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I definetly think they missed out entirely on the formation and decurion abilities that are so useful to other newer armies. They only got one formation and still the basic force organisation chart. Plus a ton of really weak spammy units.

Plus, I really do find it hilarious that D-weapons get the destroyer weapon rule because they tear a hole in reality, but dark eldar lance and blaster weapons which do the exact same thing via shooting dark matter wormholes at people are kept at a perfectly reasonable str8 weapon.

Weak codex? Sure. Weakest? Debatable. You still have chaos space marines, dark angels, and orks in there as well.

And of course I play dark eldar, dark angels, chaos and am currently debating starting orks as well.

Are you kidding with this? They DON'T just have the basic Force Org, they have their own Fast Attack plenty one, they 'weak spammy units' are actually pretty friggin good and open up many possibilities on how to use them. And I would be happy to introduce you to a book called Haemonculus Covens. A book of a bunch of Formations of very strong units that are spammy and give Victory Points outside of the normal mission.

So no, they're not the weakest codex. Look at Orks, Dark Angels, CSM, all the usual contender for the bottom of the barrel. Are they worse than Eldar? Yes. So is the rest of the game. You don't grade everyone on the scores of the smartest kid in school.

Don't worry at GW pace you will get a new codex next year. Hell maybe even this year.

I'd say they are a solid mid-tier codex. In the hands of a good player, they can go toe to toe with most any army (maybe not the new Eldar codex...it's still too early to tell).

Yes, Eldar's new book makes them look like the varsity to DE's JV, but you can say the same about pretty much every other army except Necrons. A tournament level Eldar list with multiple WK's, lots of D-shooting, and Scat Bikes makes most things look JV in comparison.

Yeah, BA and Tyranids are both categorically inferior to the DE dex.

And those HC formations rock on toast.

Davor wrote:
Don't worry at GW pace you will get a new codex next year. Hell maybe even this year.

Probably get one this year AND another one next year, lots of opportunities for GW to impress/disappoint

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

Davor wrote:
Don't worry at GW pace you will get a new codex next year. Hell maybe even this year.

Probably get one this year AND another one next year, lots of opportunities for GW to impress/disappoint

If I get the Duke back, I will pay for both.

Take a look at the Coven supplement. That isn't weak at all.

Dark Eldar are not a weak codex at all.
Other codices have it much worse.

As a pure codex, it's definitely one of the weaker ones. Not the weakest, but definitely weak.

It has possibly the worst HQ/wargear selection in the game, and most of its best tricks require allies.

e.g. Ld debuffs in the main book and coven supplement are irrelevant about 90% of the time - because it lacks any pinning weapons and virtually everything that you'd want Fear or Soulfright to work on is immune to them.

It's only when you start adding Eldar allies (psychic shriek, Mind War) and/or Harlequins that those debuffs start getting relevant.

EDIT: I think it also doesn't helped that the book lost a lot of flavour and options for no real reason. Not just characters, but even things like Venom Blades vanished from most units, whilst the Archon lost access to any AP2 weapons for no discernible reason (unless, in the age of Imperial Knights and D-weapons, a S3 character with AP2 was deemed overpowered). So, in addition to being relatively weak, you'll also struggle to make a flavourful list.

 vipoid wrote:
I think it also doesn't helped that the book lost a lot of flavour and options for no real reason.

This was my big complaint. The old Dark Eldar codex was like owning a cherry red 1969 Corvette. The new codex was like having that car stolen, only to find that the thief replaced it with a 2014 Pontiac Vibe.

And then, whenever you complain, everyone acts like you're crazy. "Why wouldn't you want the Vibe?" They ask. "After all, it's newer, has better safety, gets better mileage, is cheaper to repair and maintain, gets more current service, comes with lower insurance, and more modern features. Why on earth would you even want the Corvette?" And they just stare at you like you're stupid for wanting that expensive old car that someone did the 'favor' of taking from you.

I miss the unique flair of Dark Eldar. While I don't agree with a lot of it, HawaiiMatt said something over in tactics which rings too true for comfort. 'The codex should have been called Codex: Eldar Taxi Service.'

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
I definetly think they missed out entirely on the formation and decurion abilities that are so useful to other newer armies. They only got one formation and still the basic force organisation chart. Plus a ton of really weak spammy units.

Yeah, you got it SO rough.

