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Just had my first game with them in a while at 2000pts wych army vs Iron Warriors/Heresy army. My initial thoughts were...

New jink, night fight stealth and vehicles exploding on 7s is a real boost for DE compared to 5th when I last played them. Most of my raiders were intact for much of the game. Although he was rolling a largely mixed force and not a pure shooting army. Plus he was distracted by my allied wraithknight with a lot of AT fire.

Haywire grenades are ridiculous. You could blow up a baneblade with that.

Problems

Lack of skyfire- I know, I know, it is obvious because its a 5th edition codex. But, one helldrake pretty much obliterated an entire flank single handedly. Quite literally burnt two whole squads of wyches and destroyed my own flier with a vector strike in two moves.

Dark Lances- These are pretty much terrible. I couldn't get anywhere near him because he had two land raiders with elite CC units in. Charging wyches in would have been suicidal as I would have blown up the tanks with haywire only to be rapid fired and charged. So I was really relying on my lances to knock out his armor. I brought 9 dark lances on various vehicles to the battle and these had 2 or 3 turns of full bs shooting but failed to destroy either heavy tank beyond knocking a few hull points off.

Overwatch- 6+ armor on wyches means it neutralises their ability to go first. Especially armies that bring a lot of flamers. Even with feel no pain I lost most of a squad before I could get that squad of obliterators.

FNP nerf- Being only 5+ when the army was designed with a 4+ FNP save in mind makes a big difference.

Grenades- At ws1 its real easy for a squad of raptors to rush in and blow up the raider with a melta bomb. Taking the whole squad of wyches with it.


Changes I hope they make

- Some form of skyfire and interceptor being easily available.

- Dark lances should be strength 9 or at least you should have the option of paying extra points to mount the heavier version on ravagers.

- Wyches should get their dodge invulnerable save against overwatch shots. Not all shooting, just the overwatch shots.

-Leliths blades should get fleshbane (2+ wound) and she should get her full inv save on shooting and a higher one in CC. At t3 she is really easy to wound and most things instant death her anyway. The point of a 200pts glass hammer is that it hits really hard and I don't consider a unit that can be clubed to death by chaos marines good. I could get a trygon for similar points and she didn't kill more than my hekatrix squad leader with an agoniser for precisely this reason. The whole game she only managed to kill 3 chaos marines, 1 terminator and knock a wound of a warpsmith and obliterator. An extremely poor performance, especially considering I actually got her into combat with so many units despite sustained fire.

- Wyches need to changed completely. Lorewise they are meant to be elite personal fighters in the same league as Aspect Warriors. Currently, they are ork boys with high initiative. Cheap, chearful and tarpit units. Whilst its not a terrible idea to have lesser initiate cult units fulfilling this role as troops I would prefer if they added a more elite type of wych which is actually a threat in CC. The Bloodbrides would be a good bet. Double the price, maybe even higher but give them abilities that reflect how good they are in CC. I get the feeling that this wasn't done in the old codex because they wanted to force harlequins on you as the unit you use for rending with invulnerable saves.

Basically, a glasshammer should struggle to survive and get its units into CC but if they do then they should hit really hard. Not throw 40 attacks and have them bounce off...

Not sure how they can balance the changes made to FNP. The Power through Pain ability might see a lot of revamping or even be completely cut in favor of something else.

I agree on most of your points, Wyches do need a buff of some sort, as does Lelith. We need some anti-flyer, although it is understandable why we do not and it is something that *will* be fixed next codex, until then my Void Raven has been doing all my heavy lifting. And then lances...lances are weird. If you take to many of them and base your army around them, they never seem to work for me. But almost every time when i pop off a single Dark Lance shot off of a Raider into something, it blows everything to high heaven! And example, in the last 5 games my Ravager has a kill list of 2 Rhino's dead and knocking off a few hull points here and there, a single specific Raider has a kill list of 2 Land Raiders (Same game!), Pred and a Wave Serpent (!!! He failed Serpent 2+, failed his 3+ Cover Save, and rolled a 6 to explode!). That may not seem helpful, so what i'm trying to say is that lances are good, but don't rely on them. Fit in other AT, every Wych should carry a HWG, 5x2 Scourges do well with Haywire Blasters, Reaver Jetbikes can carry melta and my personal favorite, the Void Raven packs a punch!

So my Answer to your problems without resorting to allies:

Lack of Skyfire: Void Raven works for me, an ADL is possible due to our characters ridiculous BS, other wise not much we can do.

