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mercury14 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:

mercury14 wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Okay, wait. Are the Reaver bladevanes strength 6 rending or strength 4 rending?

Caltrops are D6 S6 rending. Regular bladevanes are S4 rending.

There was some talk about shred instead of rending. Is it now confirmed that it really is rending?

Yeah, the guy with the codex is German and translated it poorly. Someone followed up and he clarified it's rending.

The translation of codices is generally not one-to-one by wording.

I'll be getting my codex fri/sat, so we'll have confirmation then.

Can the Haemonculus in a coven detachment take a WWP?

If so, that formation of Haemy, talos and chronos with WWP can be pretty nasty if they form one unit. DS without scatter with 2 of those MCs with his FnP is no joke I assume...

 Colpicklejar wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

 Xeriapt wrote:
Feels like a bit of a dirty tactic making the supplement have a bunch of rules and formations that sound really good.

Heres the codex, but, if you want the good stuff you have to buy this other book too.

I honestly don't think the coven supplement is necessary. You can make a better all around army with the codex. Coven has zero access to FA.

I have to agree with you. At first I thought it was lame that there was virtually no bleed between the two books. Other supplements (Orks, wolves) brought a lot of tasty stuff for those factions to use.

But the more I think about it, the more I like this way better. I have exactly zero coven units in my dark eldar force right now, and I plan to keep it that way. Did coven units get really awesome? Yes, certainly. But it's not like having them absent in my list is ruining some great synergy that would otherwise be present if I had the supplement. This is the way supplements should operate, IMO- related to the main codex, but different enough in playstyle and units that they effectively stand alone.

I AM a bit annoyed that the covens get like 9 formations and my kabalites get zero. And it does seem that the edge in power is definitely on the side of the covens, but that I can forgive. I don't think they completely blow them out of the water.

Sorry, I have to disagree with you. It dident bring orks tastey stuff to use, it brought the taste of bile to our mouths when we realized our codex was actually 100 dollars instead of 50, for 4 pages they could have easily added into the codex.

I'll probably still take Wyches w/Hekatrix and haywire. Throwing a HWgrenade and then assaulting with one can still do 2 HP to vehicles pretty easily and they can successfully assault enemies that have been weakened by Venom fire. They'll have less utility but still mostly the same old Wyches.

Anyone know what flickerfields do on a venom? Still 5++?

 wuestenfux wrote:

 Erasoketa wrote:

 Xeriapt wrote:
Feels like a bit of a dirty tactic making the supplement have a bunch of rules and formations that sound really good.

Heres the codex, but, if you want the good stuff you have to buy this other book too.

And the second book being available only in English doesn't help.

I don't know what to do with my army.

Play Eldar and use DE as allies.

That would mean having to collect an Eldar army from scratch. Thanks for the idea, but I can't do that.

mercury14 wrote:
I'll probably still take Wyches w/Hekatrix and haywire. Throwing a HWgrenade and then assaulting with one can still do 2 HP to vehicles pretty easily and they can successfully assault enemies that have been weakened by Venom fire. They'll have less utility but still mostly the same old Wyches.

Anyone know what flickerfields do on a venom? Still 5++?

On the math:

1 thrown = 3+ to hit (2/3 chance), 0.66 hits > 4/6 chance for glance, 1/6 chance of pen, so 0.55 HP damage, (.11 pens)
Assault, 3+ to hit (2/3 chance), 0.66 hits > 4/6 chance for glance, 1/6 chance of pen, so 0.55 HP damage, (.11 pens)
Average Total = 1.1HP damage (.22 pens)

So is this just looking like a continuation of the pattern we've seen all year?



[Xenos] Tyranids: very poorly balanced and and received as one of the worst GW releases to date

[IoM] Astra Militarum: good new units, great internal and external balance, widely regarded as a buff, positively received

[Xenos] Orks: terrible release, terrible internal balancing, most issues prevalent in the prior dex remaining unchanged, badly received

[IoM] Space Wolves: decently balanced, strong new units, good rebalancing of units, general improvement to army wide balance, well received

[IoM] Grek Knights: no new units, dex sized down massively, GK core buffed immensely, truer to the theme of GK than before, better overall internal balance, positively received

[Xenos] Dark Eldar: close to perfect internal balance of previous dex completely thrown out the window, loss of many flavourful army changing units, no new units at all, massive nerfs to well balanced not OP units, badly recieved???



