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Valkyrie wrote:Don't know if this has been mentioned before, as I can't be arsed to trawl through 22 pages, but Lelith Hesparex has the best ballistic skill of any character within Warhammer 40K. She has WS and BS 9, yet, the sick irony is that she has no ranged weapons of any kind. Not even a pistol!

Lols. Sounds like something GW would do... Maybe you can write a mission where she can man a turret and have a ball.

Valkyrie wrote:Don't know if this has been mentioned before, as I can't be arsed to trawl through 22 pages, but Lelith Hesparex has the best ballistic skill of any character within Warhammer 40K. She has WS and BS 9, yet, the sick irony is that she has no ranged weapons of any kind. Not even a pistol!

It's always struck me odd that the Avatar of War only has a 5. That's not even as high as some of his worshippers.

It's too angry to aim properly.

gorgon wrote:Deep strike, jump packs. Nothing else special that I recall.

Still useless then :/

The weapons they can bring the the battle field seem a tick or two above 'useless' though.

Skarboy wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:Don't know if this has been mentioned before, as I can't be arsed to trawl through 22 pages, but Lelith Hesparex has the best ballistic skill of any character within Warhammer 40K. She has WS and BS 9, yet, the sick irony is that she has no ranged weapons of any kind. Not even a pistol!

Lols. Sounds like something GW would do... Maybe you can write a mission where she can man a turret and have a ball.

It makes sense to me that if you train with a sword, that means you can shoot really well, right?

Hey you guys remember the days of warhammer fantasy when a chaos lord and bloodthirsters had BS 10 and they could never use ranged weapons....... Its not new behavior for them to do silly crap like that lol.....
I agree it is dumb.

Alpharius wrote:The weapons they can bring the the battle field seem a tick or two above 'useless' though.

Actually, I like the carbines plus maybe splinter cannons more than the anti-vehicle specials. It's a good amount of 4+ poison dakka.

Wonder if any Leilith models have already been sold on pre-order partly on the back of the outstanding BS

So the lessons were well and truly learned after that gaff the, Red?

Skarboy wrote:

Valkyrie wrote:Don't know if this has been mentioned before, as I can't be arsed to trawl through 22 pages, but Lelith Hesparex has the best ballistic skill of any character within Warhammer 40K. She has WS and BS 9, yet, the sick irony is that she has no ranged weapons of any kind. Not even a pistol!

Lols. Sounds like something GW would do... Maybe you can write a mission where she can man a turret and have a ball.

She actually has a terrible BS, she just murders anyone that finds out.

Alpharius wrote:The weapons they can bring the the battle field seem a tick or two above 'useless' though.

What heat lance? thats it...

suppose it's a good job they are fast attack now someone might use them.

A full unit with splinter cannon put out 42 poisoned shots at 18" or 24 poisoned shots at 36".

plastictrees wrote:She actually has a terrible BS, she just murders anyone that finds out.

A conspiracy theory. I like it. When she failed her intermediate marksmanship course, she "mysteriously" started to dual wield knives and her instructor disappeared under shady circumstances.

Saldiven wrote:A full unit with splinter cannon put out 42 poisoned shots at 18" or 24 poisoned shots at 36".

Yes, but can't warriors do that and be cheaper too?.

Saldiven wrote:A full unit with splinter cannon put out 42 poisoned shots at 18" or 24 poisoned shots at 36".

And against an IG parking lot, that 240 pt. unit what? -May- glance a Chimera? I like poison and all as much as the next guy, but I'm not so sure it is going to be the saving grace of the DE. They're still going to have trouble with IG (who doesn't, I guess), but the only ones really shaking in their boots about all this poison is Tyranids, I would imagine.

And they've lost a bit of their anti-tank. Granted, they've gained it back in other places (heat lances, deep-striking raiders, ravagers that can move 12" and fire), but to take a unit cost and double it, DE players are going to feel it and I have a feeling they're going to have to take a few losses trying to mold their old playstyle into their new one.

And that's where the bandwagoneers jump, usually. When they've lost and they don't feel the passion for the army anymore.

Yea, at something like 35+ points a model, I don't think people will be taking a unit of scourges with cannons. Plus they take fewer cannons now. Sooner see them going with trueborn with cannons.

Can you then join an archon with court to a unit of trueborn? Or the court aren't IC status?

Nvs wrote:Yea, at something like 35+ points a model, I don't think people will be taking a unit of scourges with cannons. Plus they take fewer cannons now. Sooner see them going with trueborn with cannons.

Can you then join an archon with court to a unit of trueborn? Or the court aren't IC status?

No. Whether it was a retinue or not. The Archon would be an IC and lose IC status since he is attached to the retinue or would be an IC and simply become a part of the Court until he decided to leave (and in CC, of course).

At this particular moment, I'm kinda liking Wyches for Archon bodyguard duty, at least if you're planning on Raidering up and getting the Archon stuck in.

Once you're in CC, it's inv. saves across the board and more offensive output from the unit. Seems like it'd have to do dramatically better with combat res, which would potentially be an issue for an Archon riding with Warriors or even Trueborn.

