody there who played against drukhari probably.

A druka player on my WTC team has had 4 games with them already, he doesn't seem to think there is much skill required in obliterating any poosing list. Two weeks ago he was on the "Let the meta adjust we don't know if they are OP yet", he is now on the "I feel like I am playing 2500 points instead of 2000" train. That is with 20 ppm reavers, not 10 ppm reavers, and only spamming DT liquefiers once in his 4 games (he reckons you don't even need to spam them, not with the other bonkers stuff the dark kin have).
Other WTC players in France have basically said the same thing, you don't need to be that good I think. Just a regular tourney player. That said I am happy most druka players here on dakka seem the share the point of view that GW needs to do multiple things here, and not just say "other players git gud adjust to the new meta its not our fault".
By the way no one mentioned the court 3 wound "cheap as f" models. Anyone see anything slightly wrong in their ppm ? I mean they are not busted or anything, just the wound count in relation to the ppm seems odd...


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:08:59


Post by: Karol


 the_scotsman wrote:

I would argue the only thing keeping this army being viewed as "meta cancer" would be the fact that it came out literally a couple weeks ago. At the tail end of a pandemic that's keeping most people from playing games.

People were talking about excluding the 5-0 guy from consideration as he was a playtester for the new book. He's actually had a chance to figure out how the army plays against multiple types of opponents, unlike, say, basically everybody there who played against drukhari probably.


Plus it is something like doing research on avarge size of a country in europe, and not counting places like luxemburg/vattican and freaking Russian for the avarge.

Cut the really bad guy and cut the really good guy, and both extrems are removed, this way we are left with something more close to the real avarge player. There would be source for worry if DE came out and had 10 players and 6-7, in the top or bottom eight. Any army that has such results is in some kind of a trouble.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:15:29


Post by: morganfreeman


Dark Eldar are only OP because they're nothing like marines.

A majority of the meta, for quite awhile, has been various flavors of marine. That being good toughness high save models with decent wound counts and relatively small numbers. This encourages lots of high-strength high-AP weapons to reliably wound them and slice through their armor, but discourages weight-of-fire solutions due to various inbuilt defenses which these armies have (Reanimation Protocals / various strats / ect).

D. Eldar are the polar opposite. They're an army made of glass-strong infantry riding around in gun-boats made of paper who survive through a mix of redundant squad choices and slipperiness.

They're not threatened by melta, lascannons, and plasma. Low shot high killiness weapons will always yield results, but they have sufficient numbers for it to not matter. They're threatened by high volumes of middling shooting (heavy bolters, auto cannons, ect) and weight-of-numbers average shooting (bolters, bolt rifles, ect).

Current Dark Eldar are surprisingly similar to Orks except they can actually kill you back. Current Orks are a half-way decent competitive pick because the entire meta revolves around fighting and beating MEQ. So they load up the board with t4 +6 bodies, slap a weak invul + FNP on them, and just sit on objectives in the middle of the board. They're not very dangerous, but they operate as a skew list which armies built to take on the majority of factions struggle to clear out adequately.

Current Dark Eldar are basically that, but exchanging some horde potential for mobility and a slathering of ultra-dangerous weapons ontop.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:18:01


Post by: the_scotsman


 addnid wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Not sure what 10 point reavers have to with the discussion on this last GT. Revers where 20 points here, so that’s a mute point.


I would argue the only thing keeping this army being viewed as "meta cancer" would be the fact that it came out literally a couple weeks ago. At the tail end of a pandemic that's keeping most people from playing games.
People were talking about excluding the 5-0 guy from consideration as he was a playtester for the new book. He's actually had a chance to figure out how the army plays against multiple types of opponents, unlike, say, basically everybody there who played against drukhari probably.

A druka player on my WTC team has had 4 games with them already, he doesn't seem to think there is much skill required in obliterating any poosing list. Two weeks ago he was on the "Let the meta adjust we don't know if they are OP yet", he is now on the "I feel like I am playing 2500 points instead of 2000" train. That is with 20 ppm reavers, not 10 ppm reavers, and only spamming DT liquefiers once in his 4 games (he reckons you don't even need to spam them, not with the other bonkers stuff the dark kin have).
Other WTC players in France have basically said the same thing, you don't need to be that good I think. Just a regular tourney player. That said I am happy most druka players here on dakka seem the share the point of view that GW needs to do multiple things here, and not just say "other players git gud adjust to the new meta its not our fault".
By the way no one mentioned the court 3 wound "cheap as f" models. Anyone see anything slightly wrong in their ppm ? I mean they are not busted or anything, just the wound count in relation to the ppm seems odd...


6pts for a T3 6++ wound? Seems generally in line with like, guardsmen, gants, whatever. Generally GW seems to be starting to finally apply a bit of a discount to multiwound models due to their vulnerability to multidamage weapons.

the court's pretty decent, and I've thought about playing around with them as I own a few funky converted minis that work best as Court members, it's just when you compare them to the crazy damage that Incubi can put out I think most people are gonna go with the Incubi. The best court mini has like 3 poison 4+ shots at 18" and 3 S5 AP-1 D1 melee attacks I believe. not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but nothing that any particular target is going to be shaking in its boots over.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:19:37


Post by: Sterling191


They dont approach Death Rider, Scarab or (old) Robot Doggos for PPW efficiency (which are the benchmark units I look at for these sorts of things), nor do they come with any of the mobility, defensive or offensive shenanigans one worries about in a problematic unit.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:26:37


Post by: Salt donkey


 Daedalus81 wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Not sure what 10 point reavers have to with the discussion on this last GT. Revers where 20 points here, so that’s a mute point.

As far as my main point on the tournament itself, why is it ok to remove the winner of the tournament from win-rate consideration simply because he is a good player? The 3rd place harli player has been using this army for a while and is a tourney vet, should we remove him from counting towards the clown’s rate? No because good players use good armies, and that helps boost win rates.

Btw I wasn’t advocating ignoring the bad drukhari list from counting towards win rates either. The point was that a 68% win rate is still horrible and for as many people are saying “let the meta adjust, then things will get better” there is also exist an element “let of Drukhari players adjust, then things will get worse,” element as well.

Sorry guys but the only keeping this army from being viewed as meta cancer is it’s low play rates, but there’s a zero percent chance these rates will stay very low with results like these. Then we stop seeing 2 drukhari lists in the top 10 of a major, and instead start seeing 4-6 (possible more).



It is wildly more complex than just a win rate.

At least 3 of those games were against lists from low tier armies / lists that don't understand their own army / people who took things they like. Don't get me wrong - I love spawn, but there is presently no way to properly support 15 of them. Several games were won by under 10 points.

Not every pilot knows their own army or opponent armies well enough to get wins ( e.g. my beatdown by mortifiers ). That's why we need multiple tournaments to truly get a sense of the problem.


Your quite right that one tournament isn’t enough to call an army OP, so let’s look at others to get more statistical evidence. In the addition to this tournament, and the 3 others I mentioned from the previous weekend, drukhari also won the war for the wooden spoon, a 36 man GT with 2 drukhari players. The non winning drukari player went 3-2 putting them at a 8-2 record for the tournament or 80% win rate.

How about a smaller tournament? Peculiar games spring RTT had 2 drukhari players out of 14. They had a combined record of 5-1 with one man winning the tournament in the other in the top 3.

The lord Mortis invitational featured Sean Nayden winning it all, and while I can’t see his list, it is labeled eldar and I found it extremely unlikely he wasn’t at least running some drukhari in there. Even if there isn’t there was another 3-0 drukhari player and 2 2-1 players. However I must admit there was also the second losing record drukhari player from this weekend at 1-2

The last tournament I can sorta of give you is the Barnyard brawl. Where 1 drukhari player went 3-2. That’s probably the best case you have for calling the army not OP. 1 tournament that drukhari entered and didn’t win.

So why do I bring all this up? Because stats start becoming more and more reliable as you get more and more data. If drukhari show up in a tournament, there’s a near certain chance their win rates will be between 60-80%. That in of itself is what is making me near certain this army is OP. For as many times people called other 9th Ed codex’s OP, none have come even close to this statistical success. I’ll take raw stats over any easily manipulated, “personal” evidence any day of the week.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:38:44


Post by: Tyran


It is too damn soon for points changes.

While I expect the FAQ to address DT and 10ppm Reavers, I don't expect other units to have their point values revised.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 16:57:45


Post by: Daedalus81


Salt donkey wrote:

Your quite right that one tournament isn’t enough to call an army OP, so let’s look at others to get more statistical evidence. In the addition to this tournament, and the 3 others I mentioned from the previous weekend, drukhari also won the war for the wooden spoon, a 36 man GT with 2 drukhari players. The non winning drukari player went 3-2 putting them at a 8-2 record for the tournament or 80% win rate.

How about a smaller tournament? Peculiar games spring RTT had 2 drukhari players out of 14. They had a combined record of 5-1 with one man winning the tournament in the other in the top 3.

The lord Mortis invitational featured Sean Nayden winning it all, and while I can’t see his list, it is labeled eldar and I found it extremely unlikely he wasn’t at least running some drukhari in there. Even if there isn’t there was another 3-0 drukhari player and 2 2-1 players. However I must admit there was also the second losing record drukhari player from this weekend at 1-2

The last tournament I can sorta of give you is the Barnyard brawl. Where 1 drukhari player went 3-2. That’s probably the best case you have for calling the army not OP. 1 tournament that drukhari entered and didn’t win.

So why do I bring all this up? Because stats start becoming more and more reliable as you get more and more data. If drukhari show up in a tournament, there’s a near certain chance their win rates will be between 60-80%. That in of itself is what is making me near certain this army is OP. For as many times people called other 9th Ed codex’s OP, none have come even close to this statistical success. I’ll take raw stats over any easily manipulated, “personal” evidence any day of the week.


I posted Nayden's list a page or two back. His DE portion was DT with Drazhar, Succubus, 3x5 Wracks, 3 Grots, and 3 raiders. Ynnari was also DE - Visarch, Wyches, Brides, and Incubi.

Otherwise, I agree with your points, but there may also be a lag period. Also, where is the damn FAQ?!

That said the order of wins and losses matter ( as does the point differential ). LLWWW is a different skill level than something like WWLWL, which is why you'll see most posting those. An early loss or two will get you matched to more mid-range players and lists making a recovery into 3-2 easier for a stronger army. That Barnyard DE lost to GK, beat someone who took a Hammerfall Bunker, lost to DG ( a common occurrence ), beat Silver Tide 56 to 43, and then beat straight CW with no Wraithseers.

I'm not disparaging players or lists, but some of these wins are going to come a lot more easily than others.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 17:43:31


Post by: the_scotsman


So i'm curious, what happens if the dakka hivemind declares the new Drukhari codex OP, in your eyes?

Would people start discussing what specific elements might be in need of adjustment, and what those adjusments could be? Say, like ways they could retool the Dark Technomancers trait, ways they could remove the interactions between razorflails and competitive edge and see where that puts Compedge in relation to other warlord trait/relic combos that exist in the codex, and also compare the Succubus to other 60-80pt combat oriented HQs to see where she falls and if she needs a point bump, talk about particular units and weapons that might need an adjustment upwards if, after the obvious stuff is 2-week FAQ'ed out, above-average performance continues?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 18:16:54


Post by: yukishiro1


No. First you need to Wait And See (TM), then you need to Stop Moaning (TM), and then, all of a sudden, one day they are The Worst Thing Ever (TM) and GW Must Do Something Drastic (TM).


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 18:19:55


Post by: PenitentJake


 the_scotsman wrote:
So i'm curious, what happens if the dakka hivemind declares the new Drukhari codex OP, in your eyes?

