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Hello, archons and archites! In celebration of the darkest night of the year rapidly approaching, I thought I'd toss a couple proposed dark eldar rules your way. None of these are playtested. Some of them are probably very bad ideas. I wanted to get your thoughts all the same.

DARK ELDAR GOODIE BAG
REVISED POWER FROM PAIN:
Replace the normal rules for Power From Pain with the following. At the start of each player turn, consult the following table. All models (friend and foe) with the Power From Pain rule receive the benefits indicated on the table. The pain meter starts at 0 and increases by 1 each time a non-vehicle unit (friend or foe) is removed as a casualty. The pain meter goes down by 1 point at the end of each player turn in which no non-vehicle units were destroyed. The pain meter can never be reduced below 0.
Pain Meter Benefits
0 None.
1-3 Feel No Pain(5+)
4-6 Feel No Pain (4+), Furious Charge
7-9 Fearless, Feel No Pain (4+), Furious Charge, Rage
10+ Fearless, Feel No Pain (3+), Furious Charge, It Will Not Die, Rage

Apply the following changes to account for this modified Power From Pain mechanic:
• All rules that normally allow a unit to treat the turn number as being 1 higher for purposes of Power From Pain instead allow the unit to treat the Pain Meter as being two points higher. Except the Animus Vitae. It’s benefitting from the rule below instead.
• When one or more models are removed as casualties by a spirit syphon, spirit vortex, or animus vitae, increase the Pain Meter by 1 for each model slain.

VEHICLE ARMORY:
Add or modify the following vehicle wargear options.
• Night Shields (Price unchanged): Instead of Stealth, these now grant a generic +1 to cover saves. This allows the benefit to stack with Night Fighting, plus it makes the real space raiders rules more useful.
• Retrofire Jets (5pts): If this model would mishap when arriving via deepstrike, reduce the distance scattered by the minimum amount necessary to avoid misshaping.
• Reaver Pilot(15 pts): A model with this rule may move 2d6” during the dark eldar player’s charge sub-phase provided it did not flat-out earlier that turn.
• Rapid Ascent Engines(40 pts): A model equipped with this wargear becomes a flyer with the hover rule. While the model is zooming, passengers embarked upon the model gain the skyfire rule. Note: This means they’ll be snap-shooting at models on the ground, but they’ll be able to tackle FMCs and flyers at full BS.
• Scaling Nets (10 pts): Passengers may disembark from a model with this rule during the movement phase provided they did not embark in the previous movement phase and provided the vehicle did not flat-out this turn. Note: So you can try to shoot up or even ram an enemy vehicle before deciding whether or not you want to risk your squishy space elves.
• Venoms may replace their splinter cannon and or splinter carbines with the following:
-Twin-linked haywire blaster… 5 pts each
-Twin-linked heat lance… 5 pts each
-Twin-linked blaster… 5 pts each

The PFP changes are here because, frankly, I'm not a huge fan of the system we have now. It lacks the visceral reward of the old PFP system, and the slow-charge on the bonuses turns us into a beta strike army rather than a force that wants to start hurting things fast and early. The pain meter going down is meant to reflect the idea that things are quieting down over time. It's meant to compel the dark eldar to keep seeking a constant pain high. You should feel a bit twitchy if you have to watch the pain meter go down a point. The changes to the cronos's weapons are meant to recapture the feeling of sucking out a soul and handing it to your allies that the Cronos used to give. Obviously these changes don't benefit covens units as much as the current Coven PFP table. I'll look into an alternative table for them if this first batch of rules is well-received.

Night shields are a flat upgrade. This makes me nervous. Have I over-stepped with this buff?

Retrofire jets are meant to let you deepstrike lots of stuff without worrying about landing on your other units. It seems fluffy to me that a dark eldar pilot should be able to avoid killing himself and his allies after centuries of navigating the Dark City's traffic.