I guess we'll have to see if Scourges, 3x Elites, and court of the Archon are enough to carry our entire army through the list building stage. It's looking pretty dismal as is. Beastpack was the only thing arguably needing a nerf, nothing else was game breaking in comparison even to the weakest codexes, and what sucks is that all the changes have just been dumbing the army down and taking less customisation and ingame choice out of the hands of the player.

I want to know exactly what to do win my 9 Venoms. After the first 3 in Elites (which taking means no Grots or Mandrakes) do I have to spam the worst unit shown so far in the codex just to include my Venoms? Seems a poor change if so. Has anyone seen if we can still take Wrack troops? As this is the big question on my mind right now.

If not, I think for me I'm just going to stick with the 5E dex. No new units, crappy new rules, badly written changes, less customisation than before, much less diversity in troops, loss of so many models (and good/crucial ones at that), to me wall this just cannot be made up for by getting playable Court+Mandrakes (and both of these remain to be seen how playable they actually are). I stomached it for the Nid release, they are my tournament army and at least we got new models... And for this to be looking worse than the Nid release, says a lot. As of yet I've seen zero reason to upgrade my dex to this new version, and many reasons to go down kicking and screaming with the old. To those who feel differently, exactly what so far has you excited about the new dex, in case I missed some positives so that I can accurately compare the two for myself.

Is the Beastpack unit terrible because they have new rules or terrible because the Baron doesn't exist anymore?

 Oaka wrote:
Is the Beastpack unit terrible because they have new rules or terrible because the Baron doesn't exist anymore?

Both by the looks of it - its the classic double nerf. Both the Beasts themselves have been made worse and removing the Baron means they can no longer be the lynchpin of an army.

 DarkTraveler777 wrote:
Aw, those hellion rules.

A friend of mine has been in the process of commissioning a Baron led hellion army (60 hellions, Baron + a few other bits and bobs) to be painted over the course of this year. His last few hellion units should arrive later this month. Lucky guy! Just in time for his army to no longer work!

I guess we will be using the 5th edition codex when play.

I am yet again questioning why I play this game. First it was 7th edition causing me doubt. Then the IG codex, and now this.

I also love the day 1 money squeeze DLC, because why? Is there any explanation except zero respect for your customers? Dex has nothing new in it, least cthey ould have done is include the 4 page formation to an already overpriced codex...

Who remembers when a codex announcement meant a likely improvement and something to look forward to, including new units? What do I have to be happy about here? I didnt think they could do worse than the Nid dex, but looks like they may have outdone themselves slightly with this one.

If I had a bunch of Hellions already assembled and painted, I would simply use them as counts-as Scourges with haywire blasters and flip the table at anyone who objects.

 SHUPPET wrote:

[Xenos] Dark Eldar: close to perfect internal balance of previous dex completely thrown out the window, loss of many flavourful army changing units, no new units at all, massive nerfs to well balanced not OP units, badly recieved???

What?

From Mandraks on one hand to Venom-spam on the other, the old DE-dex is pretty much the textbook example of internal-balance failure. And why I know that tournament-players lament the loss of Haywire-Wyches, it was a unit utterly at odds with what it was supposed to be doing as a result of inept game-design.

New one seems much sleeker in the "game-play" department, even if it got its fluff taken out of it, as have all 7th Ed. books thus far.

 Exergy wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

mercury14 wrote:

 jamopower wrote:
Hellions were great in fifth edition with Baron buffs, pain tokens and the majority cover rules still in effect.
Also medusae in venom have been one of my favourite units for a long time. Sad that the medusae were actually also nerfed. +10 points and the strenght d6+1 and ap d6 was better than s4 ap3. Only bonus is that you don't have to pay the llhamean and ur-ghul tax anymore.

I think they're better now, more reliable, and much cheaper. And easier to take.

I agree with this except for the cheaper part. I don't see how you think a 15 point unit that went up to 25 is cheaper.