Never mind that you actually got a formation--unlike my Guard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jimsolo wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I think it also doesn't helped that the book lost a lot of flavour and options for no real reason.

This was my big complaint. The old Dark Eldar codex was like owning a cherry red 1969 Corvette. The new codex was like having that car stolen, only to find that the thief replaced it with a 2014 Pontiac Vibe.

And then, whenever you complain, everyone acts like you're crazy. "Why wouldn't you want the Vibe?" They ask. "After all, it's newer, has better safety, gets better mileage, is cheaper to repair and maintain, gets more current service, comes with lower insurance, and more modern features. Why on earth would you even want the Corvette?" And they just stare at you like you're stupid for wanting that expensive old car that someone did the 'favor' of taking from you.

I miss the unique flair of Dark Eldar. While I don't agree with a lot of it, HawaiiMatt said something over in tactics which rings too true for comfort. 'The codex should have been called Codex: Eldar Taxi Service.'

Blame the fact that they made Eldar and Dark Eldar Battle-Brothers.

If they had made them Allies of Convenience, that wouldn't be an issue.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I think it also doesn't helped that the book lost a lot of flavour and options for no real reason.

This was my big complaint. The old Dark Eldar codex was like owning a cherry red 1969 Corvette. The new codex was like having that car stolen, only to find that the thief replaced it with a 2014 Pontiac Vibe.

And then, whenever you complain, everyone acts like you're crazy. "Why wouldn't you want the Vibe?" They ask. "After all, it's newer, has better safety, gets better mileage, is cheaper to repair and maintain, gets more current service, comes with lower insurance, and more modern features. Why on earth would you even want the Corvette?" And they just stare at you like you're stupid for wanting that expensive old car that someone did the 'favor' of taking from you.

Well put.

 Jimsolo wrote:

I miss the unique flair of Dark Eldar. While I don't agree with a lot of it, HawaiiMatt said something over in tactics which rings too true for comfort. 'The codex should have been called Codex: Eldar Taxi Service.'

 Kanluwen wrote:
Blame the fact that they made Eldar and Dark Eldar Battle-Brothers.

If they had made them Allies of Convenience, that wouldn't be an issue.

To be honest, I don't think Battle Brothers should exist at all. They open up far too may shenanigans, in a game that was already suffering from terrible balance.

Personally, I feel like Battle Brothers is fine as a concept--but the issue comes from the execution.

"Shared transports" are something which I feel need to be looked at in-depth before allowing them to be shared out.

I for one love them being Battle Brothers. The fact that the DE lack truly stellar options to bring to the table has nothing to do with their alliance to Eldar.

My first thought?
L...O....ffing L!!!

I have seen Dark Eldar players obliterate countless of players. The ability to put massive amounts of small fast spamming poisoned rapid fire weapons on the table is sickening.
Sure the armour is weak, but it is fast, can jink and some can even have a invul save.... Dark lances basically say ff your av 14. So opponents have overpriced av12 vehicles on the table against these weapons.

And with that the ability to gain multiple special rules as the games progresses.... Lol... No Dark Eldar is not a Top tier but a a Top-Mid tier codex.

And those flyers.. lol.. some of the best out there. In my opinion there are only 2 reasons why dark Eldar players lose

The player Sucks.
The dice did not go their way.

And sure, before the bashing starts.. there may be some exeptions.

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
My first thought?
L...O....ffing L!!!

I have seen Dark Eldar players obliterate countless of players. The ability to put massive amounts of small fast spamming poisoned rapid fire weapons on the table is sickening.
Sure the armour is weak, but it is fast, can jink and some can even have a invul save.... Dark lances basically say ff your av 14. So opponents have overpriced av12 vehicles on the table against these weapons.

And with that the ability to gain multiple special rules as the games progresses.... Lol... No Dark Eldar is not a Top tier but a a Top-Mid tier codex.

And those flyers.. lol.. some of the best out there. In my opinion there are only 2 reasons why dark Eldar players lose

The player Sucks.
The dice did not go their way.

And sure, before the bashing starts.. there may be some exeptions.

Against Nidzilla, or guard blob, sure.

But Mechvet? Or any other army with large numbers of vehicles? It's an uphill climb, to be sure.

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:

Sure the armour is weak, but it is fast, can jink and some can even have a invul save....