Reaver pilots give us a vehicular analogue to Battle Focus or jet packs. Dark eldar are meant to be fast and agile, but they're currently outmaneuvered by craftworlders and other factions. This lets us stay alive via speed and maneuvering and adds a bit to our overall speed. Considering how large vehicles are, I doubt people will be able to hide a ton of vehicles behind BLOS terrain in a given game, so I feel this is a reasonable piece of wargear.

I imagine the rapid ascent engines are going to be the thing that people object to the most. My thinking is that it lets us be better protected and gives us a way to deal with flyers (blasterborn in a flying venom for instance) at the cost of being less effective against ground targets while flying. And at 40 points per model on our fragile, moderately expensive vehicles, you'll be shrinking the overall size of your army considerably if you put this on several units.

Scaling nets feel like they might be a feel-bad upgrade, but I feel that most of our assault units could use a mild boost. I'm unsure about these.

The gun options on the raider and venom are meant to allow us to spread around more reliable anti-tank weapons through our army. The heat lance is less good against non-vehicles and requires you get close, but it's also AP1. The haywire blaster requires you get closer than a dark lance too, but it's able to consistently shave off hull points. The twin-linked blasters make venoms expensive but relatively deadly as vehicle-hunters. On a raider, you're basically trading half your dark lance range for twin-linked.


What do you think? These are just some ideas I've been kicking around for a while.

UPDATE 12-16-2016
The conversation below inspired me to brew up some rules for our beloved HQs. Oh and look! Kheradruakh seems to have stopped slinking around in the darkness to say hello as a Lord of War choice! Obviously I haven't put much thought into the pricing of these abilities. I feel they're hard to price as their usefulness tends to scale up or down depending on the size of the game. Your thoughts?

COMBAT DRUGS: Reduce the drug table to a d3 chart with only the +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, and +1 Attacks results.

DRUG DISPENSERS: Any character in a Dark Eldar detachment may take a drug dispenser for 15 points. At the beginning of each assault phase, each model with a drug dispenser may choose to benefit form any number of combatdrugs of their choice for the duration of the phase. At the end of the phase, the model rolls a d6 for each drug they benefitted from that phase. If any doubles are rolled, the model takes a single wound with no save or FNP of any kind allowed.

HQ OPTIONS
ARCHONS: Gain access to the following options.
-Ancient Schemer: If this archon is your warlord, she gains has the Labyrinthine Cunning warlord trait automatically. X points.
-Raid Leader: Add +1 to the roll to determine whether or not Night Fighting is in effect. Dark Eldar models you place in reserve may opt to roll for reserves beginning on turn 1. Y points.
-Slave Taker: Before the game, count the number of enemy non-vehicle units. Keep track of any such enemy units destroyed by sweeping advances or weapons with the poison rule. Score an additional VP at the end of the game if the number of enemy units slain in this fashion is equal to at least half the starting number of such units. (Too wordy? Basically if you sweet or poison at least half the enemy non-vehicle units to death, you get an extra VP. Maybe this would make a better special mission than a special army-wide rule?) Z points.

SUCCUBI: Gain access to the following options.
-Reaver Queen: Reavers become a troop choice for your army, and this succubus may be mounted upon a reaver jetbike at no additional cost. X points.
-Toxic Arena: Units with the Combat Drugs rule benefit from an additional combat drug for the duration of the game, and this model may be equipped with a Drug Dispenser at no additional cost. Y points.
-Blood Sport: Increase the pain meter by an additional point each time you destroy an enemy non-vehicle unit in the assault phase. Z points.

HAEMONCULI: Gain access to the following options.
-Teachings of Shaimesh (mostly stolen from jade_angel): Any model in the same unit as this haemonculus treat the poison rule of their weapons as being Poison(2+). Weapons without the poison rule gain no benefit.
-Cornucopia of Pain: For each haemonculus with this rule in your army, increase the pain meter's starting value by 2.
-Rapid Resurrection: If at least one haemonculus with this rule is still alive at the end of the game, roll a d6 for each friendly, non-vehicle unit with the dark eldar faction that was destroyed during the game. On a 5+, that unit was not considered to have been destroyed for purposes of victory points. So a chance at kill point denial, basically.