Dark Lances: Take less, and supplement with other forms of AT.

Wych dodge saves: Agree, although you can help the Wyches pack a bit more punch. You do this by swapping Lelith out for 2 Succubi with Power Lances (trust me, this is an amazing build!), then give Power Lances to all you Hekatrii. Also consider taking the Duke, he is amazing in Wych cult lists.

Vehicle explosions: Stay away! Our vehicles are extremely fast Death Traps, stay in them for as little time as possible. Seriously, if you have a unit of 5 Warriors in a Raider, drop them off in cover and take the Raider away to shoot at stuff with nothing in. Get were you need, get out, then boost the Raider away. Remember, Raiders can score like troops now, so you are rewarded for keeping them alive until the end of the game.

A word of warning,, many, many people will tell you to use Eldar allies. Eldar are one of the most (over?) powerful codexes around nd while adding them to your DE force makes the whole thing run more smoothly, it also leads down a tricky slope. Since every thing Eldar have is better then what we DE get, the Eldar slowly muscle there way into taking over your army!

Yeah its the same points so I might take the void raven instead of the fighter. Should give a boost to AT and AA.

What's best about the Void Raven is how the new rules effect it's most deadly cargo, the implosion missile. Now, if a unit is forced to take a characteristic's test, you use the majority of that characteristic as if it were wounds, And another thing, you cannot LOS! Characteristic's tests. Add that together, what do you get? One of the best assassination tools in the game!

When centered on a character in a unit, there is a good chance it will either not miss or not move enough to miss him, but either way i take 2 Implosion Missiles. When centered on the character, he is now counted as majority wounds (1), and must pass a wounds test (roll a 2+ and you die) or be instantly killed. A Chaos Lord (Or even Typhus) hiding in a massive horde of cultists? Make that 5++ invul or you are dead, 4 Wound Herald of Nurgle or not.

I know he is very expensive at over 200 points for 2 Implosion Missiles, but i since those make there points back as soon as they fire, i find he is a great model for just about any enemy.

Well, for a start, I think a lot of units are due a price-drop.

Same goes for weapons - Blasters need to come down to 10pts, Dark Lances should probably be 15 (especially since firing them accurately also kills the squad's mobility). Shredders should give you 5pts extra for taking them.

A lot of equipment in general needs looking at - so much of it is worthless or just badly-overpriced:

Venom Blades - Good, basic weapon. No complaints, however, it always feels wrong when something like this is our go-to weapon - even for HQs - because our other weapons are so terrible and/or overpriced.

Power Weapons - I might consider a Power Axe on a Haemonculus (if I had spare points), or on one of our Sergeants, but that's about it.

Huskblade - Seems far too expensive for S3 models. Still, it's currently our only AP2 weapon that strikes at initiative and at least has a solid effect. Also, why does a Haemonculus pay as much for this as an Archon? Yeah, fear those WS4 I4 attacks.

Agoniser - Not a poison weapon, and now only AP3. Sigh. Our glass-cannon seems to be lacking ammunition.

Electrocorrosive Whip - Does anyone ever use this? I feel you could knock off 75% of its price and it would still never see play.

Flesh Gauntlet - Is there some sort of design code whereby crap weapons have to cost 20pts? I can't think of many situations where this would be better than Venom Blades (and it costs 4 times as much), and even fewer where poison-shooting wouldn't work even better. Still, at least it's available on the combat beast that is the Haemonculus...

Mindphase Gauntlet - An initiative-based weapon that's exclusive to I4 models (And the Haem. Ancient). Also very specific in its targets, and doesn't actually improve your combat abilities one iota. At least it's cheap, I guess.

Djin Blade (feel free to add 'Noble' or 'Resplendent') - Combine with soul-trap and you can create possibly the only HQ in the game capable of instant-deathing himself. I'm not sure what particular issue that ability solves, but it's bound to solve something. (Also, a cookie for anyone who gets the reference at the beginning. )

Animus Vitae - Did this really need to be a special weapon, rather than just working with whatever weapon the model happens to be wielding? In my mind this weapon is 'special' in the same way that the kid eating paste is 'special'.

Personally, I'd like to see more 'solid' weapons (like the agonizer pre-6th) - rather than ones that might do something useful if it's exactly 6pm, on a Tuesday and your opponent is feeling generous.