Would people start discussing what specific elements might be in need of adjustment, and what those adjusments could be? Say, like ways they could retool the Dark Technomancers trait, ways they could remove the interactions between razorflails and competitive edge and see where that puts Compedge in relation to other warlord trait/relic combos that exist in the codex, and also compare the Succubus to other 60-80pt combat oriented HQs to see where she falls and if she needs a point bump, talk about particular units and weapons that might need an adjustment upwards if, after the obvious stuff is 2-week FAQ'ed out, above-average performance continues?


You know, these all sound like pretty reasonable suggestions.

I think that a lot of folks arguing against the OP Drukhari are making valid points, so I'm not 100% convinced there's a problem.

But whether there is or not, these suggestions seem reasonable enough that they don't put me on the defensive to the point where I want to argue. I'd try this, and I don't think I'd enjoy playing the army any less.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 19:39:14


Post by: StrayIight


 the_scotsman wrote:
So i'm curious, what happens if the dakka hivemind declares the new Drukhari codex OP, in your eyes?

Would people start discussing what specific elements might be in need of adjustment, and what those adjusments could be? Say, like ways they could retool the Dark Technomancers trait, ways they could remove the interactions between razorflails and competitive edge and see where that puts Compedge in relation to other warlord trait/relic combos that exist in the codex, and also compare the Succubus to other 60-80pt combat oriented HQs to see where she falls and if she needs a point bump, talk about particular units and weapons that might need an adjustment upwards if, after the obvious stuff is 2-week FAQ'ed out, above-average performance continues?


You'd hope so. I think as we've seen, there's reasonable discussions to be had around this, and people who are willing to be reasonable while having them. I think broadly, most of us are in some level of agreement as to what the issues probably are (your list pretty much covers them, arguably there are a few others which are a little more fringe issues).

It depends on how threads evolve and devolve, which is so often the case of who's commenting on the day. There are those who argue constructively, and use data to form a position, and there are those who seem to take an extreme position regardless of evidence, or who just appear to argue along bizarre faction-based 'tribal' lines in a hobby where we're all part of the same community.

Nurture the former and tune out the latter wherever people can I guess. This can all be constructive if we want it to be.

That two week FAQ might be needing a new moniker soon though


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 19:44:19


Post by: Daedalus81


 the_scotsman wrote:
So i'm curious, what happens if the dakka hivemind declares the new Drukhari codex OP, in your eyes?

Would people start discussing what specific elements might be in need of adjustment, and what those adjusments could be? Say, like ways they could retool the Dark Technomancers trait, ways they could remove the interactions between razorflails and competitive edge and see where that puts Compedge in relation to other warlord trait/relic combos that exist in the codex, and also compare the Succubus to other 60-80pt combat oriented HQs to see where she falls and if she needs a point bump, talk about particular units and weapons that might need an adjustment upwards if, after the obvious stuff is 2-week FAQ'ed out, above-average performance continues?


I think the overall problem is really difficult, because just about the whole book rises to the top. Would killing Razorflail and Reavers "fix" the problem? I don't know. DT seems to be under-utilized given its meme-ability, but it is still a problem worth addressing. Those are probably the only things I could realistically see in the FAQ and we likely won't see anything for DT. If FAQs really only deal with mid-published points then the Succubus will stay as is.

How much of the problem is people relying on big weapons and melee to solve problems and bringing nothing in the blast or anti-horde realm? Would the top 10 become mostly DE if people played them like marines? I guess we're going to find out exactly how much people switch armies if DE is the new army to be.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
yukishiro1 wrote:
No. First you need to Wait And See (TM), then you need to Stop Moaning (TM), and then, all of a sudden, one day they are The Worst Thing Ever (TM) and GW Must Do Something Drastic (TM).


Oh come on now.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 20:23:44


Post by: vict0988


 the_scotsman wrote:
So i'm curious, what happens if the dakka hivemind declares the new Drukhari codex OP, in your eyes?

Nothing? Dakka has no power and most Dakkanauts don't do anything other than ask questions, lurk, talk trash, brag or whine.
Would people start discussing what specific elements might be in need of adjustment, and what those adjusments could be? Say, like ways they could retool the Dark Technomancers trait

Remove Blade Artists from the whole faction.

Add 1 to hit instead of add 1 to damage for Dark Technomancers. The weapons that don't get hit by the negative aspect miss out on half of the positive aspect.
ways they could remove the interactions between razorflails and competitive edge

Get the bonus attacks upon killing models irrespective of whether attacks are split, these attacks cannot generate further attacks.
see where that puts Compedge in relation to other warlord trait/relic combos that exist in the codex

Make Executioner work against non-VEHICLE units. Buff The Phial Bouquet to choose instead of randomly determined. Buff Treacherous Deceiver to stack with the obsession. Buff Traitor's Embrace to be 2d6-2 mortal wounds instead of D3+3 on 2+. Buff Hyperswift Reflexes to block re-rolls on hit rolls made against the WL. Remove the bonus attacks from Triptych Whip.

Nerf Dark Lotus to +1 S -1 AP for razorflails instead of AP and Damage.
compare the Succubus to other 60-80pt combat oriented HQs to see where she falls and if she needs a point bump, talk about particular units and weapons that might need an adjustment upwards if, after the obvious stuff is 2-week FAQ'ed out, above-average performance continues?

I would need more time to think it over, but again Dakka won't make a difference, as has been discussed many of these things were probably brought up by playtesters.

Without Stratagems and Relics hydraflail Succubus is not that deadly even with another doubling of attacks by Competitive Edge, +1 Damage Relic and re-roll wounds Stratagem makes it too good against a lot of things it should not be good against. Murdering half a squad of Warriors is not the end of the world if that was the only thing she could do. Precision Blows is probably already really good combined with hydraflail and Dark Lotus Toxin, 4 mortal wounds is no joke, I'm sure that has already been brought up somewhere else.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 21:39:53


Post by: StrayIight


 vict0988 wrote:

Remove Blade Artists from the whole faction.


I'm very curious as to your reasoning behind this (I don't know if there is any significance behind it being at the front of your list of changes also?) It's not an ability that I've seen called out by anyone as problematic, and confess I'm not seeing at all why you'd think it would be.

It'd be interesting to hear what your thoughts are here.

Other than that, you're quite right about the interactivity of Dark Lotus Toxin in the Succubus build we've all been discussing. Even if we accept the current implementation of Razor Flails and Comp Edge, she's only killing (if my quick bit of mathhammer is correct) about 3-4 MEQ's without it, compared to a full entire unit with it.

It's probably notable (or perhaps should be) that two of the biggest cautionary call-outs from the Codex involve an 'increased damage' trait or element.as a core part of what makes them work. (DT and Flails/Edge/DLT Succubus).


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 21:47:18


Post by: Tyran


Is the Succubus really an issue? I mean, as I understand it, it requires the combination of stratagems, relic and trait. Undeniably powerful, but it doesn't really scales with the game.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 21:58:21


Post by: StrayIight


 Tyran wrote:
Is the Succubus really an issue? I mean, as I understand it, it requires the combination of stratagems, relic and trait. Undeniably powerful, but it doesn't really scales with the game.


She's been an emotive issue certainly. What you have is (in large part to some poorly implemented rules right now) an HQ which, naked, is fine but not setting anyone's world on fire really.
When you add a trait and relic (which of course you're almost certainly going to), she's suddenly a 60 pt model that can delete 100's of points of opposing HQ's, elite units and the like, with little issue.

That she has serious potential on the table is beyond doubt.

What would be interesting would be to look through some streams of these winning DE lists at events, and see just how much work that unit is putting in. If she's sniped off the table first turn in every game, or otherwise 'contained', she looks a lot less of an issue in practice than if she's erasing a Magnus, Bobby-G or Mortarion type unit a turn.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 22:20:30


Post by: alextroy


 Daedalus81 wrote:
I posted Nayden's list a page or two back. His DE portion was DT with Drazhar, Succubus, 3x5 Wracks, 3 Grots, and 3 raiders. Ynnari was also DE - Visarch, Wyches, Brides, and Incubi.
Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I see this DE portion and think it isn't eligible for the DT Coven Obsession due to the Succubus.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 22:24:58


Post by: StrayIight


 alextroy wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
I posted Nayden's list a page or two back. His DE portion was DT with Drazhar, Succubus, 3x5 Wracks, 3 Grots, and 3 raiders. Ynnari was also DE - Visarch, Wyches, Brides, and Incubi.
Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I see this DE portion and think it isn't eligible for the DT Coven Obsession due to the Succubus.


It used to be that way and has caused a bit of confusion as things have changed. You can mix units within a detachment now without losing obsessions. But the non coven, kabal, or cult units in that detachment, don't get an obsession. So you can take say a Chronos in your Cult detachments, all your cult units work as normal, but the Chronos gets no obsession at all.

Sean himself was kind enough to discuss some of this with us in the DE tactics thread if you're interested.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 22:26:49


Post by: Sterling191


 alextroy wrote:
Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I see this DE portion and think it isn't eligible for the DT Coven Obsession due to the Succubus.


It is entirely legal. Drukhari detachments pick an Obsession, and then all matching units in that detachment gain that Obsession (IE: If you pick a DT Coven detachment, all Coven units will gain the DT Obsession). Unlike other armies however, you can include non-subfaction units in the detachment without breaking the Obsession, they simply won't gain one (so in this case the Succubus wouldn't gain the benefit of their chosen Cult's Obsession).

It's a small, but subtle thing that allows for list-building shenanigans like this.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 22:27:11


Post by: BlackoCatto


Play a better game I guess or the old FGC favorite: Pick a top tier.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 22:46:05


Post by: vict0988


 StrayIight wrote:
 vict0988 wrote:

Remove Blade Artists from the whole faction.


I'm very curious as to your reasoning behind this (I don't know if there is any significance behind it being at the front of your list of changes also?) It's not an ability that I've seen called out by anyone as problematic, and confess I'm not seeing at all why you'd think it would be.

I don't think Drukhari being extra armour piercing is thematic, especially with Wych Cult weapons AP creep on top, I think separating 6s from other wounds is a waste of time for such a small benefit.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 22:48:10


Post by: Crix


Why should blade artists be removed when marines have access to ap shenanigans in every facet all the time? See it’s things like this that put people on the defensive.

We know there are issues to be fixed. The problem is GW has proven to be inept at fixing things without breaking other things needlessly.

Edit: Just by looking at recent lists, we know DT, specific Succubus build, and liquifiers are being abused and will probably be toned down. Dark Lances will also probably go up in points at some point. Those are the common things in each list that just looks wrong. I’d also make the suggestion if I was able, maybe custom traits should just be disallowed from tournaments. They’re clearly not as vetted as named traits are and cause more trouble than may be worth. The fear though is GW just going “well, liquifiers are too good. Can’t have that. 25 points per model.” Etc etc


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 22:57:45


Post by: alextroy


Sterling191 wrote:
 alextroy wrote:
Can you elaborate on this a little bit? I see this DE portion and think it isn't eligible for the DT Coven Obsession due to the Succubus.


It is entirely legal. Drukhari detachments pick an Obsession, and then all matching units in that detachment gain that Obsession (IE: If you pick a DT Coven detachment, all Coven units will gain the DT Obsession). Unlike other armies however, you can include non-subfaction units in the detachment without breaking the Obsession, they simply won't gain one (so in this case the Succubus wouldn't gain the benefit of their chosen Cult's Obsession).

It's a small, but subtle thing that allows for list-building shenanigans like this.
Ah, yes. I forgot that. So the Succubus was so good that he ran it without obsessions or COS detachment abilities.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 23:05:04


Post by: StrayIight


 alextroy wrote:

Ah, yes. I forgot that. So the Succubus was so good that he ran it without obsessions or COS detachment abilities.