LORD OF WAR: KHERADRUAKH, THE DECAPITATOR
Points: I feel like he's comparable to a Phoenix Lord but without the ability to help out other squads (note the lack of the IC rule). His lack of an armor save makes him somewhat squishier in melee though. Call him 175 points?
Stats: WS 7 BS 7 S 5 T 3 W 3 I 7 A 4 Ld 10 Sv -
Special Rules: Bale Blast, Character, Fleet, Head Hunter, Hit & Run, Infiltrate, Move Through Cover, Night Vision, Plasma Grenades, Power From Pain, Precision Strike, Shrouded, Stealth
Wargear: Decaptitator

Decapitator: S User, Ap2, Any to-wound roll of 6 made by this weapon has the instant death rule.

Head Hunter

Like a gamer eyeing his choice of miniatures, the decapitator carefully seeks out the next skull to add to his collection. Before deployment, select on enemy character model. If Kheradruakh removes that model as a casualty during the course of the game, score 1 additional Victory Point.

Shade Stalker
Kheradruakh is a terrifying and enigmatic creature more likely to pursue his own strange agendas than to obey the whims of an archon. Kheradruakh may never be joined by an independent character. At any point in the Dark Eldar player's movement phase in which he is not locked in combat, Kheradruakh may opt to go into ongoing reserves. Kheradruakh may opt to not arrive from reserves each turn. At the beginning of any Dark Eldar turn in which Kheradruakh is in reserves, roll a d6 and consult the following table.

1-2 "What Was That?": Kheradruakh stalks his prey, filling them with dread. Select a single enemy unit. Until the start of the next Dark Eldar turn, that unit suffers a -2 to its leadership.
3-4 "Where'd you go?!" Kheradruakh thins the herd, eliminating lesser prey before they can cry out for help. Select an enemy non-vehicle unit. Your opponent must remove d3 non-character models from that unit as casualties. Models with a base cost (meaning their base price before wargear or other upgrades) of more than 25 points may not be selected as casualties.
5-6 A Blade in the Dark: Kheradruakh strikes with speed and precision, killing faster than the eye can track. Kheradruakh must be placed on the table and may be placed anywhere provided he is at least one inch away from enemy models. He may assault normally this turn despite having arrived from reserves. Until the start of the next Dark Eldar turn, all to-hit rolls made against Kheradruakh only hit on a roll of 6.

I like the PFP changes in general but with counter able to go down as well as up depending on your kills that turn I think the book keeping might be a bit too much. I also don't think there's anyway to make PFP work that wouldn't encourage Dark Eldar being a Beta Strike army, the whole point is to make us stronger the longer we go on.

I'm not sure why you'd think you overstepped with Night Shields, it's a 15pt upgrade that gives us +1 to cover. Most of the time it will be functionally identical to the current Night Shields, the only time it will be different is if Night Fighting is in effect, I don't think any one can really complain about a 2+ jink for just the first turn on our paper thin vehicles.

Retrofire jets are a good idea, I think we could also do with something that lets us re-roll dangerous terrain tests, it's rediculous that we run more vehicles than almost any other faction yet have no way to overcome this stupid rule (I hate Dangerous Terrain, it never makes any sense).

Maybe make Reaver Pilots 10pts instead, but anpther good idea.

I like the idea of Rapid Ascent engines, but at 40pts it's about double the cost of what it should be.

I think you need to rewright Scaling Nets, I can't see what it does that the Assault Vehicle special rule doesn't already give us.

You've made no mention of the weapon options being for the Raider as well as the Venom, but I think it would have been good to add in the Disintegrator Cannon as well (would love to have Venoms running around with 2 of those on!).

 Imateria wrote:
I like the PFP changes in general but with counter able to go down as well as up depending on your kills that turn I think the book keeping might be a bit too much. I also don't think there's anyway to make PFP work that wouldn't encourage Dark Eldar being a Beta Strike army, the whole point is to make us stronger the longer we go on.