With no access to TL weapons, DE vehicles lose a huge amount of firepower when they jink. And, because their armour is so weak, they usually have to jink if they want any chance of staying alive.

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
Dark lances basically say ff your av 14. So opponents have overpriced av12 vehicles on the table against these weapons.

And then you remember that dark lances are abysmal even against AV12. Not only that, but you're going to be seeing a lot more AV12 than AV14, meaning it's the Dark Lances that are overpriced 90% of the time.

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:

And with that the ability to gain multiple special rules as the games progresses.... Lol...

Then you read what those rules actually are. FNP 5+ on T3 units with negligible saves to begin with. Wow. It's like having saves... except against S6+. Furious Charge on all our ranged units, how can any opponent stand against us? Rage on S3 models. Truly all opposition is doomed!

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
In my opinion there are only 2 reasons why dark Eldar players lose

The player Sucks.
The dice did not go their way.

IMO there are only 2 reasons people ever lose to DE:

The player Sucks.
The dice did not go their way.

Doesn't this just add sooo much to the discussion?

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Waaghboss Grobnub wrote:
My first thought?
L...O....ffing L!!!

I have seen Dark Eldar players obliterate countless of players. The ability to put massive amounts of small fast spamming poisoned rapid fire weapons on the table is sickening.
Sure the armour is weak, but it is fast, can jink and some can even have a invul save.... Dark lances basically say ff your av 14. So opponents have overpriced av12 vehicles on the table against these weapons.

And with that the ability to gain multiple special rules as the games progresses.... Lol... No Dark Eldar is not a Top tier but a a Top-Mid tier codex.

And those flyers.. lol.. some of the best out there. In my opinion there are only 2 reasons why dark Eldar players lose

The player Sucks.
The dice did not go their way.

And sure, before the bashing starts.. there may be some exeptions.

Against Nidzilla, or guard blob, sure.

But Mechvet? Or any other army with large numbers of vehicles? It's an uphill climb, to be sure.

I haven't played Mechvet, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts on what fixes could be made to improve DE's anti-tank ability? Thus far, I've relied on either HWB Scourges, HWB Talos, or punching things to death with Grots and Talos. But as I said, I usually don't play against all mech armies.

I don't think DE have a weak codex, what they have is a hard play style. I firmly believe, and 100% hope it always stays this way, that Dark Eldar are 40k on hard mode. Elite army, low saves, and lots of trickery to help them become durable(fnp, jink.)

Dark Eldar are meant to be hard to play, and in that, they are a "weak codex". I would place it firmly at the bottom of the middle tier codex's


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Orks, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels below them.

sweetbacon wrote:

I haven't played Mechvet, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts on what fixes could be made to improve DE's anti-tank ability? Thus far, I've relied on either HWB Scourges, HWB Talos, or punching things to death with Grots and Talos. But as I said, I usually don't play against all mech armies.

Well, 3 things come to mind:

- More weapon variety. DE really need some S6-7 weapons with a high rate of fire (like an equivalent to scatter lasers).

- Allow warriors and trueborn access to the full range of weapons (in particular heat lances and haywire blasters).

- Make Dark Lances better. As it stands, the Lance rule is useless against most targets, they have a shorter range than many other heavy weapons, they lack the strength to reliably penetrate AV12, AP2 isn't reliable enough to explode vehicles, and they lack the shots to reliably strip hull points. They need some sort of buff to be worth their points (currently, they're inferior lascannons 99% of the time, and lascannons aren't great to begin with). AP1, 2 shots, a change to the Lance rule. Anything to make them actually threatening.

 vipoid wrote:

sweetbacon wrote:

I haven't played Mechvet, but I'm interested to hear your thoughts on what fixes could be made to improve DE's anti-tank ability? Thus far, I've relied on either HWB Scourges, HWB Talos, or punching things to death with Grots and Talos. But as I said, I usually don't play against all mech armies.

Well, 3 things come to mind:

- More weapon variety. DE really need some S6-7 weapons with a high rate of fire (like an equivalent to scatter lasers).

- Allow warriors and trueborn access to the full range of weapons (in particular heat lances and haywire blasters).