The tax isnt there anymore. It use to be the max you could get was 5 medusa, but you had to take 1 sslyth, 1 urgul, and 1 lhamean.
Now you can just take 3-5 medusa

your math on court is wrong.

it used to be:
1-2 lham
1-2 medusae
1-3 sslyth
1-5 ghul

so never had a chance to get 5 in 1 court.

15 Scourges, leaving him with 45+ unusable painted models, and an army completely different to the one he bought. I guess you could do max size scourge units, for maximum fail. You still can't even close to fit as many in the dex as you could with Hellions.

I think 'forging the narrative' allows for using rules from previous editions, if I'm not mistaken.

Shuppet, what was this "close to perfect internal balance in the previous dex" you're referring to? Do you realize how many DE units in the old dex never saw the table because they were horrible?

And Beast units are fine. People got too used to Baron abuse IMO. Khymera getting +1T and -2 pts was worth dropping back to 5++ is a lateral move. Against S4 attacks, it's the exact same .22 of a Khymera killed except now they're 17% cheaper for it... So they're objectively better. Beastmasters are the same. The fiend is slightly nerfed but like -10 pts so about the same. The birds got nerfed (good, they were silly), but they came down in price by a whopping 33%.

Wonderwolf wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

[Xenos] Dark Eldar: close to perfect internal balance of previous dex completely thrown out the window, loss of many flavourful army changing units, no new units at all, massive nerfs to well balanced not OP units, badly recieved???

What?

From Mandraks on one hand to Venom-spam on the other, the old DE-dex is pretty much the textbook example of internal-balance failure.

Indeedy.

 SHUPPET wrote:

[Xenos] Tyranids: very poorly balanced and and received as one of the worst GW releases to date

[IoM] Astra Militarum: good new units, great internal and external balance, widely regarded as a buff, positively received

[Xenos] Orks: terrible release, terrible internal balancing, most issues prevalent in the prior dex remaining unchanged, badly received

[IoM] Space Wolves: decently balanced, strong new units, good rebalancing of units, general improvement to army wide balance, well received

[IoM] Grek Knights: no new units, dex sized down massively, GK core buffed immensely, truer to the theme of GK than before, better overall internal balance, positively received

[Xenos] Dark Eldar: close to perfect internal balance of previous dex completely thrown out the window, loss of many flavourful army changing units, no new units at all, massive nerfs to well balanced not OP units, badly recieved???

I agree with the general sentiment that IoM armies are favoured by GW, but the previous DE codex having perfect internal balance? Really? I don't think SW was that well received, good selection of new models for sure (but questionable model designs in cases) but I'd say overall it was lukewarm. There were also plenty of GK players miffed at losing certain units, again I'd say lukewarm. IG aside all recent codexes have been bland/homogenised. DE doesn't look amazing and there are some unnecessary nerfs but some needed buffs and I think what we get will be a bit better than what we have.

Powerguy wrote:

 Oaka wrote:
Is the Beastpack unit terrible because they have new rules or terrible because the Baron doesn't exist anymore?

Both by the looks of it - its the classic double nerf. Both the Beasts themselves have been made worse and removing the Baron means they can no longer be the lynchpin of an army.

Definitely
Flocks were nerfed hard with less wounds, less attacks and it looks like no rending
Kymera got their invuln nerfed
lack of baron means you no longer have a way to get grenades or stealth

TBH i am still shocked at the lack of assault grenades on assault units, and wyches not decreasing in points and / or gaining some buff.

and the new PFP is not a buff.

old PFP- you bought 3 cheap haems for an HQ slot and got 3 pain tokens to start for some untis for fnp before game even began.

New pfp- you get the same pfp on turn 3, same of course being the 5+ fnp that was the nerfed version of fnp from 6th on.

Its surviving the first few turns that are critical for DE, not whatever remnants are left turn 3 all of the sudden being able to shrug off minor wounds.

Given the state of wyches last edition that a core element of one of the DE sects pretty much was further kicked down the stairs by its evil stepmother GW is somewhat shocking.

At this point the only possible redemption are some future wyche formations in some other book yet to be released, but that's fairly far fetched at this point.