I'm not sure why you'd think you overstepped with Night Shields, it's a 15pt upgrade that gives us +1 to cover. Most of the time it will be functionally identical to the current Night Shields, the only time it will be different is if Night Fighting is in effect, I don't think any one can really complain about a 2+ jink for just the first turn on our paper thin vehicles.

Retrofire jets are a good idea, I think we could also do with something that lets us re-roll dangerous terrain tests, it's rediculous that we run more vehicles than almost any other faction yet have no way to overcome this stupid rule (I hate Dangerous Terrain, it never makes any sense).

Maybe make Reaver Pilots 10pts instead, but anpther good idea.

I like the idea of Rapid Ascent engines, but at 40pts it's about double the cost of what it should be.

I think you need to rewright Scaling Nets, I can't see what it does that the Assault Vehicle special rule doesn't already give us.

You've made no mention of the weapon options being for the Raider as well as the Venom, but I think it would have been good to add in the Disintegrator Cannon as well (would love to have Venoms running around with 2 of those on!).

Sorry for the delayed response! I've been too exhausted to long on much lately. >.<

POWER FROM PAIN:
I understand and share your concerns. I wanted to have a way for PFP to decrease over time to encourage dark eldar players to keep up the pressure on their opponents and to start attacking early. Remember, you don't power up your pain batteries in this system unless things are dying, so beta striking might not help you out as much as alpha striking. I'm also worried that not letting the pain decrease over time might make it too easy for dark eldar to pile up a bunch of pain over the first couple of turns and then not have to think about it for the rest of the game. I worry that might feel less like you have a craving that must be constantly sated and more like you just need a quick shot of pain to top yourself off every now and then. I'm operating under the assumption that there will be one or two turns a game in which no non-vehicle units are completely destroyed, but maybe that's a flawed assumption. How would you feel about this mechanic if the pain meter could not be decreased? Or what if weapons like the spirit vortex didn't increase the pain level on a per-kill basis but instead simply increased the pain meter by 1 at the end of a turn in which they killed one or more models (rather than entire units)?

NIGHT SHIELDS:
I was specifically thinking about armies with the Stealth(Ruins) warlord trait getting a 2+ jink while in ruins. 4+ from jink, 3+ from Stealth, 2+ from night shields.

Glad you like the retrofires and reaver pilots!

RAPID ASCENT ENGINES:
Interesting you say that. The one other person I've run this bye seemed to think the engines were too good at 40 points because of the boost to durability it provided.

SCALING NETS:
Absolutely need to be rewritten. They're supposed to allow you to disembark in the shooting phase. The idea was that you could drive a raider up near an enemy transport and then shoot at it with other units before deciding whether or not to disembark your incubi (or wahtever). So if the transport doesn't pop, maybe you want to keep the safety of your transport. Or if the transport does pop and then your shooty elements finish off the guys that hop out of it, maybe it isn't worth assaulting the squad that came out and exposing yourself in the following turn.

RAIDER WEAPONS:
Bleck. More oversights. I meant to make similar options available to raiders, but I felt they might warrant different price tags on that platform. You like the idea of having more gun options on our transports in general though? Disintegrator venoms could be a lot of fun to field! It's enough shots to mildly threatening to light vehicles, devastating against 2+ armor and MEQs, and pretty solid against a lot of MCs. Would strength 5 AP 2 be too good compared to splinter cannons though? I wouldn't want to overshadow the poison option.

Yeah I feel like Dissies on Venoms would unbalance the already ropey relationship between Raiders and Venoms (although whether that's a valid convern given the current meta I'm not sure).

Quite like this. Bookkeeping argument is pretty void given the amount of junk we have to track already. It's one army-wide value that's no more complicated to track than the wounds of a single model with It Will Not Die.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Imateria wrote:
I like the PFP changes in general but with counter able to go down as well as up depending on your kills that turn I think the book keeping might be a bit too much. I also don't think there's anyway to make PFP work that wouldn't encourage Dark Eldar being a Beta Strike army, the whole point is to make us stronger the longer we go on.