Also, I'd like to just have more special weapon options. Our warriors currently get to choose between:
A Blaster
A Heavy Blaster
More poison (yeah, thanks, we were running a bit low on the stuff...)
And something apparently called a 'Shredder', which utterly fails to live up to that name.

Some more intermediate weapons (as opposed to 2 dedicated anti-infantry and 2 dedicated anti-vehicle) would be nice. As would an actual template weapon. The really annoying thing is that other weapons exist - we have Haywire Blasters, we have Heat Lances, we have Disintegrations, we have Shardcarbines, yet none of these are available to our troops. Why not?

Also, given the rules for snap-shotting, it would be nice if we had anti-tank weapons that were either twin-linked or that had multiple-shots.

Anyway, moving on, it would be nice if the Agoniser was allowed its AP2 back. It's more than a little irritating that an I8 Succubus is only allowed AP2 if she's willing to sacrifice 7 points of initiative!

I'm also with the others who'd like options for our HQs to take Skyboards and Jetbikes.

I'd also like to see Shadowfield changed, so that a failed save disables it for that phase - not for the rest of the game.

Also, whilst I like the idea of poison weapons, more recently I've found them as much of a hindrance as a bonus (can't hurt vehicles, worse against T3). At the very least, it would be nice to see either some different values for poison (not just a blanket 4+), or different weapons having different strength values (so, they're all 4+ still, but some can reroll against certain toughness scores).

I might post some more ideas later (also, apologies if this post was a bit jumbled).

 vipoid wrote:

Huskblade - Seems far too expensive for S3 models. Still, it's currently our only AP2 weapon that strikes at initiative and at least has a solid effect. Also, why does a Haemonculus pay as much for this as an Archon? Yeah, fear those WS4 I4 attacks.

For the same reason that IG characters/sergeants pay Space Marine prices on weapon upgrades.

Phil Kelly.

 Kanluwen wrote:

For the same reason that IG characters/sergeants pay Space Marine prices on weapon upgrades.

Phil Kelly.

Huh, I hadn't noticed that in the new guard book.

Indeed, that seems equally stupid (as does sergeants paying the same points as characters).

Yeah agonisers are expensive.

Come think of it. With the "new" allies rules they might decide to drop Harlequins entirely and hopefully replace them with a more elite wych unit. The unit has no DE armywide special rules and is a bit of lame duck.

Also its silly how harlequins get WS5 for being sooo "mysterious".

Hope Succubi get some sort of boost to make taking them viable. Coz its a cool model in its own right.

I have a feeling they might nerf the venom and the Duke.

Are Dark Eldar the only codex with zero pysker choices? (Shadowseer hardly qualifies) I feel that if you don't roster a psyker then you're missing out on those D6 warp dice each turn.

Yes, Dark Eldar have 0 psyker choices. Necrons do as well, both for fluff reasons. Personally, I hope they remain having no psykers.

Things I would like to seee.

Pts decreases like everyone has been getting for 6th and now 7th edition.

Power from pain- I don't see much of a point in making FnP 4+ instead of 5+. Most things firing at DE are str6+ these days and negate FnP anyways on most of the models in the army.

All squad leaders/characters that are faction Dark Eldar get adamantium will, or something similar. You cant purchase Pyskers in the faction to generate WC to deny, but give some psychic defense so they at least have some way to interact with the psychic phase.

Better anti psyker relics. For a race that has almost no psychic presence, and tries to hide their psychic presence from the warp you would think they would have invented something that would affect psychic presence or mask it.

Mandrakes made useful- Either have them not take a FoC slot, and you can buy a unit of them per something else you bought. Steep points decrease % wise, and let the nightfiend come with altered physique so they can start with a pain token.

Baron sathonyx to not be allowed to join a unit of eldar, he carries the bones of a farseer he murdered. Doesn't make much sense that other farseers would want to hang out with him while he is using the murdered farseers stuff to predict the future...

Shredders- made into template weapons instead of blast. given rending. or shred

Webway portals- Either a cost reduction or given for free as part of a formation/detachment type specific to Dark Eldar.

Access to hellion skyboard/reaver jetbike for Succubus and or Archon.

Succubus given access to clone field, or shadow field.