It's probably the better of the three basic HQ's usually.

Obsessions aren't generally what makes or breaks most Succubus builds. Even in a Coven detachment, the succubus additionally still gets a Cult keyword. If this player then has another detachment that was Cult of Strife, this Coven Detachment Succubus can access most of those bells and whistles also, still just at the expense of it's obsession.

It can be a decent option if you have no need of a Haemonucli.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/26 23:05:44


Post by: Crix


Salt Donkey, from someone on your side of the discussion, and as the OP, how would you “fix” or address a perceived ‘broken’ Drukhari issue? I’m interested in seeing what page all of us are on.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 00:09:28


Post by: Salt donkey


Crix wrote:
Salt Donkey, from someone on your side of the discussion, and as the OP, how would you “fix” or address a perceived ‘broken’ Drukhari issue? I’m interested in seeing what page all of us are on.


There’s a lot things so I’m going to separate the nerfs I’d like to see based on style. That said I don’t feel all these nerfs would be needed to make the army fair, just a good chunk of them.

Army-wide.

Change points so that dissi’s can compete wit dark lances. Maybe a couple points nerf to darklances and a larger point cut for dissis.

Drazhar up to 165 points. Currently he is an auto-include in any list. 165 would at least give people pause before playing him.

Raiders up 10 points. They got a large T boost but paid basically no points for the privilege. This by itself would make the army a lot more fair.

All units in a non realspace raid detachment need to share a coven, Kabal, cult keyword in order to keep obsessions.

No extra 2 CP for running triple patrol.

Incubi up 2 points. A very undercosted unit atm.

Kabals

I don’t think this is the OP part of the book. Needs little to no nerfs. Maybe court of the archon needs some point increases.

Wyche cults

First clear up obvious oversights (infinite attack succubus, 10 point reveals for all those WAAC players trying to abuse this)

Nerf succubus somehow further (no tournament list should be spamming 3 and feeling good about it.)

Change book of rust cult of strife to require an army to not use mercy. Buff beastmasters/ beasts.

Coven

Dark techomancer needs drastic changes. It this point I’d be ok if it got nerfed to something like +2 S in range weapons that don’t auto-hit.

Buff Talos and chronos. They’re both quite bad.

That’s really all atm. That said it should be clear based on the length of the list why I consider this army OP.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 00:16:35


Post by: Crackedgear


For what it’s worth, I’ve been in a TTS tournament that’s been going for a little while now. 16 teams of 4, 7 drukhari lists. Current individual rankings are 3rd, 7th, 17th, 33rd, 42nd, 46th, and 59th.

Most of the lists have a succubus with competitive edge and razorflails, six of them are heavy on the dark technomancers, and five of them have at least 15 hellions. One or two have 40.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 00:51:56


Post by: StrayIight


Salt donkey wrote:

Spoiler:
There’s a lot things so I’m going to separate the nerfs I’d like to see based on style. That said I don’t feel all these nerfs would be needed to make the army fair, just a good chunk of them.

Army-wide.

Change points so that dissi’s can compete wit dark lances. Maybe a couple points nerf to darklances and a larger point cut for dissis.

Drazhar up to 165 points. Currently he is an auto-include in any list. 165 would at least give people pause before playing him.

Raiders up 10 points. They got a large T boost but paid basically no points for the privilege. This by itself would make the army a lot more fair.

All units in a non realspace raid detachment need to share a coven, Kabal, cult keyword in order to keep obsessions.

No extra 2 CP for running triple patrol.

Incubi up 2 points. A very undercosted unit atm.

Kabals

I don’t think this is the OP part of the book. Needs little to no nerfs. Maybe court of the archon needs some point increases.

Wyche cults

First clear up obvious oversights (infinite attack succubus, 10 point reveals for all those WAAC players trying to abuse this)

Nerf succubus somehow further (no tournament list should be spamming 3 and feeling good about it.)

Change book of rust cult of strife to require an army to not use mercy. Buff beastmasters/ beasts.

Coven

Dark techomancer needs drastic changes. It this point I’d be ok if it got nerfed to something like +2 S in range weapons that don’t auto-hit.

Buff Talos and chronos. They’re both quite bad.

That’s really all atm. That said it should be clear based on the length of the list why I consider this army OP.



I've mulled over Raiders a few times also. We won't see it happen soon, but I do wonder if a points change upward to them might put the breaks on things a little bit.

Raiders are great, and we're seeing them taken heavily in essentially every list. You almost never see Ravagers on the other hand any more, because the efficiency from Raiders has (to my mind at least) largely made them obsolete. Dark Lances have been considerably improved, and with easy access to free rerolls via various obsessions, are very reliable. 9 times out of 10, you'll never opt for a Dissie over a Lance now.

There's an argument that they need to stay around the price of other factions transports, but (internal balance discussions aside) I'm not so sure they're just a simple transport now. They're more like highly mobile gunships that also carry large numbers of models and that can even provide other types of useful support for many of the armies tricks.

I wouldn't use the term 'overpowered', they clearly aren't. I think they probably are a bit too points efficient though, and they're such a core part of the army, a change there might help things along in terms of balance as a whole.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 02:10:53


Post by: Daedalus81


Crackedgear wrote:
and five of them have at least 15 hellions. One or two have 40.


I'm somewhat mystified how those stay on the board for long with morale. Are people somehow getting them into melee turn 1 or bringing them on later?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 02:43:06


Post by: StrayIight


 Daedalus81 wrote:
Crackedgear wrote:
and five of them have at least 15 hellions. One or two have 40.


I'm somewhat mystified how those stay on the board for long with morale. Are people somehow getting them into melee turn 1 or bringing them on later?


We looked at this in the other forum. They can be made quite a bit more resilient than they would appear. It's something of a trap to focus on them at times.

Additionally in a DE list, you can be somewhat drowned by threats. Are the Hellions the one you want to deal with, or is it those Incubi? What about the transport carrying Draz or that Blenderella Succubus?

Lots of reason why they stick around in practice.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 02:51:33


Post by: Daedalus81


40kstats posted up a bunch of tournies for 4/24. This screenshot is for JUST that week. I highlighted marines for comedic effect. Based on the data there have been no other weekends since the DE book release with GTs except 4/10 and 4/24.

A slightly interesting note is perhaps the meteoric rise of DW who sits in a similar level of success to DE, but on far fewer games.

Behind Necrons and DG -- DE are the third most played faction if you keep the marine varieties separate. Astartes in general are played about 3 times as much as Necrons. The gradient is the point differential. DE are definitely scoring more while perhaps not always getting a good finish, because of some skew.

Spoiler:


Here's the top 4 for the tournaments. I noted the commonly noticed strong elements on the DE lists. Worst so far is War in the Burg was 16% DE, but 40% of the top 10, but they failed to go 5-0. Lots of 10 point reavers, silly succs, and DT. Some courts sprinkled in, too.

Spoiler:
1. Paul McArthur - Imperial Knights
2. Mark Hertel - Cult Mechanicus
3. Stephen Henry IV - A. Custodes
4. Jonas Beardsley - Drukhari -- DT, RF & DL Succ, 10 point reavers

Spoiler:
1. Jeremiah Bergdale - Drukhari -- some DT, large court
2. David Robson - Necrons
3. Zachary Nelson - White Scars
4. Kolby Hopkins - RK/DG/TSons

Spoiler:
1. Matt Evans - Tyranids
2. Ben Neal - T'au Empire
3. Zaak Kerstetter - Custodes/AM
4. Jason Wales - Death Guard

Spoiler:
1. James Kelling - Drukhari -- some DT
2. Ben Cherwien - Drukhari -- DT, RF & DL Succ, 10 point reavers
3. Logan Tillman - Death Guard
4. Tyler DeVries - DKoK/DA/Sisters

Spoiler:
1. Connor Mac Cormick - Drukhari -- DT, RF & DL Succ
2. BamBam Hunter - RK/TSons/DG
3. Kyle McCord - DA/Admech/AM
4. Jason Merten - Adepta Sororitas

Spoiler:
1. Brad Chester - Drukhari -- DT, RF & DL Succ
2. Daniel Kennedy - Cult Mechanicus
3. Colin McDade - Harlequins
4. Rex Buckingham - CSM/Thousand Sons

Spoiler:
1. Seth Piper - Necrons
2. Alan Blakeborough - Astra Militarum
3. John Karuza - Blood Angels
4. Scott Byam - Asuryani

Spoiler:
1. Oliver Smith - White Scars
2. Eric Forsman - Adepta Sororitas
3. Robert Thoen - Orks
4. Lord Fick - Death Guard


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 05:08:52


Post by: Red Corsair


Looking at those results I really am not seeing anything that dubious lol.

Especially considering the silly razor flail interaction and 10 point reavers are still being used apparently.

The 10 pt reavers is equal parts the fault of the inept TO's and the players disingenuous enough to take advantage of the situation.

DE are on a tear right now because they are a hard counter to the meta. The meta was small super elite multi wound units with multi damage weaponry.

DE units are small and hit just as hard but they aren't durable so they are getting twice the numbers. It's classic MSU, nothing new to the game but it's definitely a shift in the meta for 9th.

As soon as admech, sisters or other xenos show up and are also a glass hammer but conduct their work in the shooting phase then DE will be reigned in hard.

DE hate killing units like skitarii for example. They essentially charge in a more expensive unit to trade and lose out on the exchange. Marines are getting dunked on hard because they pay for 2 wounds and power armor which is meaningless to DE ATM.

It's this odd decision they made in 9th, "hey lets fix marines durability issue" only to reverse it via the ever escalating damage lol. At this point marines would have been better off being 1 wound and 30% cheaper.

The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.






Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 05:12:05


Post by: vict0988


Crix wrote:
Why should blade artists be removed when marines have access to ap shenanigans in every facet all the time? See it’s things like this that put people on the defensive.

Two wrongs do not make a right, this is what I mean when I say nobody wants nerfs, enjoy Rubric Marine Smite dealing 2d3 mortal wounds to keep up.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 06:53:09


Post by: Salt donkey


 Red Corsair wrote:
Looking at those results I really am not seeing anything that dubious lol.

Especially considering the silly razor flail interaction and 10 point reavers are still being used apparently.

The 10 pt reavers is equal parts the fault of the inept TO's and the players disingenuous enough to take advantage of the situation.

DE are on a tear right now because they are a hard counter to the meta. The meta was small super elite multi wound units with multi damage weaponry.

DE units are small and hit just as hard but they aren't durable so they are getting twice the numbers. It's classic MSU, nothing new to the game but it's definitely a shift in the meta for 9th.

As soon as admech, sisters or other xenos show up and are also a glass hammer but conduct their work in the shooting phase then DE will be reigned in hard.

DE hate killing units like skitarii for example. They essentially charge in a more expensive unit to trade and lose out on the exchange. Marines are getting dunked on hard because they pay for 2 wounds and power armor which is meaningless to DE ATM.

It's this odd decision they made in 9th, "hey lets fix marines durability issue" only to reverse it via the ever escalating damage lol. At this point marines would have been better off being 1 wound and 30% cheaper.

The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.






While I do agree that 10 point revears and broken succubus is not making the situation better, in what world is a 69% win rate not dubious? Again that’s what Ynnari had at their peak with any amount of play. Do you think that army was fair? Outside of ironhands at their peak, this is also what some of the worst IF, IH, and salamander lists where getting as well. Are those armies fair? And while 27 lists doesn’t give enough data to draw any full conclusion from, it’s at least enough to show a real trend.