It may occur to me why this is a very bad idea, but it sounds good at 4:47 this afternoon.

Yeah I'm thinking of going Archite and wyches...

I'm thinking the best stuck in and possibly best wounding unit is Wracks w/a Haemonculi leading them. 9 of them with a Champion w/Agoniser in a raider costs a whopping 175. If the Haemon joins them then a) they're troops (doesn't have to join but as long as you brought him this works) and b) they have furious charge. Now that's 24 WS4 S4 Poison Attacks plus 4 Agoniser attacks. That's just nasty. Especially with the FnP. The higher toughness and 6+/4+ FnP actually make them better against anything except for power weapons.

I spent about 2 hours going over the book and I really, really like it. It's very much based on building interlocking support units. Trueborn oddly enough can be taken in units of 3 w/2 Dark Lances if you choose. Sorta like a mini dev-squad. I don't think I'd use the Wych Elites but they are kinda neat. Basically 3pts more per model for an extra attack and leadership. I can see the Skyboard SC in almost every army. He's pretty awesome and his point cost is ridiculously low (think current Ravager). I love that basically there are 4 possible troop choices in the army based on what kind of characters you bring. Lots of shots but most people won't be keeping those Disentegrator Ravagers since it's not templates anymore. I'll be picking up 2-3 and using them all dark lance as my vehicle hunters. The cost of Haywire grenades is also half what it was for wyches which is amazing!

All in all I really, really like the new codex and put in my pre-order for 5 Raiders, 3 boxes of wyches, the codex, and a box of warriors for trueborns. Can't wait!

@Hulk Smash: Can a warrior heavy army work? If so how?

I was thinking along the following lines for 1500pts:

Archon with Incubi body guards in Raider

3-4x10 warriors with Splinter cannon (or another choice if something else is better) all in raiders

3xRavagers with Dark lances for tank hunting (would most likely give them the deep strike ability to try and smack people from behind)

Thoughts?

Hulksmash wrote:I'm thinking the best stuck in and possibly best wounding unit is Wracks w/a Haemonculi leading them. 9 of them with a Champion w/Agoniser in a raider costs a whopping 175. If the Haemon joins them then a) they're troops (doesn't have to join but as long as you brought him this works)

Thought it was specifically Rakarth that made them troops.

I think this product line delivers.

Hobbyists are certainly happy about Jes' work so far.

Casual gamers are getting a new list archetype to collect and enjoy in the haemonculii freakshow.

Competitive gamers seem to be getting a very cleaned up and streamlined version of their old tried and true mech list.

This brings me to the only real drag (albeit a small one). My first pass through the rules and concentrating on a competitive build has me coming up with this.

vect

4x elite warriors 4x blasters raider 5++ dark lance
4x elite warriors 4x blasters raider 5++ dark lance
4x elite warriors 4x blasters raider 5++ dark lance

5x warriors 1x blaster raider 5++ dark lance
5x warriors 1x blaster raider 5++ dark lance
5x warriors 1x blaster raider 5++ dark lance
5x warriors 1x blaster raider 5++ dark lance
5x warriors 1x blaster raider 5++ dark lance
5x warriors 1x blaster raider 5++ dark lance

ravager 3x disintegrators 5++
ravager 3x disintegrators 5++
ravager 3x disintegrators 5++

Look familiar? To me it looks like a fun list. Minimum 75% chance to go first, massive alpha strike potential, speedy. But to the loyal followers of dark eldar throughout the years, its nothing new. 36" flat out and a 5++ save, and vect has more options and configurations to bring. But it is really just too similar to the functional lists from before. Thats really more of a demi-complaint than anything. I'd really enjoy playing against this list and with this list.

Other units and builds I am certainly keeping an eye on. The bomber looks very nice as the game scales up larger, and there is almost certainly a competitive wwp foot list in there, wracks as a core and harlies outflanking unless a wwp pops up for them. The bikes look to be tuned well enough also.

The successes of this book will only serve to highlight the many missed opportunities of the undertuned tyranid book. I am going to remain stubbornly loyal (read: masochistic) and try and get those bugs to represent. But when you look at Phil's elegant and workable WWP rules, and then glance over at the trygon's non-rule for tunneling, you just get sad. If only they would "patch" their game with regular codex updates.

Well, DE players. Enjoy this release. I'll be enjoying it vicariously through my DE playing friends.

People who think there are no competitive builds in Nids will make the same mistake here. Can't see the forest for the trees. Nids and DE will have formidable builds; they just aren't as dummyproof as IG, SW, and BA. As someone who has waited a long time for new models (the codex is gravy), I'm going to have plenty of fun smashing people to bits.