A new bladed chariot model, that is part of the wyche cult. Pulled by 2 wyches on reavers(models focus on driving no bonus attacks) with cluster caltrops. has standard chariot rules + Sweep + Hit and Run + Skilled Rider. Can Sweep 24" when going flat out- does 3d6 str 6 hits on flybys against non vehicle models when going flat out or 2d3str4+d6 str6 when it hammer of wraths. Has 2 riders in the chariot, 1 with a stunclaw/shardnet, the other with a long spear. Riders count as a single 2 wound model with Hekatrix stats+1 attack. Attacks with powerlance stats, enemy models in base with chariot get -1 attack to minimum of 1. Must attempt to Hit and Run after each round of assault it is in, can use stun claw to pull model with it. Chariot is AV 10 all around, fast, has 2 HP. Can buy certain vehicle upgrades.

I heard chariots in Arenas were Hot.

Vect- LoW, his melee attacks become ap 2. Would be nice to see a new model.

New LoW unit - Pain Engine. MC Haemonoculus construct

Some form of Anti Air.

Maybe a new weapon option for where normally a disnintegrator/dark lance is mounted.

Or a vehicle upgrade that lets the unit "pop up" instead of moving to count as a flying for a turn so it can shoot at fliers.

Or letting reavers/hellions attack fliers/FMCs in CC but cannot lock them in assault, neeed 5's to hit (6s if target was going flat out or zooming) and models with WS/I may strike back in iniative order (but still are not locked in assault on their turn).

Actually FNP 4+ makes a big difference. Its an additional save on top of invulnerable and cover saves. This really improves the survivability of the unit against massed rapid firing guns and flamers. The obvious intent is that the dark eldar charge off their raiders, kill the unit and then have to absorb one turn of shooting. Obviously big blast weapons or monstrous creatures should ignore this.

A FNP of 5+ can only save you 1/3 of the time whereas 4+ works half of the time. So it did make a difference and it was factored into their cost. Which is why I hope this gets changed as the codex was built with 5th edition in mind.

I know something I'd like - Capacity 11 and capacity 6 on Raiders and Venoms, respectively.

I don't know any other race that needs to take 9- or 4-man squads if they want to put an HQ in the transport as well.

You silly people...everyone knows the shredder only works against rats and turtles

Not sure why you guys don't like the fighter. It works very well for me in most game but I take them in pairs. Good AA and anti troop.

I wish they would do more with the coven list. I spent all that money on finecrap for a coven list that cant do anything anymore. FNP to 5+ was a huge nerf for my list and overwatch typically wipes me out before I get into combat hehe. Very little shooting and most armies are better than I am at CC so they have had a lot of shelf time.

One complaint i hear is that they lack a mid strength multi shot weapon like a heavy bolter, multi laser or heavy bolter for glancing transports.

 Fishboy wrote:
You silly people...everyone knows the shredder only works against rats and turtles

Actually, I'm pretty sure it lost that fight too.

 Fishboy wrote:
Not sure why you guys don't like the fighter. It works very well for me in most game but I take them in pairs. Good AA and anti troop.

Speaking personally, I don't mind it - though it is a bit weird that it's a better bomber than the actual bomber.

However, we shouldn't need to take fliers to deal with other fliers - that's just horrible game design.

 Fishboy wrote:
I wish they would do more with the coven list. I spent all that money on finecrap for a coven list that cant do anything anymore. FNP to 5+ was a huge nerf for my list and overwatch typically wipes me out before I get into combat hehe. Very little shooting and most armies are better than I am at CC so they have had a lot of shelf time.

To be honest, I think 6th basically killed every combat unit in the book.

 The Home Nuggeteer wrote:
One complaint i hear is that they lack a mid strength multi shot weapon like a heavy bolter, multi laser or heavy bolter for glancing transports.

Technically, they have a Heavy Bolter type weapon - the Disintegrator. However, the problem is that S5 just isn't enough - they need something like an assault cannon or auto cannon. There are just too many AV12 transports for S5 to be a reliable source of anti-armour, and even against rhinos you need 6s just to glance.

blaktoof wrote:
Yes, Dark Eldar have 0 psyker choices. Necrons do as well, both for fluff reasons. Personally, I hope they remain having no psykers.

Things I would like to seee.

Pts decreases like everyone has been getting for 6th and now 7th edition.

Power from pain- I don't see much of a point in making FnP 4+ instead of 5+. Most things firing at DE are str6+ these days and negate FnP anyways on most of the models in the army.

All squad leaders/characters that are faction Dark Eldar get adamantium will, or something similar. You cant purchase Pyskers in the faction to generate WC to deny, but give some psychic defense so they at least have some way to interact with the psychic phase.