I don't feel so bad off since I already have about 30 wracks and 10 grots(yay for isle of blood rat ogres...), and a crap ton of scourges, as they appear to be the new hotness, or blackness, or voidness. Also have 2 courts, and 4 clawed fiends, yay for buying crap no one wanted over the years...

 Colpicklejar wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:

 Xeriapt wrote:
Feels like a bit of a dirty tactic making the supplement have a bunch of rules and formations that sound really good.

Heres the codex, but, if you want the good stuff you have to buy this other book too.

I honestly don't think the coven supplement is necessary. You can make a better all around army with the codex. Coven has zero access to FA.

I have to agree with you. At first I thought it was lame that there was virtually no bleed between the two books. Other supplements (Orks, wolves) brought a lot of tasty stuff for those factions to use.

But the more I think about it, the more I like this way better. I have exactly zero coven units in my dark eldar force right now, and I plan to keep it that way. Did coven units get really awesome? Yes, certainly. But it's not like having them absent in my list is ruining some great synergy that would otherwise be present if I had the supplement. This is the way supplements should operate, IMO- related to the main codex, but different enough in playstyle and units that they effectively stand alone.

I AM a bit annoyed that the covens get like 9 formations and my kabalites get zero. And it does seem that the edge in power is definitely on the side of the covens, but that I can forgive. I don't think they completely blow them out of the water.

Kabalites do get a formation in the DE book. Its the formation that opens those 6 FA slots. The Coven book is awesome and glad I ordered it. As for no access to FA....2 CADS and you have everything....Not sure I see the sour grapes there. I think there are very viable lists in both books as well as combined.

I agree, I do see viable lists and there is some good variety.

Just still shocked that wyches didn't see any love.

Would have been nice if all three sects, coven, wyche, and kabalite- had some decent options to build armies from.

I think 2/3rds of those have goodness, the other is much less competitive it seems so far.

 SHUPPET wrote:


[Xenos] Dark Eldar: close to perfect internal balance of previous dex completely thrown out the window, loss of many flavourful army changing units, no new units at all, massive nerfs to well balanced not OP units, badly recieved???

I'm sorry what? I've literally never heard anyone say that about DE, ever.
The 5th DE codex suffered massively from Phil Kelly syndrome, I.E. Horrible internal balance with massive hit and miss units. IC Mandrake with the worst rules ever written to be the worst infiltrator that couldn't even join his other friends of worst infiltrators in the game. Massively over costed Reavers, Hellions, tons of bloated war gear with little to no use at all. Nothing in the elite slot (except for sometimes 1 rare unit of Incubi) was ever worth taking but Trueborns. Nothing in heavy support could really compete with the Ravager. Spamming nothing but Trueborns, Ravagers and Venoms was dominant, not because people lacked imagination, but everything else was quite lackluster compared those choices. Eldar allies with Baron beast pack came later, but still, the Trueborns/Ravager/Venom spam was still in the list with beast packs.

blaktoof wrote:
I agree, I do see viable lists and there is some good variety.

Just still shocked that wyches didn't see any love.

Would have been nice if all three sects, coven, wyche, and kabalite- had some decent options to build armies from.

I think 2/3rds of those have goodness, the other is much less competitive it seems so far.

Another codex made to bring all units in line. Underwhelming. Uninspired.
I'll play DE as allies. Here they fit quite well, but not as a stand alone army.

More Coven info from The Dark City:

Formations

1 - urien or haemy plus 2 units of grots - d6 roll at start of game for grots - +1S, +1T, fleet, shred, rage, 4+ FNP

2 - 1 haemy, 1 chronos, 2 units of wracks - all wracks gain precision strike, wracks treat turn 1 higher for pfp. if haemy is the warlord he gets trait 4 automatically

3 - 2 units of wracks in 2 venoms - if a unit in this formation scores first blood, gain D3 vp rather than 1. Wracks must start embarked an in reserve. Deployed turn 1 via deep strike

4 - unit of 5 Talos - gain scout. Score an extra vp for any non vehicle unit killed in combat

5 - 1 haemy, 1 Chronos, 1 Talos - form a single unit. Characters may not join it outside of this formation. Talos and chronos gain +1ws and init. If haemy is warlord, gain trait 1 automatically

6 - 1 haemy, 3 units of wracks with raiders. Master of pain from haemy confers to all units in this formation within 12". Warlord trait 5 if haemy is warlord

7 - all 6 formations as above in 1 formation - called the carnival of pain. Urien form formation 1 has his master of pain rule confer to whole formation. All non vehicles reroll 1's to wound in combat

Wonderwolf wrote:

 SHUPPET wrote:

[Xenos] Dark Eldar: close to perfect internal balance of previous dex completely thrown out the window, loss of many flavourful army changing units, no new units at all, massive nerfs to well balanced not OP units, badly recieved???