Everything else you bring up is just theory on what you think will happen, which sorry, doesn’t mean much in comparison to facts.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 07:09:35


Post by: yukishiro1


GW really needs to stop sitting on the pot and get that FAQ out, so we can see how much impact fixing the obvious brainless errors has, and whether they're still a problem after that or not.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 07:16:37


Post by: Blackie


Salt donkey wrote:
Crix wrote:
Salt Donkey, from someone on your side of the discussion, and as the OP, how would you “fix” or address a perceived ‘broken’ Drukhari issue? I’m interested in seeing what page all of us are on.


There’s a lot things so I’m going to separate the nerfs I’d like to see based on style. That said I don’t feel all these nerfs would be needed to make the army fair, just a good chunk of them.

Army-wide.

Change points so that dissi’s can compete wit dark lances. Maybe a couple points nerf to darklances and a larger point cut for dissis.

Drazhar up to 165 points. Currently he is an auto-include in any list. 165 would at least give people pause before playing him.

Raiders up 10 points. They got a large T boost but paid basically no points for the privilege. This by itself would make the army a lot more fair.

All units in a non realspace raid detachment need to share a coven, Kabal, cult keyword in order to keep obsessions.

No extra 2 CP for running triple patrol.

Incubi up 2 points. A very undercosted unit atm.

Kabals

I don’t think this is the OP part of the book. Needs little to no nerfs. Maybe court of the archon needs some point increases.

Wyche cults

First clear up obvious oversights (infinite attack succubus, 10 point reveals for all those WAAC players trying to abuse this)

Nerf succubus somehow further (no tournament list should be spamming 3 and feeling good about it.)

Change book of rust cult of strife to require an army to not use mercy. Buff beastmasters/ beasts.

Coven

Dark techomancer needs drastic changes. It this point I’d be ok if it got nerfed to something like +2 S in range weapons that don’t auto-hit.

Buff Talos and chronos. They’re both quite bad.

That’s really all atm. That said it should be clear based on the length of the list why I consider this army OP.


These you listed seem very small issues. SM and deathguard have many more broken combos to deal with.

I also disagree about talos (decent at least) and chronos (quite good) as they're not bad at all.

The only nerfs I can agree with are the loss of 2CPs for the the multiple patrols list, +15ppm for a basic succubus, competitive edge that generates extra hit rolls (not attacks) and maybe allow one liquifier every 5 wracks. Anything else I wouldn't change, in fact there are units that even need some love from GW.

Incubi and raiders I think they're already quite expensive. So is Drazhar probably, as a SM smash captain isn't really that worse but it's also cheaper. I play a wolf lord on TWC with TH and armour of russ, which I believe it isn't even the best SM captain available. 130 points for M10'' (plus advance and charge) T5 7W 2+/4++ and 4A at S8 Ap-2 D3 combined with +1A pretty much everytime and AP-1 during assault doctrines. Warlord trait wolfkin gives him D3 attacks instead of +1, but beastlayer give him +1A in combat if in range of vehicles/monster and +1 to wound against those. And ability to make a selected enemy unit fight last. Against tough stuff drazhar isn't much better but it's also (much) easier to kill than a lord on TWC.

Ragnar Blackmane has 10A at S6 AP-4 D2 base plus SM/SW bonuses, he has 3 aura abilties and costs 130 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Daedalus81 wrote:


Behind Necrons and DG -- DE are the third most played faction if you keep the marine varieties separate.


Which sounds reasonable as they have the newest codex and they're pretty good against marines and equivalents. Give them a couple of months and their numbers will drop as other codexes will be out and players will figure out how to adapt to counter them.

I think drukhari being present in considerable numbers in tournaments is a very good thing because it could lead to decrease the number of SM (and equivalents) lists in tournaments first and in casual metas later. Which is something I'd love to happen.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 07:39:59


Post by: Karol


Okey, but the same was said like a year ago about harlequins that people just need time to learn how to play against them, and that they will fall out of favour and their win rates will drop.

And the only change we actually see, is that CWE players take harlequin detachments as parts of their armies, and the army that was supposed to be bad is getting in to top 8s on a regular basis. At the same time majority of the broken marine armies don't even show up in top 8, like at all. I don't think there was a salamander top 8 placing after the aggresor nerf or a DW high placing at all.


Alsot the main difference between all marine HQs that are ment for melee and something like Drazhar is the fight last thing. Melee has two problems, comparing to shoting, having to actually get in to the range and the opponent being able to strike back. Eldar armies have little or no problems with the first, and mitigate a lot of the second. And dead models don't hit back. And while yes some marine HQs come with auras, those work only if there are units next to him that actually want to be buffed.

Something like a succubus or drazhar works like the old style, they work at full efficiency being alone.


I think drukhari being present in considerable numbers in tournaments is a very good thing because it could lead to decrease the number of SM (and equivalents) lists in tournaments first and in casual metas later. Which is something I'd love to happen.


What about all those people that have one army, and can only afford one then? Having an anti marine army, and we have enough of those already, just makes the enjoyment of the game worse for those people, and marine players kind of a make up most of all the players . Plus what are those people suppose to play if not marines? harli/cwe soups, demon soups there isn't much other stuff left that could be good in an anti marine saturated meta. Because DE and similiar armies, don't really have problems with killing something like GSC, IG, Necrons or Tau armies.



The stuff DE got in their book are very powerful, in an edition made around pushing opponents off objectives.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 07:59:41


Post by: addnid


Crackedgear wrote:
For what it’s worth, I’ve been in a TTS tournament that’s been going for a little while now. 16 teams of 4, 7 drukhari lists. Current individual rankings are 3rd, 7th, 17th, 33rd, 42nd, 46th, and 59th.

Most of the lists have a succubus with competitive edge and razorflails, six of them are heavy on the dark technomancers, and five of them have at least 15 hellions. One or two have 40.


Druka individual rankings are fairly lower than one would expect, only one in the first 6 spots... These results are even stranger when you know that TTS means "play whatever quantity you like of anything" as you don't need to buy and paint any models.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 08:03:26


Post by: Blackie


Karol wrote:
Okey, but the same was said like a year ago about harlequins that people just need time to learn how to play against them, and that they will fall out of favour and their win rates will drop.


True, in fact they're not OP at all. If people still tailor against marines and then autolose against harlies it's their problem . Take aggressors, many SM players ignore them as they're terrible against other marines but they're very good against drukhari, harlies or orks. All counter meta armies. If those players refuse or fail to adapt it's no surprise the harlies win rate stays the same.

Karol wrote:

Alsot the main difference between all marine HQs that are ment for melee and something like Drazhar is the fight last thing. Melee has two problems, comparing to shoting, having to actually get in to the range and the opponent being able to strike back. Eldar armies have little or no problems with the first, and mitigate a lot of the second. And dead models don't hit back. And while yes some marine HQs come with auras, those work only if there are units next to him that actually want to be buffed.

Something like a succubus or drazhar works like the old style, they work at full efficiency being alone.


Fight last for drazhar only works on a roll, and against high LD it doesn't have good odds to work. Armour of russ works automatically. All smash captains work alone, they simply need the appropriate target, just like drukhari HQs. A succubus goes down against 10 boyz if they strike first.

Karol wrote:

What about all those people that have one army, and can only afford one then? Having an anti marine army, and we have enough of those already, just makes the enjoyment of the game worse for those people, and marine players kind of a make up most of all the players . Plus what are those people suppose to play if not marines? harli/cwe soups, demon soups there isn't much other stuff left that could be good in an anti marine saturated meta. Because DE and similiar armies, don't really have problems with killing something like GSC, IG, Necrons or Tau armies.


They'll keep playing their armies. I'm not saying that I wish a meta with no marines at all, just less marines and equivalents. A considerable amount of players owns multiple armies, especially SM players as getting a SM armies is easier than most of the other factions. Some will keep playing them, others will not. At that point competitive lists will be much more TAC oriented and not tailored against elites with benefits for everyone.

Karol wrote:

The stuff DE got in their book are very powerful, in an edition made around pushing opponents off objectives.


So are SM, necrons and deathguard books.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 08:06:46


Post by: Crackedgear


 Red Corsair wrote:


The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.



To be fair, the period between when the sisters codex came out and space marines 2.0 was really nicely balanced. Yes there were a few outliers like grey knights, but the majority of factions were sitting around a 50% win rate.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 08:10:09


Post by: Salt donkey


 Blackie wrote:
Salt donkey wrote:
Crix wrote:
Salt Donkey, from someone on your side of the discussion, and as the OP, how would you “fix” or address a perceived ‘broken’ Drukhari issue? I’m interested in seeing what page all of us are on.


There’s a lot things so I’m going to separate the nerfs I’d like to see based on style. That said I don’t feel all these nerfs would be needed to make the army fair, just a good chunk of them.

Army-wide.

Change points so that dissi’s can compete wit dark lances. Maybe a couple points nerf to darklances and a larger point cut for dissis.

Drazhar up to 165 points. Currently he is an auto-include in any list. 165 would at least give people pause before playing him.

Raiders up 10 points. They got a large T boost but paid basically no points for the privilege. This by itself would make the army a lot more fair.

All units in a non realspace raid detachment need to share a coven, Kabal, cult keyword in order to keep obsessions.

No extra 2 CP for running triple patrol.

Incubi up 2 points. A very undercosted unit atm.

Kabals

I don’t think this is the OP part of the book. Needs little to no nerfs. Maybe court of the archon needs some point increases.

Wyche cults

First clear up obvious oversights (infinite attack succubus, 10 point reveals for all those WAAC players trying to abuse this)

Nerf succubus somehow further (no tournament list should be spamming 3 and feeling good about it.)

Change book of rust cult of strife to require an army to not use mercy. Buff beastmasters/ beasts.

Coven

Dark techomancer needs drastic changes. It this point I’d be ok if it got nerfed to something like +2 S in range weapons that don’t auto-hit.

Buff Talos and chronos. They’re both quite bad.

That’s really all atm. That said it should be clear based on the length of the list why I consider this army OP.


These you listed seem very small issues. SM and deathguard have many more broken combos to deal with.

I also disagree about talos (decent at least) and chronos (quite good) as they're not bad at all.

The only nerfs I can agree with are the loss of 2CPs for the the multiple patrols list, +15ppm for a basic succubus, competitive edge that generates extra hit rolls (not attacks) and maybe allow one liquifier every 5 wracks. Anything else I wouldn't change, in fact there are units that even need some love from GW.

Incubi and raiders I think they're already quite expensive. So is Drazhar probably, as a SM smash captain isn't really that worse but it's also cheaper. I play a wolf lord on TWC with TH and armour of russ, which I believe it isn't even the best SM captain available. 130 points for M10'' (plus advance and charge) T5 7W 2+/4++ and 4A at S8 Ap-2 D3 combined with +1A pretty much everytime and AP-1 during assault doctrines. Warlord trait wolfkin gives him D3 attacks instead of +1, but beastlayer give him +1A in combat if in range of vehicles/monster and +1 to wound against those. And ability to make a selected enemy unit fight last. Against tough stuff drazhar isn't much better but it's also (much) easier to kill than a lord on TWC.

Ragnar Blackmane has 10A at S6 AP-4 D2 base plus SM/SW bonuses, he has 3 aura abilties and costs 130 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Daedalus81 wrote:


Behind Necrons and DG -- DE are the third most played faction if you keep the marine varieties separate.


Which sounds reasonable as they have the newest codex and they're pretty good against marines and equivalents. Give them a couple of months and their numbers will drop as other codexes will be out and players will figure out how to adapt to counter them.

I think drukhari being present in considerable numbers in tournaments is a very good thing because it could lead to decrease the number of SM (and equivalents) lists in tournaments first and in casual metas later. Which is something I'd love to happen.


Where did those bad marines touch you?