Better anti psyker relics. For a race that has almost no psychic presence, and tries to hide their psychic presence from the warp you would think they would have invented something that would affect psychic presence or mask it.

Mandrakes made useful- Either have them not take a FoC slot, and you can buy a unit of them per something else you bought. Steep points decrease % wise, and let the nightfiend come with altered physique so they can start with a pain token.

Baron sathonyx to not be allowed to join a unit of eldar, he carries the bones of a farseer he murdered. Doesn't make much sense that other farseers would want to hang out with him while he is using the murdered farseers stuff to predict the future...

Shredders- made into template weapons instead of blast. given rending. or shred

Webway portals- Either a cost reduction or given for free as part of a formation/detachment type specific to Dark Eldar.

Access to hellion skyboard/reaver jetbike for Succubus and or Archon.

Succubus given access to clone field, or shadow field.

A new bladed chariot model, that is part of the wyche cult. Pulled by 2 wyches on reavers(models focus on driving no bonus attacks) with cluster caltrops. has standard chariot rules + Sweep + Hit and Run + Skilled Rider. Can Sweep 24" when going flat out- does 3d6 str 6 hits on flybys against non vehicle models when going flat out or 2d3str4+d6 str6 when it hammer of wraths. Has 2 riders in the chariot, 1 with a stunclaw/shardnet, the other with a long spear. Riders count as a single 2 wound model with Hekatrix stats+1 attack. Attacks with powerlance stats, enemy models in base with chariot get -1 attack to minimum of 1. Must attempt to Hit and Run after each round of assault it is in, can use stun claw to pull model with it. Chariot is AV 10 all around, fast, has 2 HP. Can buy certain vehicle upgrades.

I heard chariots in Arenas were Hot.

Vect- LoW, his melee attacks become ap 2. Would be nice to see a new model.

New LoW unit - Pain Engine. MC Haemonoculus construct

Some form of Anti Air.

Maybe a new weapon option for where normally a disnintegrator/dark lance is mounted.

Or a vehicle upgrade that lets the unit "pop up" instead of moving to count as a flying for a turn so it can shoot at fliers.

Or letting reavers/hellions attack fliers/FMCs in CC but cannot lock them in assault, neeed 5's to hit (6s if target was going flat out or zooming) and models with WS/I may strike back in iniative order (but still are not locked in assault on their turn).

I like all this biz.

Oh, and I want a model for Vect's Dais of Destruction!!!

Things I would like to see-

Venoms bump to 6 capacity, and Raiders to 12. Points stay the same or lower, as flamers vs opentopped hurts DE a lot, especially with their T3

Flickerfield changes from a 5++ save to reroll Jink saves (to make it different from holofields/D-Pods.

Razorwing moves to FA

Monoscythe missiles change to S7 AP5 assault 1 Oneshot, so they work better against vehicles/fliers, and make Necrotoxin/Shatterfield missiles worth taking.

Void Raven gains Strafing run, missiles by default.

Lelith gains EW in close combat.

Drazhar's Darting Strike changes to let him choose to challenge in a combat, rather than opponent choosing.

EC whip is a power weapon that doubles the users strength, rather than halving enemies.

Torment Grenade launchers on vehicles deny overwatch.

Add boarding planks to Raiders like Orks. They have them on the model after all.

Court of the Archon units are all 0-X instead of 1-X

Wracks become troops by default.

Trueborn: Carbine drops to 3 points per model. Ghostplate becomes a 5 point upgrade that the entire unit can take.
Special weapons got from 4 per unit to 2 per 5, and heavy weapons go to 1 per 5. Dark Lance drops to 20 points.

Bloodbrides- drop 2 points per model. Razorflails drop to 5 point upgrade. Dodge save works vs Overwatch

Warriors- 1 per 5 may take blaster or shredder. 1 per 10 may take heavy weapon.

Wyches- drop 2 points per model. 5 to 20 models. Razorflails drop to 5 points per model. Dodge save works vs Overwatch

Hellions gain Jink

Scourges- Blaster drops to 12 points.

Add Dais of Destruction as as HS transport- 12/12/10 Capacity 20 models, 2 Dark Lances/Disintegrators May add a pair of extra Dark Lances/Disintegrators or Splinter Cannons. May take Raider upgrades. Skimmer, assault vehicle. (not fast, not Open topped)