What?

From Mandraks on one hand to Venom-spam on the other, the old DE-dex is pretty much the textbook example of internal-balance failure. And why I know that tournament-players lament the loss of Haywire-Wyches, it was a unit utterly at odds with what it was supposed to be doing as a result of inept game-design.

New one seems much sleeker in the "game-play" department, even if it got its fluff taken out of it, as have all 7th Ed. books thus far.

Uh what? Did you play the dex or is this just what you saw more commonly in the List Building section? There was almost not a single unplayable unit in the 5E dex other than Mandrakes. Incubi and Talos were probably next on the scale of competiveness, and still not fully unusable, especially not on release. Almost the entire rest of the dex bar a couple (out of many) characters were playable, in fact almost any of them playable up to the highest level of play, with our dex having so many different possible units in competitive play were nobody could bat an eyelid if you went with Reavers or a Beastpack in your fast attack, Flyers or Ravagers in your Heavyset, warriors, why he's or Wracks in your troops, Blasterborn in your Elites or just more Wyches, Haemy or Baron as your HQ, Raiders or Venoms as your transports etc. and this is all at extremely high level of play. Grots, Vect, Dais, etc all being viable options, we had one of the most flexible dexes in the game, and although it lacked external balance and got roflstomped by a few armies (our Eldar being nigh untouchable, particularly for us), internally it was almost as close as you can get to a perfectly balanced codex. 6th and 7th changed the way WWP works, on its actual release it was even better. Complaining about the internal balance of the last dex is to me, the definition of being a typical whiny gamer unsatisfied with anything GW provides.

It's not about tournament players being unhappy, even as a casual player there is no reason to be happy about these changes that I can fathom. You were very vague, what exactly is it about this release that makes it so much better and sleeker than the one before it? The hardcover book? Or do you mean the streamlining on certain rules, completely taking playskill and ingame decisions out of the equation for things like PfP, and the fact that there will be much less choices in certain unit upgrades? This is the only interpretation possible that I can see for the army being "sleeker", but I fail to see how it is a good thing, for neither internal balance nor unit versatility.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mercury14 wrote:
Shuppet, what was this "close to perfect internal balance in the previous dex" you're referring to? Do you realize how many DE units in the old dex never saw the table because they were horrible?

This is exactly what I'm saying. Please name for me the units that never saw the table, bar Mandrakes and the lesser IC's. And almost name for me a better example of an internally balanced codex from 5E onwards.

So, now that Mandrakes don't suck does anyone have any good ideas for counts as Mandrakes? I don't want to pay out the butt for finecast.

I was thinking either Daemonettes or Dark Elf Sisters of Slaughter might work well.

I have daemonettes what I filed off the mouths, and added a small sized GS breast to match the slaaneshi mono boob and call them whoa-mandrakes.

 Exergy wrote:

Powerguy wrote:

 Oaka wrote:
Is the Beastpack unit terrible because they have new rules or terrible because the Baron doesn't exist anymore?

Both by the looks of it - its the classic double nerf. Both the Beasts themselves have been made worse and removing the Baron means they can no longer be the lynchpin of an army.

Definitely
Flocks were nerfed hard with less wounds, less attacks and it looks like no rending
Kymera got their invuln nerfed
lack of baron means you no longer have a way to get grenades or stealth

Yes...they do have rending still and 4 attacks so still 5 on the charge.

Also don't forget that one of the guys posting rumors who was fairly accurate (cant remember his name) said to expect a Wych Cult book too but it might be down the road a little due to the rush to get all the other codex's out. I also would not be surprised to see Vect out there....somewhere