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Martel732 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.

I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.

I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.

Their transports are so dope there's no reason to do this.

Do you see venom spam sweeping tournament after tournament?

The issue with kabalites is there is limited synergy beyond putting reroll 1s to hit and wound on them. This isn't nearly as flexible as guard orders, or the various ways you can boost fire warriors. As a result if you run into wraithguard or Nidzilla or someone spamming T5 infantry its happy days. Against say T3 infantry+mech its nothing special.

There is also an issue that while one archon is good value (imo anyway), a second one feels like a tax, and a third+Drazhar is horrendous. By contrast Guard+Tau easily fill in their HQ slots with cheap and useful characters.

You could get round this by taking 20 man units, which also boosts things like lightning reflexes, but then you have no way to really deal with morale (until very late game anyway).

Tyel wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.

I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.

I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.

Their transports are so dope there's no reason to do this.

Do you see venom spam sweeping tournament after tournament?

The issue with kabalites is there is limited synergy beyond putting reroll 1s to hit and wound on them. This isn't nearly as flexible as guard orders, or the various ways you can boost fire warriors. As a result if you run into wraithguard or Nidzilla or someone spamming T5 infantry its happy days. Against say T3 infantry+mech its nothing special.

There is also an issue that while one archon is good value (imo anyway), a second one feels like a tax, and a third+Drazhar is horrendous. By contrast Guard+Tau easily fill in their HQ slots with cheap and useful characters.

You could get round this by taking 20 man units, which also boosts things like lightning reflexes, but then you have no way to really deal with morale (until very late game anyway).

Also the Archon can't buff from a vehicle, which is obnoxious.

I have to say - most DE players are just net listers. It's not hard to figure out that flayed skull is the army you should be running them with. Maybe with a flyer wing of void ravens as black heart to get Agents of Vect.

Flayed skull rerolls 1's to hit from inside transports and also gives you ignore cover on them to in addition to all fly units. This includes ravagers...The damage boost from this buff is in a lot of cases more than 50% more damage. Losing 6+ FNP on your vehicles only really isn't a big deal.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Spoiler:

 ik0ner wrote:
Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?

Frankly it is better balanced.
BUT alas also a lot more exploitable due to shared CP and stratagems.

It also does not help that you often need multiple documents to get all the rules (In case of chaos Space marines 2 books now... atleast.)

There are also other issues, like morale again not really working on units that were intended to have morale as a drawback. (basically msu spam makes nearly all units immune to morale), this leads especially in the case of IG squads and Neophyts to a lot of annoyment.

Also balancing atm seems to go torwards the outliers, take a look at the new oblits and you realise that the unit now needs more support then ever to do it's job, support it may well never get ue to the supporting charachter in the best case beein a footslogging sorcerer... and it still eats CP like a anthill food in general.

Spoiler:

THere are also some lists that neeed to be looked at, GK and a lot of FW index lists and units that just plain simply might aswell not exist anymore.

Stratagems and Auras are also an issue. Half the SM and CSM equipment is constantly costet as if Abbadon or Rowboat babysits them for the full rerolls. Any other subfaction there pays the price. Armies like BA basically pay the bill for the abuse of the auras, other then that BA could abuse a lot of shenanigans themselves mostly centered around smashcaptains.

There is also an issue with granularity, the design space is atm jut too cramped. It would go a long way if pts prices would double and then stuff would get balanced. because as it stands esecially in the lower point bracket you can't move units around accordingly without moving alot of other units around. Consequently i feel that has also to do with the race to bigger things fielded in regular matches which made a lot of the staples of lists before going down a race to the bottom pts wise in order to be even considerable.

The new wounding chart also has a lot of issues, and is easily exploitable, cue Votwl.

The MOP cant ride in a rhino or landraider?

 Xenomancers wrote:
I have to say - most DE players are just net listers. It's not hard to figure out that flayed skull is the army you should be running them with. Maybe with a flyer wing of void ravens as black heart to get Agents of Vect.

Flayed skull rerolls 1's to hit from inside transports and also gives you ignore cover on them to in addition to all fly units. This includes ravagers...The damage boost from this buff is in a lot of cases more than 50% more damage. Losing 6+ FNP on your vehicles only really isn't a big deal.

Not sure on this. The 6+++ is effectively a 20% toughness upgrade for vehicles. Rerolling 1s to hit with rapid fire weapons is a 16.6% damage upgrade, which ravagers don't get. If you are sniping out say Marines who are hunkered down on an objective (which I think is becoming more the norm in CA18 missions, although its still table dependent) then its very good. If you are typically not hitting things with cover then its a bit more marginal. Go through say the top lists at Adepticon and its not obvious where it would have really helped.

If you were going venom spam (or raider spam, although I don't think that's a thing) then Flayed skull is probably worth thinking about. If you were going to footslog - with foot archons on hand - then poisoned tongue might be worth thinking about. Or Obsidian rose to try and get those rapid fire/out of rapid fire crossovers.

Really though the issue - much like Tau Sept imo - is that Blackheart has all the goodies. You want Labyrinthine Cunning - its better than the other warlord traits. You probably want Living Muse - its better than the other relics. And you 100% want AoV, because its a meta defining ability. You probably want to have a spearhead of ravagers, possibly with two flyers. They all get reroll 1s to hit, reroll ones to wound and getting just a bit above average on a 5++/6+++ can massively swing a game.

This might be cookie cutter, but I think its just objectively better than many other options. But then I don't really understand how say Sean Nayden's list works (looking at all those wyches). Or rather I can see how you might play it, but I don't see how people don't just blow holes in it, but he's a lot better player than I am.