I hated dealing with marines with their 2.0 dex, but as my last thread stated times have changed. I may harp on tournament win-rates a lot, but I do so because they are are immune to personal bias, anecdotal evidence, and theory crafting. As many on this thread have correctly pointed out, there are some flaws in solely relying on them, but the truth of situation is much more likely to revealed by stats than something like “what Blackie thinks”

To that end I just don’t understand how you in good faith can call something that is winning less than 40% of the time in many of iterations OP, and something that is winning 69% fine/good for the health of the game. Even with many changes and high variance, it seems impossible to me that is these factions are in the same league. Maybe you’re just trolling me and I took the bait. Who knows?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 08:15:40


Post by: addnid


Blackie
If both characters you mentioned were that good, they would be played more. Lots of people own SW armies. SW suffer from the same issues other marines have. And thunderwold cavalry have large bases and cant move through terrain like infantry, so you can easily move block them with units you want to trade. At least any half decent player can do this (the army needs to have screens of some sort too but most do).

Drazhar and Super Succubi can move through terrain EZ with their infantry status, advance and charge as of turn 2 out of their raider (hiding behind an obscuring piece of terrain). Again if you had at least played against Druka since theior codex dropped, you would know this. I think your claims come from your "John Snow level of knowledge" of how the new Druka codex works. And I do mean in practise, on the table top. Not in theory.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 08:35:52


Post by: Blackie


Salt donkey wrote:


Where did those bad marines touch you?

I hated dealing with marines with their 2.0 dex, but as my last thread stated times have changed. I may harp on tournament win-rates a lot, but I do so because they are are immune to personal bias, anecdotal evidence, and theory crafting. As many on this thread have correctly pointed out, there are some flaws in solely relying on them, but the truth of situation is much more likely to revealed by stats than something like “what Blackie thinks”

To that end I just don’t understand how you in good faith can call something that is winning less than 40% of the time in many of iterations OP, and something that is winning 69% fine/good for the health of the game. Even with many changes and high variance, it seems impossible to me that is these factions are in the same league. Maybe you’re just trolling me and I took the bait. Who knows?


If they are so bad why even in tournaments most of the players bring a SM army? I'm simply sick of them being so damn common in every meta, that's it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 addnid wrote:
Blackie
If both characters you mentioned were that good, they would be played more. Lots of people own SW armies. SW suffer from the same issues other marines have. And thunderwold cavalry have large bases and cant move through terrain like infantry, so you can easily move block them with units you want to trade. At least any half decent player can do this (the army needs to have screens of some sort too but most do).

Drazhar and Super Succubi can move through terrain EZ with their infantry status, advance and charge as of turn 2 out of their raider (hiding behind an obscuring piece of terrain). Again if you had at least played against Druka since theior codex dropped, you would know this. I think your claims come from your "John Snow level of knowledge" of how Druka work in practise, on the table top, not in theory.



I could argue that at least any half decent player can counter an optimized drukhari army, especially those who have a 9th edition codex. If they refuse to do it, that's their problem.

And I've actually played both drukhari and SW for several editions. I'll give you I haven't played 9th with them though, although I know the army very well and I think that those results in tournaments are mostly a consequence of: A) Codex is new, army is not extremely common and people are not experienced against them, yet B) Lists are still tailored against armies with very different statelines.

Of course if you still play them using a pure anti SM list you'll lose, as it should be.

The characters I mentioned are not that common because SM of any flavour have a bazillion of options. Drukhari have not, they just have 3 general HQs and 3 named characters available for lists that need 3+ HQs typically. And each subfaction (coven, wych cult, kabal) has really just a single option to pick. That's why you see them frequently, SM have way more options and lots of them are actually good.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 09:02:48


Post by: Ordana


Salt donkey wrote:
While I do agree that 10 point revears and broken succubus is not making the situation better, in what world is a 69% win rate not dubious? Again that’s what Ynnari had at their peak with any amount of play. Do you think that army was fair? Outside of ironhands at their peak, this is also what some of the worst IF, IH, and salamander lists where getting as well. Are those armies fair? And while 27 lists doesn’t give enough data to draw any full conclusion from, it’s at least enough to show a real trend.

Everything else you bring up is just theory on what you think will happen, which sorry, doesn’t mean much in comparison to facts.
69% is obviously wrong but as you say there are clear broken things that will get fixed (or they won't, who knows with GW).
The question is what that win rate does once the obvious broken gak is fixed. If it would still be to high (which is entirely possible) more changes would be needed but I think its kind of important to first see what happens when the obvious stuff is fixed.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 09:30:30


Post by: Tyel


I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.

For now at least the competitive power of DE seems to be incredibly fast MSU that punches above their weight. So you control the board and favourably trade away forces. But that's surely how the army is meant to run - the question is whether its too efficient, and whether it will remain so as new books etc emerge.

I'd be very suspect about massive faction-wide nerfs all at the same time (i.e. remove razorflail/competitive edge and increase Succubus cost and gut DT in general and increase Drazhar's points by 20% and increase Incubi points by 10% and nerf Raiders and nerf Hellions, etc etc)

When Iron Hands hit the scene there were 8 larger tournaments. IH won 6 of them (while White Scars+IH won another). Of the 32 top 4 places, IH got 15 of them. Marines as a whole got 21.

DE may get there - but yeah, I'm sorry, I'd force people to play a few more weeks before going beyond FAQing Reavers and the Razorflail/Competitive edge interaction. (Its bad for losing options, but I think 1 liquifier per 5 man squad of wracks, 2 or 3 in a unit of 10 would also largely mitigate DT as an issue.)


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 09:39:25


Post by: Gir Spirit Bane


From everything I've seen the book has come out in strangest times and whilst I do NOT agree with immediate nerfs, the obvious does need rectifying

10 pt reavers - Obvious typo

DT - Make it work on non auto hit

Succubus - the obvious book of rust silliness.

Other than that wait and see. It counters marines fantastically while having loads of weakness still. It's well designed codex with few dud units and I've had a blast designing lists that are strong and dont spam the same 4-5 units.

The meta will balance out when more books are brought out, actual wide scale tournies are able to be played again and when people adjust their lists to handle it all better.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 10:29:59


Post by: Crispy78


Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.


I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:03:44


Post by: Dai


Crispy78 wrote:
Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.


I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.


That's because up until relatively recently it seemed most players did take fluffy thematic TAC lists, even on internet forums (which have always been more competitively minded). There has been a definite shift that happened around 7th edition 40k/8th edition fantasy battle. I think a migration of gamers who grew up with video games and not wargaming has also been a factor here.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:10:29


Post by: Tyel


Crispy78 wrote:
I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.


The thing is while there's a lot of contempt thrown - it may not have been picked up by the playtesters. I mean we've seen some of the best players in the game running or including DE and they aren't running 30 liquifiers (or really Grots/Talos/Cronos in general). They are tending to run loads of small units. So there may be a view at the highest level of play that it doesn't work.

Exactly why isn't as clear - but it may be that if you go second, this "charge forward, ignore the objectives, just table the opponent and get all the points in turn 4 and 5" doesn't work. Its too risky to have raiders blown up on the starting line or something.

TTS is also interesting - because in theory if something is overpowered, you'd expect it to become wall to wall.

As an edit - I guess you could say 8th edition WHFB started the shift to competitive lists (not convinced, so many people had all cav armies because cav was busted and had a meltdown when 8th came out) - but that's the middle of 5th in 40k terms. Over 10 years ago now.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:13:18


Post by: Spoletta


 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
From everything I've seen the book has come out in strangest times and whilst I do NOT agree with immediate nerfs, the obvious does need rectifying

10 pt reavers - Obvious typo

DT - Make it work on non auto hit

Succubus - the obvious book of rust silliness.

Other than that wait and see. It counters marines fantastically while having loads of weakness still. It's well designed codex with few dud units and I've had a blast designing lists that are strong and dont spam the same 4-5 units.

The meta will balance out when more books are brought out, actual wide scale tournies are able to be played again and when people adjust their lists to handle it all better.


I would add a MW cap on the Hellions strat, but apart from that I agree with this.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:15:46


Post by: Ordana


Crispy78 wrote:
Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.


I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.
Thats what playtesters are supposed to be for.

And after the devs got stomped by spam lists when they played in a tournament in early in 8th edition, leading to the introduction of the rule of 3, you would expect them to know better.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:29:59


Post by: the_scotsman


Spoletta wrote:
 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
From everything I've seen the book has come out in strangest times and whilst I do NOT agree with immediate nerfs, the obvious does need rectifying

10 pt reavers - Obvious typo

DT - Make it work on non auto hit

Succubus - the obvious book of rust silliness.

Other than that wait and see. It counters marines fantastically while having loads of weakness still. It's well designed codex with few dud units and I've had a blast designing lists that are strong and dont spam the same 4-5 units.

The meta will balance out when more books are brought out, actual wide scale tournies are able to be played again and when people adjust their lists to handle it all better.


I would add a MW cap on the Hellions strat, but apart from that I agree with this.


For how many MWs though? It's a 2CP stratagem, we know the baseline for MWs on demand from a strat is basically D3 for 1 from any number of various sources. So if I was spending 2CP to just deal MWs wherever I want on demand I'd expect to get about 4.

The theoretical wet and wild and crazy maximum with 20 hellions that all manage to move over the same unit would be 10 vs an INFANTRY target, and that requires getting a 240 point light infantry unit across the board with approximately the defenses of 40 ork boyz with the added weakness of being able to be targeted by D2 weaponry.

I guess if I was going to cap it I'd say...six? That leaves it totally unchanged for Reavers, who after their points bump I think will be a totally reasonable unit, and still leaves it a very good option for Hellions to take out characters and such if they manage to get over them, which is kind of cool as kidnapping and swooping away with Characters was kind of hellions 'thing' back when characters were usually attached to squads and the last guys in the unit that could take wounds, Hellions could hit and run out and take the character with them to chop hiim up in the next fight phase.

Personally I'd consider a 2-3 point adjustment on hellions, a 1pt adjustment on wyches, an at least 5pt (to the dark lance profile) adjustment on Raiders and a 10-15pt adjustment on succubi to be more impactful than a cap on the slashing impact stratagem. Basically, the stat buffs they gave those units were well more than enough to make them extremely worth their cost because the principle problem before was that wyches simply could not do their job vs any MEQ unit - they were a pure melee unit that would LOSE to equal points of basically any MEQ.

The stat buffs, +1A, -1AP, Blade Artists, better drugs and various small special weapon improvements, closed the gap that the +1W and Shock Assault had created. The drop in PPM almost across the board (not on hellions or reavers granted but the stat buffs on hellions are NIGHT AND fething DAY they're a whole new unit now) was just categorically unnecessary.It made sense when MFM 2021 released, it doesn't make sense now.

But sadly that's likely to wait until the next mfm since thats how GW does things. When I play pure wych cults I'll just have to self-nerf by bringing units of beasts, lol.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:35:38


Post by: Karol


That is great, but not for the factions they disigned with the idea in mind of running more then 3 of the non troop options, and then leaving them for 2-3 years without any fix or updates.

GW changes are always knee jerk reactions, and they don't really balance stuff, they just nerf stuff or have no impact.

How often do we see castellans being played after their fix or Inari? We don't because GWs killed them as a choice, and if someone wants to keep playing w40k, they can just go on and buy a different army.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

True, in fact they're not OP at all. If people still tailor against marines and then autolose against harlies it's their problem . Take aggressors, many SM players ignore them as they're terrible against other marines but they're very good against drukhari, harlies or orks. All counter meta armies. If those players refuse or fail to adapt it's no surprise the harlies win rate stays the same.

