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 Ailaros wrote:

SHUPPET wrote:I think we can unfortunately kiss goodbye to a lot of our internal balance, a winning formula can only be changed to one thing.

... because the DE codex was so well balanced before? I swear I've nearly only ever seen variations on that one raider list before.

I guess there must be a lot of WWP bombs and foot-DE and taloses and mandrakes and incubi where you play.

Oh nice, now DE isn't balanced? Every army will always have a number one optimised list, DE actually has one of the more interchangeable optimised lists out there, with Reavers / Beastmaster being personal preference as with Warriors to Wyches, Venoms to Raiders (funny that you said you only see raiders because I see far more Venoms), whether to take Duke or not, etc. Either way you are talkin about an army where almost every single unit is playable except Mandrakes. You literally named like the entirety of the very few units DEBATABLY in need of a buff and acting as if it's a codex plagued with it. For starters, WWP isn't as good as it was 5th but it is still very playable. Talos is fine and works great coming out of one too while we are on the subject. And Incubi are maybe a little overcosted and not that great in the context of the army, and the threats available in 6th. Not a terrible unit tho and definitely not some massive design flaw. Mentioning foot DE is ridiculous, the speed of the Vehicles is core to the armies play style, and it is literally never a situation that will arise. That's like saying nobody plays Dire Avengers without Wave Serpents, or that Khan doesn't do enough for your army without White Scars bikers.

Complaining about the Balance of this codex is freaking stupid. Almost every unit of a massive release was handled brilliantly. Just because it doesn't all see play in the number 1 list for optimised play does not make it a badly balanced unit lol. DE is the perfect example of a codex done right. If it doesn't satisfy you, nothing will. Which is, I suspect, the case with you on this one. And it's undeniably likely to get worse not better with any changes.

 Ailaros wrote:

SHUPPET wrote:I hate how GW made this promise last year that "from Christmas onwards every unit in the codex will have a model!" clearly getting expectations high and then... Then deliver on it by cutting everything that doesn't have a model from the codex. :/ Thanks GW great Christmas present, this is just what we all wanted!

Marbok, Chenkov, and Al'Rahem all had models, and were all cut anyways. Conscripts, veterans and vendettas don't have models, and yet they stayed.

So much for that theory.

I think you are mistaking a "theory" for "official GW statement and policy". And, if they took the model off the market for being old as gak or whatever reason, that unit no longer has a model does it? Same way Harpy got a model and as such was not cut. This is pretty lame for us as opposed to just leaving our units in the codex, although I'm sure you will find a way to argue that too.

 SHUPPET wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:

SHUPPET wrote:I think we can unfortunately kiss goodbye to a lot of our internal balance, a winning formula can only be changed to one thing.

... because the DE codex was so well balanced before? I swear I've nearly only ever seen variations on that one raider list before.

I guess there must be a lot of WWP bombs and foot-DE and taloses and mandrakes and incubi where you play.

Oh nice, now DE isn't balanced? Every army will always have a number one optimised list, DE actually has one of the more interchangeable optimised lists out there, with Reavers / Beastmaster being personal preference as with Warriors to Wyches, Venoms to Raiders (funny that you said you only see raiders because I see far more Venoms), whether to take Duke or not, etc. Either way you are talkin about an army where almost every single unit is playable except Mandrakes. You literally named like the entirety of the very few units DEBATABLY in need of a buff and acting as if it's a codex plagued with it. For starters, WWP isn't as good as it was 5th but it is still very playable. Talos is fine and works great coming out of one too while we are on the subject. And Incubi are maybe a little overcosted and not that great in the context of the army, and the threats available in 6th. Not a terrible unit tho and definitely not some massive design flaw. Mentioning foot DE is ridiculous, the speed of the Vehicles is core to the armies play style, and it is literally never a situation that will arise. That's like saying nobody plays Dire Avengers without Wave Serpents, or that Khan doesn't do enough for your army without White Scars bikers.

My experience with Dark Eldar, combined with what I see over on the Dark City forums, has been fairly similar in regards to the armyr's balance. A significant portion of the army works well in different ways- grotesques, wracks, wyches, incubi, trueborn, warriors, venoms, ravagers, talos, etc. etc....heck, I've even seen some ways that the Chronos has been put to effective use (and consistently!). Skaredcast puts up some great battle reports and has employed a number of different playstyles with the Dark Eldar that have been very effective.

A couple of units are subpar, like mandrakes and bloodbrides, but overall most of the units serve a useful purpose. I can't really see GW improving the army all that much, and if improving the mandrakes and WWP means that other units will get weakened in addition to losing some special characters, I will be very disappointed.