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I've been thinking and I may have found a way to help Dark Eldar out with an improved and fluffy rule for Webway Portals. When I think of Webway Portal deep strikes, I do not think of them happening from the sky, but rather, anywhere. A portal literally opens up at any height and the troops/skimmer can come through.

What I propose, is that Dark Eldar remove the option for the item Webway Portal, but instead make a unit upgrade with a cost to give it Webway Portal. Only available if they upgraded a unit champion, or if an HQ or a vehicle. The Dark Eldar are supposed to be masters of the Webway, this could reflect that. Also, since they can open the portals practically anywhere, Dark Eldar that arrive via Webway Portal would not be subjected to Interceptor, or whatever the rule is that allow Tau the ability to shoot at deep striking units.

The point is, that Dark Eldar can opens these portals and exit anywhere. This gives them a better way of arrive on the battlefield where they want. You can still do the regular 2d6 for deviation, or since it is an upgrade, change it to 1d6 to show how the Webway is that much more accurate. This gives a buff to the DE that desperately need one. I do not think it is overpowered either. i always hear that champion upgrades are not worth it for the DE. This would be a good reason to take those upgrades.

It could even be improved to help wyches by allowing charges in the combat phase, if the deep strike did not deviate at all.

This would not be a cheap upgrade, maybe keep it at the 35pts it is now or lower due to it not having "Do not scatter" anymore, but one that could be very welcome to the DE playstyle of being able to attack from anywhere. It also helps the DE feel more unique.

Honestly surprised they dont just have a webway portable deicurion where they all come out on T1 or whatever. amusing you meet the conditions.

Overall I like the idea. Make it a cheaper upgrade that any "character" can take. I'd also allow it to roll for reserve on turn 1, although still require 1D6 scatter to balance it a bit. I would also change it to only work for units with the Dark Eldar Faction to limit the shenanigans that Eldar can do with it.

Dark Eldar do not have a "Detachment of Formations" yet, so I expect when they do, they'll get some rule like this.

Thanks for your comments and feedback.

@Galef - The DE do have a "Decurion" formation, but it was more of a test run I think. The Covens Supplement has a formation that is made up of 1 of every formation in that book. It does not give any huge bonuses though, and is very expensive $$$.

They do need a new decurion formation though that could help out, but I don't like these mega formations to begin with.

Yeah, I like that one too - gives a good reason to take Sybarites and similar, too.

I think I'd create different categories of web way portal; so for vehicles, or units embarked upon vehicles, they'd be arriving in the air (too much risk otherwise) but Interceptor is limited to Snap Shots as the arrival is so sudden.

For units I'd let them charge after arrival, with no Overwatch against them (they just appeared out of nowhere). However, when Deep Striking this way they will always scatter, and if they scatter into any kind of terrain they lose the ability to charge this way (they may have ended up out of range anyway), possibly leaving them in the open to get shot at.


This way there'd be various risks involved, possibly offset by some items for characters, so an Archon could lead a non-scattering charge from the web way, and maybe other units can come in within a small range of where that happened with diminished or eliminated scatter as well, but there won't be semi-accurate web-way portals opening up everywhere. While I like the idea of portals all over the place, it kind of makes enemy deployment pointless which, though fluffy, won't be that fun for your opponent.

Might need tweaking, but I like the idea of capturing the web-way strike better, but it needs to be risky enough that it isn't a no-brainer for every unit.


Another fun mechanic I toyed with is the idea that you can pay for a number of web-way portals; they're bought in pairs, but only one in each pair can be assigned (in secret) to a Reserve unit on your list. The portals are placed as counters and deployed as if they were units, and in each turn they can move before making a Reserve roll. If it passes and a unit was assigned to it, then the unit emerges and can act normally unless they appear in some kind of terrain, if the counter had no unit then it just fizzles out.
Basically the idea is that they represent sensor blips where portals may emerge, and you try to bluff them while moving future units into a good place to appear. It's more reliable than regular Deep Strike, and more dangerous, but the enemy can see it coming to a degree. There'd also be a special category of counters that can "infiltrate", which you can assign to units that you want in advance, plus items you could give to Archons to tweak the rolls so you can bring something in sooner or later, or maybe pick the turn (meaning you have to move that counter to a good position quickly, but without being too obvious).
Obviously a lot more complicated, but could be fun as you can try and trick the enemy into moving away from a blip, only for it to fizzle out, while a unit emerges elsewhere, use blips to try to get them to bunch up for your template weapons (since DE don't have mass access to pie-plates) and other fun possibilities.

I think we're better off just making the current WWP available to any character in the codex, at 35pts it's not a cheap upgrade but could be useful for certain squads like Blasterborne, whilst other units just wouldn't need it.

I mostly agree with Imateria here, for reasons of simplicity. I like Haravikk's idea, but it gets kinda spidery really quickly. I'm also not crazy about no-Overwatch charges that are also from deep strike: that seems uncomfortably close to the bad old days of "I'm going to glue your star shooting unit to the floor turn 1, and you can't stop me". The "and you can't do anything about it" part is what I mostly object to - things that have no counters have to be designed very carefully. Most of 40k's brokenness stems from things that can't be countered.