Because unlike DE or harlis, the marine player can't just buy 2000pts of models and have a good army, he would have to rebuild an army for every opponent. Which they could end up with him being called out for tailoring, and that is assuming his army actually can do that, and people will just stop playing him. So now he not only spend more money to buy extra models, but now the people who this models would be good against will just not play against him.

Am not sure what is funny about how good harlis are, maybe this is some universal eldar player thing I don't get. Because when other armies had win rates like harlis too, there were claims put forth that the game is going to die. And GW let harlis be the way they are for year now.



Fight last for drazhar only works on a roll, and against high LD it doesn't have good odds to work. Armour of russ works automatically. All smash captains work alone, they simply need the appropriate target, just like drukhari HQs. A succubus goes down against 10 boyz if they strike first.


A TWC lord won't even get to charge, if there is terrain on the board. And it is not a question of appropriate target. A marine player, having a unit that maybe will be good against that one ork player at the store, is a way different position, then this is a succubus she kills everything bar 30 man units chaff. Don't charge her in to chaff.


They'll keep playing their armies. I'm not saying that I wish a meta with no marines at all, just less marines and equivalents. A considerable amount of players owns multiple armies, especially SM players as getting a SM armies is easier than most of the other factions. Some will keep playing them, others will not. At that point competitive lists will be much more TAC oriented and not tailored against elites with benefits for everyone.


What about people that play marines, but those are the bad armies right now. Like csm players that want actual csm in their armies and stuff like that? Do Death Watch have it easier, just becaue they have the supposed OP codex ?

Also the no tailored doesn't work in w40k from my expiriance. If the store is 50-60% some sort of marine players, and the other marine armies are bad, then the only problem a DE player may have with his quality of fun game time is when he plays a harli list or a cwe/harli soup list. And how often he is going to play those people, if he doesn't do events? At the same time his army rules are unfun to play against for the majority of the store players, aside for maybe those that play the really tournament focused and build marine lists. IMO making the minority have fun over the majority of players is not good.

So are SM, necrons and deathguard books.

There is a good and there is GOOD. in 8th ad mecha were a good army, but comparing to something like Alaitoc or pre nerf Inari they were not. Same way bad is scaled. GK right now are bad, but something like GSC or Knight is BAD.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:51:47


Post by: Daedalus81


yukishiro1 wrote:
GW really needs to stop sitting on the pot and get that FAQ out, so we can see how much impact fixing the obvious brainless errors has, and whether they're still a problem after that or not.


Yes, please. Email them, people!


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:52:17


Post by: Karol


 the_scotsman wrote:
[


I guess if I was going to cap it I'd say...six? That leaves it totally unchanged for Reavers, who after their points bump I think will be a totally reasonable unit, and still leaves it a very good option for Hellions to take out characters and such if they manage to get over them, which is kind of cool as kidnapping and swooping away with Characters was kind of hellions 'thing' back when characters were usually attached to squads and the last guys in the unit that could take wounds, Hellions could hit and run out and take the character with them to chop hiim up in the next fight phase.


But then they would just be killing marine support characters in one go. Not to mention the fact that losing 2/3 of unit of termintors or a whole unit of power armoured models, just because they moved over you is stupid. Because there is no way to protect against it.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 11:57:52


Post by: Daedalus81


Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.



It is probably just the combination of those three things. Succubus can annihilate a key unit. DT punches above its weight. Reavers give point handicap.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 12:13:04


Post by: the_scotsman


An army with a gigantic play percentage as big as marines (rarely under 1 in 3 players) is obviously going to have a difficult time getting over a 50% winrate unless the balance of the game is an absolute joke. It's pretty clear that the marine lists focusing on mobility and durability seem to be doing alright dealing with the splash of the - again, seriously broken pre-FAQ version of - the drukhari list, while the marine chapters like Salamanders and Space wolves that generally rely on overwhelming damage are not doing so hot.

I'm sorry, looking at lists with stuff like 9 MM attack bikes or 3 squads of eradicators I just don't think people aren't tailoring NOW. They're just tailoring their lists to the exact opposite thing that DE and Harlequins are, and obviously that's one-sided as feth.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 12:20:37


Post by: Sunny Side Up


 Daedalus81 wrote:


It is probably just the combination of those three things. Succubus can annihilate a key unit. DT punches above its weight. Reavers give point handicap.


Well, and the transports are just nuts. It just mitigates so many alleged weaknesses in the army (e.g. being squishy) and forces chained interactions to solve (e.g. kill the transport and hyper-points efficient stuff inside without leaving yourself open to the counter-punch) across too many instances of those same transports.

If, say, Impulsors went back to having Fly, add 2" movement, got the 5++ for free, 11-man capacity, open-topped so ... dunno ... 5 Eradicators could shoot out (I know... gravis.. ), strapped on a D3+3 super-lascannon and dropped from their current 120ish(?) points back to 85, you'd see them spammed and up the Marine game as well.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 12:23:15


Post by: the_scotsman


Karol wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:
[


I guess if I was going to cap it I'd say...six? That leaves it totally unchanged for Reavers, who after their points bump I think will be a totally reasonable unit, and still leaves it a very good option for Hellions to take out characters and such if they manage to get over them, which is kind of cool as kidnapping and swooping away with Characters was kind of hellions 'thing' back when characters were usually attached to squads and the last guys in the unit that could take wounds, Hellions could hit and run out and take the character with them to chop hiim up in the next fight phase.


But then they would just be killing marine support characters in one go. Not to mention the fact that losing 2/3 of unit of termintors or a whole unit of power armoured models, just because they moved over you is stupid. Because there is no way to protect against it.


Except that there is. There's more of a way to protect against it than most mortal wound on demand stratagems - don't be like 12" away or whatever distance it takes for the hellions to pass completely over you and be able to land. Or just shoot them - every one you shoot is one fewer die that gets to roll for MWs. The cap of 6 is only achievable with a completely undamaged maximum size unit of Reavers or a unit of Hellions over 12-man.

For 3CP, space marines can pick a point on the battlefield and dish out a guaranteed D3MWs to all units within 3" (1/3 chance of D6MWs) and almost guarantee D3mws to all units within 6". for 1cp they can deal 2d3 MWs to a vehicle in melee. For 1CP they can shoot any 48" range missile launcher at a flyer to cause 2d3mws on a 3+ roll you can reroll if need be. Heck, they have almost the exact same stratagem as Hellions except that it triggers off of charging a unit and you roll equal or higher to their toughness, meaning it causes a MW on 4+ against marines - admittedly, less powerful because IIIRC you can only get a 10-man jump pack squad, but also only 1cp.

There are a lot of mortal wound stratagems that deal as many or more MWs per CP with less counterplay available than slashing impact. Whoops, you have a flyer on the board and I have a missile launcher in my army, I guess you're taking 2d3 MWs per turn until either I kill you or you kill my missile launcher.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sunny Side Up wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:


It is probably just the combination of those three things. Succubus can annihilate a key unit. DT punches above its weight. Reavers give point handicap.


Well, and the transports are just nuts. It just mitigates so many alleged weaknesses in the army (e.g. being squishy) and forces chained interactions to solve (e.g. kill the transport and hyper-points efficient stuff inside without leaving yourself open to the counter-punch) across too many instances of those same transports.

If, say, Impulsors went back to having Fly, add 2" movement, got the 5++ for free, 11-man capacity, open-topped so ... dunno ... 5 Eradicators could shoot out (I know... gravis.. ), strapped on a D3+3 super-lascannon and dropped from their current 120ish(?) points back to 85, you'd see them spammed and up the Marine game as well.



Got -1 toughness, got -1 save, -1 wound, lost the assault vehicle rule...


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 12:28:45


Post by: Sunny Side Up


 the_scotsman wrote:


Got -1 toughness, got -1 save, -1 wound, lost the assault vehicle rule...



Sure. But trades most people take any day. assault vehicle is nice, but forcing the opponent to crack the shell before getting to the squishy insides is better. The extra wound only means you bleed more secondaries (Giving Raiders 11 wounds would actually be quite a good way to make them pay a little more in secondaries for spamming them) and the save means nothing for the majority of weapons that people use to crack transports / medium vehicles..


Either way. Removing fly alone made the difference between people running 4-6 Impulsors to running basically none. Even without open topped, without a dark lance and at a solid 33% higher point cost, showing how extremely undercosted that keyword alone still is for almost anything (but especially non-infantry) GW puts out (and Drukhari benefit from it immensely).





Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 12:47:24


Post by: the_scotsman


Sunny Side Up wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:


Got -1 toughness, got -1 save, -1 wound, lost the assault vehicle rule...



Sure. But trades most people take any day. assault vehicle is nice, but forcing the opponent to crack the shell before getting to the squishy insides is better. The extra wound only means you bleed more secondaries (Giving Raiders 11 wounds would actually be quite a good way to make them pay a little more in secondaries for spamming them) and the save means nothing for the majority of weapons that people use to crack transports / medium vehicles..


Either way. Removing fly alone made the difference between people running 4-6 Impulsors to running basically none. Even without open topped, without a dark lance and at a solid 33% higher point cost, showing how extremely undercosted that keyword alone still is for almost anything (but especially non-infantry) GW puts out (and Drukhari benefit from it immensely).

Yeah, honestly, I would probably bump the raider body up 5, the dark lance up 5, and drop the dissie down to 0. I don't think raiders are necessarily OP, theyre just one of only a tiny handful of transport vehicles in the game atm that actually do what a transport vehicle is supposed to do - protect the unit inside from the weapons that would generally try to kill them, not cost an order of magnitude more than the unit it's protecting, and actually allow them to get to the fight faster than if they were simply on foot.

Nearly every other transport in the game fails at one of those fronts - Chimeras, GSC trucks, Valkyries, Repulsors, land raiders, ork Trukks and Tau Devilfish are all WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY too expensive compared to what you've actually got in it (imagine protecting a 55pt guard squad with a fething 70pt tank LOL) Rhinos and Wave Serpents all make the units inside them slower, and as an added problem, the same exact weapons you take to kill marines you also can use to kill rhinos just as efficiently if not more.What should I shoot my plasma gun at, the marines are in a rhino? Well, the rhino i guess, I'll get nearly as good a points return lol.

I would much prefer focusing nerfs toward the actual problematic units in the codex before the tool that nearly every unit OP or no tends to use. 100% concede that you could probably levy a nerf at the dark lance version of the raider in particular, but I do not think the dissie raider or the venom is actually a balance problem so much as they are an actually functional transport that basically every other transport in the game should be buffed to be as usable as.

There are basically 4 usable transports in 40k right now: Battlewagons with a specific upgrade, Raiders, Venoms, and Starweavers. Every other one is kind of garbage.





Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 12:50:44


Post by: Not Online!!!


I mean if the chimera would be better i'd not mind having a 55 or 70 pts squad in there to just have a chimera.
I mean they once were a gold standard, nothing speaks against them achieving the same again for mechanised guard


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:11:18


Post by: Karol


Wouldn't the chimera be a good or okeyish as an open topped assault vehicle for IG players, because of the melee ogryns?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:15:22


Post by: Not Online!!!


Karol wrote:
Wouldn't the chimera be a good or okeyish as an open topped assault vehicle for IG players, because of the melee ogryns?


Open topped or assault would immediately increase it's value massively.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:16:57


Post by: the_scotsman


Karol wrote:
Wouldn't the chimera be a good or okeyish as an open topped assault vehicle for IG players, because of the melee ogryns?


the current assault vehicle rule is useless for actual assault troops. it should really be called like "melta attack vehicle" or whatever.

it would be weird for a chimera to be open topped because...it...isn't. it's a tank. If it were an assault vehicle it would definitely be much better as you could hop out melta squads or plasma gun squads and shoot with them. The main thing that caused the chimera to no longer be useful is you used to be able to fire out of the hatch in 7th and earlier with your special and heavy weapon, and then you got 6 lasguns so it was *almost* open topped for shooty squads.