- Make Dark Lances better. As it stands, the Lance rule is useless against most targets, they have a shorter range than many other heavy weapons, they lack the strength to reliably penetrate AV12, AP2 isn't reliable enough to explode vehicles, and they lack the shots to reliably strip hull points. They need some sort of buff to be worth their points (currently, they're inferior lascannons 99% of the time, and lascannons aren't great to begin with). AP1, 2 shots, a change to the Lance rule. Anything to make them actually threatening.

I agree with all of these. I'd also like to see Dissies bumped up to Str6, which would help to address your first point. And allowing Warriors to take HWB or HL would also be an easy fix which would address DE's anti-tank issues.

Lol, I play Orks and my main opponent plays DE. Was worried that getting back into the game, I'd be outmatched by the evil space elves - looks like they got the same treatment and lost competitiveness *and* flavour too.

If its anything like it was last edition, they're probably weaker than Orks, who are weaker than everyone else.

In terms of being outmatched, it's the less even space elves you have to worry about at the moment...

JuniorRS13 wrote:
Weak codex? Sure. Weakest? Debatable. You still have chaos space marines, dark angels, and orks in there as well.

And of course I play dark eldar, dark angels, chaos and am currently debating starting orks as well.

DA and CSM are indeed weak, but they havent been updated in ages. DE are a 7th codex and I would say they are weaker than Orks.

I'ma justa leave this here.

A half-release for a faction that's not even a real faction. Hardly counts but good to see the Sisters pity party arriving right on schedule.

Exalted Kid-Kyoto. But CSM, Orks, and Sisters are the bottom tiers. (Sadly Sisters are the only 'imperial' army in need of overall, vanilla marines, and the flavors are all still good just not super uber op like their Grey Knight buddies. So their now deluded into thinking DA and BA are bad.)

Nids are also in the mix but they still have some dirty tricks here and there that in the right hands make them tough.

Dark Elves are right on the heels of the Space Marines, and ahead of Nids. Maybe around the Skitarii/ Ad Mech/ IG tier.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
I think it also doesn't helped that the book lost a lot of flavour and options for no real reason.

This was my big complaint. The old Dark Eldar codex was like owning a cherry red 1969 Corvette. The new codex was like having that car stolen, only to find that the thief replaced it with a 2014 Pontiac Vibe.

And then, whenever you complain, everyone acts like you're crazy. "Why wouldn't you want the Vibe?" They ask. "After all, it's newer, has better safety, gets better mileage, is cheaper to repair and maintain, gets more current service, comes with lower insurance, and more modern features. Why on earth would you even want the Corvette?" And they just stare at you like you're stupid for wanting that expensive old car that someone did the 'favor' of taking from you.

I miss the unique flair of Dark Eldar. While I don't agree with a lot of it, HawaiiMatt said something over in tactics which rings too true for comfort. 'The codex should have been called Codex: Eldar Taxi Service.'

I think I'm going to go ahead and exalt this post. Talking about the current Dark Eldar codex is always sort of weird for me because I don't really feel the need to complain about it exactly. It's a solid enough book for me to win games with it without tailoring my list or using venom spam. It fixed a lot of trouble units (scourges and mandrakes especially) and made them fun to use. It's really not a bad book. It's just that it took away so many of the fun options for no real reason other than, as far as I can surmise, page space and the Chapter House thing. We lost our special characters. Incubi lost access to the bloodstone after wall of death finally made it somewhat useful. The new power from pain, while arguably better, just doesn't feel as viscerally rewarding or as appropriate for a fast-striking army. Y'know. Venom blades were my go-to weapons for a lot of characters, and now I'm stuck choosing between strength three power swords and agonisers that double the cost of my characters. Even just having the option for a power lance (which would actually synergize with the aggressive nature of dark eldar and their furious charge rule) rather than a sword would have been nice. The archon can take an agoniser, but a huskblade is a better version of the same thing for the same price. A lot of our gear's quirky rules got homogenized. Haemonculi lost a lot of their cool arcane gear. Sure, they got some of it back in Covens, but I still miss being able to work a piece of glass that traps people reflected in it or a a portal to one of Cthulhu's tentacles into my normal lists.

It's not that the codex isn't powerful enough for me. It's that it seemed to lose a lot of the cool, not-at-all-broken flourishes that I used to really enjoy.

And I strongly dislike the way eldar seem to be intended to hang out inside of raiders if they want to assault anything. I even run an eldar/dark eldar list much of the time, and I still don't like that it seems to be assumed that you'll ally them for some units.