Ok, I got to gander at the DE codex today at the FLGS here in Jacksonville NC. Heres the rules I gathered that aren't already shown:

Talos : Str 7/T7/3 wounds/3+ save . Has some crazy tail attack that it injects venom into its foes, and you need to take a toughness test or be insta-killed.
Mandrakes: They DO have power from pain, 5+ invun standard, only come with CCW and the rules stated
Incubi: 22 pts a piece
Archon: 60 pts
Raiders: 60 pts. The 5+ invun save is called FLICKERFIELD. Its an available upgrade for most of the DE vehicles. 10 pts for it. Nightshields are in, 10 pts. 5 or 6 other upgrades (cost 5-10 pts each), didn't gather too many more specifics
Named Mandrake guy: Basic mandrake with str 5/T5 3 wounds. He can decapitate foes (instant kill), and like with the sanguinor, picks an HQ at the beginning of the game to "hunt".

Shadow field IS IN. The way it reads now is you roll EACH WOUND individually until it shorts out, and from then on its your base save.

Most everything outside incubi have a 6+ base save (grotesques, warriors, wyches, wracks, etc.). Several have 5+ invuns. The bird things (Screetchs I think they're called) have a 4+ normal, 4+ in CC.

Most of this is accurate, I took about 20 minutes glancing the codex. I'll get another look tomorrow and post more info.

From my initial look over, Dark Eldar (like before) are strong CC. They are VERY vunderable to shooting, however. All vehicles are AV 11 (the razorflyingthing, ravagers) or AV 10 (everything else) outside from Vects Dais. Everythings fast, and as mentioned before, webway vehicles cannot use it. However, The new webway reads that ALL models held in reserve by the DE player (including deep striking, etc. units) use the webway. Its odd that vehicles cannot, but I see why; if you could have a buttload of wyches starting 18" up on the table, move 12", disembark, and assault starting T2, thats a little disgusting lol

But looking it over, I don't see anything that looks like it'll be cheap and broken like SW can be or IG... but we'll have to see when they hit the table

puma713 wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:I'm thinking the best stuck in and possibly best wounding unit is Wracks w/a Haemonculi leading them. 9 of them with a Champion w/Agoniser in a raider costs a whopping 175. If the Haemon joins them then a) they're troops (doesn't have to join but as long as you brought him this works)

Thought it was specifically Rakarth that made them troops.

Haemi Ancient does it too.

Skarboy wrote:People who think there are no competitive builds in Nids will make the same mistake here. Can't see the forest for the trees. Nids and DE will have formidable builds; they just aren't as dummyproof as IG, SW, and BA. As someone who has waited a long time for new models (the codex is gravy), I'm going to have plenty of fun smashing people to bits.

I don't think he was saying that DE won't have a competitive build, but that the build will be very similar to what they were before the codex was released, which is sort of a letdown both for the fans of DE and for GW, I'd presume. It looks like they took the pre-codex build and just gave the codex more options around it while maybe trying to do something about dark lance spam (which, if they were, failed).

gorgon wrote:Deep strike, jump packs. Nothing else special that I recall.

While I'm at it, here's a cleaned-up and expanded Wyches breakdown (again from memory):

Wyches 10 pts.
5-20
4/4/3/3/1/6/1/8/10/6+

Armed with: Close combat weapon, combat drugs, plasma grenades, splinter pistol, wychsuit.
Special Rules: Fleet, Night Vision, Power from Pain, Combat Drugs. Dodge (4+): Wyches have 4+ Inv save in CC

Unit can take haywire grenades for 2 pts/model.

Hekatrix (+10 pts, A2)
-Venom blade 5
-Power weapon 10
-Agoniser 20

-Phantasm launcher 10 or 15

EDIT: I think they also have the Blast Pistol option (15)

Wych weapons are one per 5 models:
- Shardnet and Impaler (10): Counts as 2CCW, every enemy model in base contact loses 1 attack to a min of 1
- Hydra gauntlets (10): Count as 2CCW and grants +D6 attacks instead of the +1 for 2 ccw
- Razorflails (10): Count as 2CCW, reroll to hit and wound.

It seems that I keep missing it, so I apologize, but... what does a Wychsuit do? It doesn't seem to be described in the unit entries.

gorgon wrote:

puma713 wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:I'm thinking the best stuck in and possibly best wounding unit is Wracks w/a Haemonculi leading them. 9 of them with a Champion w/Agoniser in a raider costs a whopping 175. If the Haemon joins them then a) they're troops (doesn't have to join but as long as you brought him this works)

Thought it was specifically Rakarth that made them troops.

Haemi Ancient does it too.

Also, I believe Wracks were only T4... Grotesques, however, seem pretty rad. T5 with 3 wounds is siiiickkkk

Actually any Haemonculus does it. Just as a heads up. It clearly states in the little box if your army includes a Haemonculi Wracks are troops. Which is awesome.

My guess honestly is you'll see the Baron a lot. As for a warrior based army it's possible but honestly I feel like for 1 point the other options outshine them. Wyches and Wracks being 10pts each and each having their own survivability bonus is big. You'd probably be better off honestly with that style army if you made all the troops Wracks. You could do the all warrior thing but it costs more than it used to and their not more survivable until you kill a unit.

@Puma

I actually think there are quite a few builds. The standard build you saw before won't work as well based on the weapon and pt. changes. You'll have to squeeze elsewhere to get the MSU armies. Though it is fun to note that the elite wyches and warriors are minimum size 3 which opens up some possibilities