Currently you can move a valkyrie forward, drop a squad of bullgryns, and attempt to charge with them. that's already a capability on a guard transport vehicle, it's just not used because bullgryns arent very good (basically bladeguard with no invulns no chapter tactics and AP-1 swords) and the 9" charge isn't reliable, but its still better than the 0% chance to be able to charge that Assault Vehicle would give you.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:26:54


Post by: Tyel


I tend to think those vehicles should be buffed rather than the raider unduly nerfed - as it is somewhat integral to the faction.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:28:07


Post by: Karol


hmm maybe w40k should get something I noticed AoS has, which is some units having longer reach. The movment would stay the same, but something like an ogryn or a warlock with a spear poker would be able to engage opponents from further away, and this would also mean they could be outside of range to be hit back sometimes.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:33:57


Post by: Gadzilla666


 the_scotsman wrote:
An army with a gigantic play percentage as big as marines (rarely under 1 in 3 players) is obviously going to have a difficult time getting over a 50% winrate unless the balance of the game is an absolute joke. It's pretty clear that the marine lists focusing on mobility and durability seem to be doing alright dealing with the splash of the - again, seriously broken pre-FAQ version of - the drukhari list, while the marine chapters like Salamanders and Space wolves that generally rely on overwhelming damage are not doing so hot.

I'm sorry, looking at lists with stuff like 9 MM attack bikes or 3 squads of eradicators I just don't think people aren't tailoring NOW. They're just tailoring their lists to the exact opposite thing that DE and Harlequins are, and obviously that's one-sided as feth.

Yeah, the points efficiency of melta falls off a cliff against an army like Dark Eldar. Hopefully if they become more prevalent that means we'll see less melta spam and more vehicles will become field able. That would be nice. More variety in defensive profiles = less weapon spam. Go TAC or go home.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:45:56


Post by: Karol


Melta spam stopped being a thing more then 5 months ago. All armies run melta anti tank, but I don't think many armies right now run with 9 attack bikes and 9 eradictors at the same time. Those melta heavy armies were already losing against other top armies, before DE got their new book.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 13:49:50


Post by: Marin


Sunny Side Up wrote:
 the_scotsman wrote:


Got -1 toughness, got -1 save, -1 wound, lost the assault vehicle rule...



Sure. But trades most people take any day. assault vehicle is nice, but forcing the opponent to crack the shell before getting to the squishy insides is better. The extra wound only means you bleed more secondaries (Giving Raiders 11 wounds would actually be quite a good way to make them pay a little more in secondaries for spamming them) and the save means nothing for the majority of weapons that people use to crack transports / medium vehicles..


Either way. Removing fly alone made the difference between people running 4-6 Impulsors to running basically none. Even without open topped, without a dark lance and at a solid 33% higher point cost, showing how extremely undercosted that keyword alone still is for almost anything (but especially non-infantry) GW puts out (and Drukhari benefit from it immensely).


Because Impulsors were cheap as chips and did a lot more, they were 50pts cheaper wave serpent.
In the start of the edition GW overhyped transports and most of them got the short stick. I still remember Reece from Frontline explaining that 145 pts wave serpent spam is the most broken thing in 9th edition. Impulsor could really use point drops like most of the other transports.
Second SM will not pay points for transport when for the some points they can get squad of T4 W2 models that can just chill and hold objective or invest more to increase their elites.
Drukhari are changing that, you need cheap stuff to trade since bladeguard cant just chill in the middle of the table.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 14:15:09


Post by: Red Corsair


Salt donkey wrote:
 Red Corsair wrote:
Looking at those results I really am not seeing anything that dubious lol.

Especially considering the silly razor flail interaction and 10 point reavers are still being used apparently.

The 10 pt reavers is equal parts the fault of the inept TO's and the players disingenuous enough to take advantage of the situation.

DE are on a tear right now because they are a hard counter to the meta. The meta was small super elite multi wound units with multi damage weaponry.

DE units are small and hit just as hard but they aren't durable so they are getting twice the numbers. It's classic MSU, nothing new to the game but it's definitely a shift in the meta for 9th.

As soon as admech, sisters or other xenos show up and are also a glass hammer but conduct their work in the shooting phase then DE will be reigned in hard.

DE hate killing units like skitarii for example. They essentially charge in a more expensive unit to trade and lose out on the exchange. Marines are getting dunked on hard because they pay for 2 wounds and power armor which is meaningless to DE ATM.

It's this odd decision they made in 9th, "hey lets fix marines durability issue" only to reverse it via the ever escalating damage lol. At this point marines would have been better off being 1 wound and 30% cheaper.

The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.






While I do agree that 10 point revears and broken succubus is not making the situation better, in what world is a 69% win rate not dubious? Again that’s what Ynnari had at their peak with any amount of play. Do you think that army was fair? Outside of ironhands at their peak, this is also what some of the worst IF, IH, and salamander lists where getting as well. Are those armies fair? And while 27 lists doesn’t give enough data to draw any full conclusion from, it’s at least enough to show a real trend.

Everything else you bring up is just theory on what you think will happen, which sorry, doesn’t mean much in comparison to facts.


Because the results your using are analytically dubious. It's inconsistent sample sizes that are tiny and over a short period when vast numbers of the player base are not even playing. Your "facts" are statistics pulled from garbage samples, it's even worse when your scraping the barrel to find results to cry over.

I mean your using RTT's with a dozen or so players as some of the examples. I can tell you from experience that's awful.

Just for the sake of argument, if 1 player shows up to a 20 person RTT and places in the top 3 and wins 4 out of 5 games playing GSC then suddenly thats a result displaying GSC with an 80% win rate. Must be broken right? But we both would know that those results are probably (likely) not repeatable over a meaningful sample size.

And before someone tries to claim I am suggesting DE are as bad off as GSC, no, just no. I am using it as an example because it's obvious GSC are somewhere at the bottom of the meta battling for last place.

This is not really uncommon, you have a faction that was already strong in 9th, known for being piloted by extremely good players because of the higher skill ceiling to pilot them suddenly getting a boost in the arm they have needed for arguably a decade so they are catching people off guard. It's because most opponents are not familiar with the army. Not really a surprise when the meta has been marines for 2 years. I mean how many opponents do you think have actually played against liquifiers or hellions for example? I have played the army for more then 2 decades and I have had folks confused that wracks could even field guns besides the hex rifle on the sargent.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 14:39:28


Post by: Daedalus81


Tyel wrote:
Crispy78 wrote:
I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.


The thing is while there's a lot of contempt thrown - it may not have been picked up by the playtesters. I mean we've seen some of the best players in the game running or including DE and they aren't running 30 liquifiers (or really Grots/Talos/Cronos in general). They are tending to run loads of small units. So there may be a view at the highest level of play that it doesn't work.

Exactly why isn't as clear - but it may be that if you go second, this "charge forward, ignore the objectives, just table the opponent and get all the points in turn 4 and 5" doesn't work. Its too risky to have raiders blown up on the starting line or something.

TTS is also interesting - because in theory if something is overpowered, you'd expect it to become wall to wall.

As an edit - I guess you could say 8th edition WHFB started the shift to competitive lists (not convinced, so many people had all cav armies because cav was busted and had a meltdown when 8th came out) - but that's the middle of 5th in 40k terms. Over 10 years ago now.


This highlights pretty well the difficulty with playtesting. They may have tested DT and found that it wasn't highly competetive - and it isn't. It is still a problem overall, but it got hidden by other issues.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 14:41:14


Post by: Red Corsair


Not Online!!! wrote:
Karol wrote:
Wouldn't the chimera be a good or okeyish as an open topped assault vehicle for IG players, because of the melee ogryns?


Open topped or assault would immediately increase it's value massively.


Karol wrote:Wouldn't the chimera be a good or okeyish as an open topped assault vehicle for IG players, because of the melee ogryns?


OK now you both just outed yourselves because the assault vehicle rules are both useless and more importantly not on raiders.

I feel like this is much less about being constructive and more about senseless complaining.

Even the majority of DE players are in agreement that Reavers, Razorflail succubus and DT trait all need a FAQ.

Beyond that, even these debates on points are premature because Eradicators, blade guard and that D-head chief apothecary all remained as released (or close enough) and what would you know, nobody is looking their way at the moment.

I think those obvious 3 things need that FAQ, which admittedly is a coin flip that GW actually corrects it anyway, then more time is definitely required before they start fiddling with costs. It's been a couple weeks lol.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
Tyel wrote:
Crispy78 wrote:
I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.


The thing is while there's a lot of contempt thrown - it may not have been picked up by the playtesters. I mean we've seen some of the best players in the game running or including DE and they aren't running 30 liquifiers (or really Grots/Talos/Cronos in general). They are tending to run loads of small units. So there may be a view at the highest level of play that it doesn't work.

Exactly why isn't as clear - but it may be that if you go second, this "charge forward, ignore the objectives, just table the opponent and get all the points in turn 4 and 5" doesn't work. Its too risky to have raiders blown up on the starting line or something.

TTS is also interesting - because in theory if something is overpowered, you'd expect it to become wall to wall.

As an edit - I guess you could say 8th edition WHFB started the shift to competitive lists (not convinced, so many people had all cav armies because cav was busted and had a meltdown when 8th came out) - but that's the middle of 5th in 40k terms. Over 10 years ago now.


This highlights pretty well the difficulty with playtesting. They may have tested DT and found that it wasn't highly competetive - and it isn't. It is still a problem overall, but it got hidden by other issues.


DT is more a problem in casual games where it completely trolls non competitive gamers. Anyone that actually keeps up on the codex cycle understands and how winning a larger tourney understands that spamming DT is a gamblers choice, dependent almost solely on draw.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 14:47:06


Post by: harlokin


 Red Corsair wrote:

I feel like this is much less about being constructive and more about senseless complaining.

Even the majority of DE players are in agreement that Reavers, Razorflail succubus and DT trait all need a FAQ.

Beyond that, even these debates on points are premature because Eradicators, blade guard and that D-head chief apothecary all remained as released (or close enough) and what would you know, nobody is looking their way at the moment.


This. Very much so.

I would be happier with 'corrections' to the Drukhari codex if the basis for comparison were other 9th edition codices, rather than stuff that GW has left hanging in limbo with the new edition.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 14:47:07


Post by: Not Online!!!


 Red Corsair wrote:
Not Online!!! wrote:
Karol wrote:
Wouldn't the chimera be a good or okeyish as an open topped assault vehicle for IG players, because of the melee ogryns?


Open topped or assault would immediately increase it's value massively.


Karol wrote:Wouldn't the chimera be a good or okeyish as an open topped assault vehicle for IG players, because of the melee ogryns?


OK now you both just outed yourselves because the assault vehicle rules are both useless and more importantly not on raiders.

I feel like this is much less about being constructive and more about senseless complaining.

Even the majority of DE players are in agreement that Reavers, Razorflail succubus and DT trait all need a FAQ.

Beyond that, even these debates on points are premature because Eradicators, blade guard and that D-head chief apothecary all remained as released (or close enough) and what would you know, nobody is looking their way at the moment.

I think those obvious 3 things need that FAQ, which admittedly is a coin flip that GW actually corrects it anyway, then more time is definitely required before they start fiddling with costs. It's been a couple weeks lol.


Scuse me, i just stated that it would increase the value of a chimera, even the assault rule to disembark and shoot would improve the IG and might bring back some of the shootier elite slots in favour of ogryns potentially..
I also never stated anything about DE, i know right now to little and beyond the obvious typos and rule junk provided by GW through shoddy editing i as of now have no opinion on them.



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 14:47:20


Post by: the_scotsman


Tyel wrote:
I tend to think those vehicles should be buffed rather than the raider unduly nerfed - as it is somewhat integral to the faction.


That is kind of my point here, yeah. I also do not see raider-mounted wracks/grots outside of DT, kabalites, or Courts of the Archon as particularly an issue. Really, it's the single dark lance shot on the raider that causes issues (which can be independently nerfed specifically for the raider, which is nice) and the units that are punching above their point cost - Wyches, DT wracks, Succubus, Drazar and Incubi.

I do think we have a ways to go to see what point adjustments if any GW puts out to drukhari. Ideally, we get some odd rules interaction changes with the FAQ, and we give the meta some time to actually settle/develop, maybe get a couple more codex books out (remember, this is only the second ever 9th ed codex for a not-marine faction) and see where the game is at.

For all we know drukhari might be countered pretty well by a couple factions whose codexes are upcoming but are currently just totally non-functional. We've had definite previews for Admech that suggest some nasty anti-drukhari weapons (buffed arc weaponry with midstrength multidamage, buffed phosphor weaponry with the golden S6 Ap-2 D2, buffed cognis autocannon with 6 shots, buffed Icarus Array) previews for sisters who I heard enjoy autohitting midstrength weaponry quite a lot, and some previews that suggest Genestealer Cults may be coming up soon (there's a very clear GSC hand in one of the recent rumor engines).


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 15:00:33


Post by: Sterling191


Ad Mech (a faction which is already quite strong in the meta) is poised to be an absolute nightmare for Drukhari. I expect Tau will be somewhat similar if they get the level of glow up their codex needs.

With the unit expansion Sisters are slated to get I won't at all be surprised if there are things in their new book that lay the hurt on the pointy elves.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 15:07:05


Post by: bullyboy


DT should just be changed so that the enhanced weapon gains +1 to W but only gets the additional +1D on an unmodified 6 to wound. Done deal.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 15:08:08


Post by: Slayer-Fan123


 Ordana wrote:
Crispy78 wrote:
Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.


I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.
Thats what playtesters are supposed to be for.

And after the devs got stomped by spam lists when they played in a tournament in early in 8th edition, leading to the introduction of the rule of 3, you would expect them to know better.

Why would you expect them to know better AFTER introducing the Rule Of Three? That's was just blatantly admitting "we can't balance so you can only take up to three of those broken units". It was thr laziest thing I ever saw that was still praised here.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 15:16:46


Post by: Xenomancers


 Red Corsair wrote:
Looking at those results I really am not seeing anything that dubious lol.

Especially considering the silly razor flail interaction and 10 point reavers are still being used apparently.

The 10 pt reavers is equal parts the fault of the inept TO's and the players disingenuous enough to take advantage of the situation.

DE are on a tear right now because they are a hard counter to the meta. The meta was small super elite multi wound units with multi damage weaponry.

DE units are small and hit just as hard but they aren't durable so they are getting twice the numbers. It's classic MSU, nothing new to the game but it's definitely a shift in the meta for 9th.

As soon as admech, sisters or other xenos show up and are also a glass hammer but conduct their work in the shooting phase then DE will be reigned in hard.

DE hate killing units like skitarii for example. They essentially charge in a more expensive unit to trade and lose out on the exchange. Marines are getting dunked on hard because they pay for 2 wounds and power armor which is meaningless to DE ATM.

It's this odd decision they made in 9th, "hey lets fix marines durability issue" only to reverse it via the ever escalating damage lol. At this point marines would have been better off being 1 wound and 30% cheaper.

The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.





What kinda TO allows 10 point reavers? What kinda TO doesn't make a reasonable interp of the razorflail CE interaction? I would literally walk out of an event with 10 point reavers.

Honestly you couldn't have said anything more correct. LOL.

Mainly the balance in this game is always going to be horrendous with this release cycle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
Tyel wrote:
Crispy78 wrote:
I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.


The thing is while there's a lot of contempt thrown - it may not have been picked up by the playtesters. I mean we've seen some of the best players in the game running or including DE and they aren't running 30 liquifiers (or really Grots/Talos/Cronos in general). They are tending to run loads of small units. So there may be a view at the highest level of play that it doesn't work.

Exactly why isn't as clear - but it may be that if you go second, this "charge forward, ignore the objectives, just table the opponent and get all the points in turn 4 and 5" doesn't work. Its too risky to have raiders blown up on the starting line or something.

TTS is also interesting - because in theory if something is overpowered, you'd expect it to become wall to wall.

As an edit - I guess you could say 8th edition WHFB started the shift to competitive lists (not convinced, so many people had all cav armies because cav was busted and had a meltdown when 8th came out) - but that's the middle of 5th in 40k terms. Over 10 years ago now.


This highlights pretty well the difficulty with playtesting. They may have tested DT and found that it wasn't highly competetive - and it isn't. It is still a problem overall, but it got hidden by other issues.
Play test is easy. Anyone can look through a book and find the broken combos in a 20 minute time frame if they are a veteran player. You don't even need to test is - things that generate additional attacks / deal mortal wounds/ and give +1 to wound/reroll wound modifiers should already be under specific additional attention. Then ofc....nothing should make it to print without being mathed out. The only answer is they don't actually test it. 1 or 2 people make the rules - do a quick review and send it to print - laugh about a few known troublesome interactions and say..."if it's too good we will errata it" in the meantime though - units are going to be flying off the shelves.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 15:27:48


Post by: Ordana


Sterling191 wrote:
Ad Mech (a faction which is already quite strong in the meta) is poised to be an absolute nightmare for Drukhari. I expect Tau will be somewhat similar if they get the level of glow up their codex needs.

With the unit expansion Sisters are slated to get I won't at all be surprised if there are things in their new book that lay the hurt on the pointy elves.
Tau isn't going to be become dominant in 9th until their core issue of being unable to claim the midfield gets resolved.

Just shooting harder/better won't solve that issue.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 15:39:37


Post by: Daedalus81


Karol wrote:
GW changes are always knee jerk reactions, and they don't really balance stuff, they just nerf stuff or have no impact.

How often do we see castellans being played after their fix or Inari? We don't because GWs killed them as a choice, and if someone wants to keep playing w40k, they can just go on and buy a different army.


How often does the community knee-jerk react? Castellans got nerfed into the right spot at the time. Just because people move on to the next thing they can find doesn't mean Castellans couldn't win games. You don't really see them now, because it can be hard for knights to deal with the current objectives. So, in that sense the Knights codex will be a watershed moment to see if GW can really make them work.

All that being said -- Ynnari is being used by the best elf player right now ( even before the DE book ). Castellans and other knights are winning games when people actually take armigers as well.




Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 16:07:14


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 Daedalus81 wrote:

All that being said -- Ynnari is being used by the best elf player right now ( even before the DE book ). Castellans and other knights are winning games when people actually take armigers as well.




im curious, were they being used AS ynnari or just Ynnari HQs added to non-ynnari armies?


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 16:12:49


Post by: Sterling191


 VladimirHerzog wrote:

im curious, were they being used AS ynnari or just Ynnari HQs added to non-ynnari armies?


To access Ynnari HQs you MUST run the detachment as Ynnari per the 9th Drukhari codex. Most of them that I've seen are structured such that they dont really lose much (typically Blades for Hire heavy plus a compulsory Troops choice).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
Castellans and other knights are winning games when people actually take armigers as well.




I was perusing tournament results and there was a Knight army that took home a 40-ish player GT last week.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 16:17:16


Post by: VladimirHerzog


 Daedalus81 wrote:

All that being said -- Ynnari is being used by the best elf player right now ( even before the DE book ). Castellans and other knights are winning games when people actually take armigers as well.





Sterling191 wrote:
 VladimirHerzog wrote:

im curious, were they being used AS ynnari or just Ynnari HQs added to non-ynnari armies?


To access Ynnari HQs you MUST run the detachment as Ynnari per the 9th Drukhari codex. Most of them that I've seen are structured such that they dont really lose much (typically Blades for Hire heavy plus a compulsory Troops choice).


bolded the relevant part



Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 16:19:27


Post by: Sterling191


 Ordana wrote:
Sterling191 wrote:
Ad Mech (a faction which is already quite strong in the meta) is poised to be an absolute nightmare for Drukhari. I expect Tau will be somewhat similar if they get the level of glow up their codex needs.

With the unit expansion Sisters are slated to get I won't at all be surprised if there are things in their new book that lay the hurt on the pointy elves.
Tau isn't going to be become dominant in 9th until their core issue of being unable to claim the midfield gets resolved.

Just shooting harder/better won't solve that issue.


Please read what I wrote. I'm abundantly aware of the issues the Tau 8th edition codex faces in the 9th edition game reality (a topic I've written at length on in older threads).


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 VladimirHerzog wrote:

bolded the relevant part



I'm aware of the question being asked, which is largely irrelevant given that small Ynnari detachments are still showing up post-Codex release.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 16:21:15


Post by: Daedalus81


 VladimirHerzog wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:

All that being said -- Ynnari is being used by the best elf player right now ( even before the DE book ). Castellans and other knights are winning games when people actually take armigers as well.





Sterling191 wrote:
 VladimirHerzog wrote:

im curious, were they being used AS ynnari or just Ynnari HQs added to non-ynnari armies?


To access Ynnari HQs you MUST run the detachment as Ynnari per the 9th Drukhari codex. Most of them that I've seen are structured such that they dont really lose much (typically Blades for Hire heavy plus a compulsory Troops choice).


bolded the relevant part



Full fledged Ynnari.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 16:55:35


Post by: TangoTwoBravo


We should not ignore a situation where competitively Drukhari have 90 wins and 38 losses. You can twist and turn, ignore data you don't like etc but you are left with those numbers.

They should pull the Charandon supplement from competitive play and then see what happens (besides the obvious fix to Reaver points). Take some to time to rework that supplement.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 16:59:00


Post by: Karol


 Daedalus81 wrote:


How often does the community knee-jerk react? Castellans got nerfed into the right spot at the time. Just because people move on to the next thing they can find doesn't mean Castellans couldn't win games. You don't really see them now, because it can be hard for knights to deal with the current objectives. So, in that sense the Knights codex will be a watershed moment to see if GW can really make them work.

All that being said -- Ynnari is being used by the best elf player right now ( even before the DE book ). Castellans and other knights are winning games when people actually take armigers as well.




I was talking about 8th after the nerf. In 9th knights don't exist, same way GSC don't ,because they have a core rule set that doesn't work with the game core rule set inn 9th. And yes Inari and eldar are being used to win games, in soups with harlequin.

I don't think there were many, if any, main land europe mono Inari wins since the time WD fixed their rules. If they do good in in other countries that is great for those places. But is kind of a like telling the world that in 8th GK were fine, because they won two GT back to back in australia.


Drukhari are OP, what next? @ 2021/04/27 17:00:52


Post by: Daedalus81


TangoTwoBravo wrote:
We should not ignore a situation where competitively Drukhari have 90 wins and 38 losses. You can twist and turn, ignore data you don't like etc but you are left with those numbers.

They should pull the Charandon supplement from competitive play and then see what happens (besides the obvious fix to Reaver points). Take some to time to rework that supplement.


We're not ignoring it. We're getting to the root of the issue.

Look at Deathwatch. Panned as universally bad, but suddenly they're #2 ( at least for one week, anyway ). What happened? They had no changes. Some people must have learned how to use them.

People also need to learn how to face DE whether or not they're strong. And despite the DE wins lots of armies are still taking top spots. When Ynnari had that win rate it was Ynnari, Ynnari, Castellan, Ynnari, but it isn't that way with DE. Why?