I'm not sure why you'd think you overstepped with Night Shields, it's a 15pt upgrade that gives us +1 to cover. Most of the time it will be functionally identical to the current Night Shields, the only time it will be different is if Night Fighting is in effect, I don't think any one can really complain about a 2+ jink for just the first turn on our paper thin vehicles.

Retrofire jets are a good idea, I think we could also do with something that lets us re-roll dangerous terrain tests, it's rediculous that we run more vehicles than almost any other faction yet have no way to overcome this stupid rule (I hate Dangerous Terrain, it never makes any sense).

Maybe make Reaver Pilots 10pts instead, but anpther good idea.

I like the idea of Rapid Ascent engines, but at 40pts it's about double the cost of what it should be.

I think you need to rewright Scaling Nets, I can't see what it does that the Assault Vehicle special rule doesn't already give us.

You've made no mention of the weapon options being for the Raider as well as the Venom, but I think it would have been good to add in the Disintegrator Cannon as well (would love to have Venoms running around with 2 of those on!).

Sorry for the delayed response! I've been too exhausted to long on much lately. >.<

POWER FROM PAIN:
I understand and share your concerns. I wanted to have a way for PFP to decrease over time to encourage dark eldar players to keep up the pressure on their opponents and to start attacking early. Remember, you don't power up your pain batteries in this system unless things are dying, so beta striking might not help you out as much as alpha striking. I'm also worried that not letting the pain decrease over time might make it too easy for dark eldar to pile up a bunch of pain over the first couple of turns and then not have to think about it for the rest of the game. I worry that might feel less like you have a craving that must be constantly sated and more like you just need a quick shot of pain to top yourself off every now and then. I'm operating under the assumption that there will be one or two turns a game in which no non-vehicle units are completely destroyed, but maybe that's a flawed assumption. How would you feel about this mechanic if the pain meter could not be decreased? Or what if weapons like the spirit vortex didn't increase the pain level on a per-kill basis but instead simply increased the pain meter by 1 at the end of a turn in which they killed one or more models (rather than entire units)?

NIGHT SHIELDS:
I was specifically thinking about armies with the Stealth(Ruins) warlord trait getting a 2+ jink while in ruins. 4+ from jink, 3+ from Stealth, 2+ from night shields.

Glad you like the retrofires and reaver pilots!

RAPID ASCENT ENGINES:
Interesting you say that. The one other person I've run this bye seemed to think the engines were too good at 40 points because of the boost to durability it provided.

SCALING NETS:
Absolutely need to be rewritten. They're supposed to allow you to disembark in the shooting phase. The idea was that you could drive a raider up near an enemy transport and then shoot at it with other units before deciding whether or not to disembark your incubi (or wahtever). So if the transport doesn't pop, maybe you want to keep the safety of your transport. Or if the transport does pop and then your shooty elements finish off the guys that hop out of it, maybe it isn't worth assaulting the squad that came out and exposing yourself in the following turn.

RAIDER WEAPONS:
Bleck. More oversights. I meant to make similar options available to raiders, but I felt they might warrant different price tags on that platform. You like the idea of having more gun options on our transports in general though? Disintegrator venoms could be a lot of fun to field! It's enough shots to mildly threatening to light vehicles, devastating against 2+ armor and MEQs, and pretty solid against a lot of MCs. Would strength 5 AP 2 be too good compared to splinter cannons though? I wouldn't want to overshadow the poison option.

PFP
We've got a glass cannon army that has to do damage early on so I don't see that as a huge problem anway. I guess it's worth trying out to see how much it affects the book keeping though.

NIGHT SHIELDS
Could be a problem, but it's based on a bonus gained from a random roll and still all it takes is a couple of Ignores Cover weapons to make it useless.

RAPID ASCENT ENGINES
Looking at it, how about 20pts, lets you fly and gives the vehicle and the guys inside Skyfire but forces them both to only snap shoot at the ground. Improves durability and finally gives us another source of Skyfire but at the cost of fire power against ground targets, making it's use situational.

SCALING NETS
I'm not sure I see the value in the Scaling Nets to be honest, when I disembark a unit to charge the enemy I know I want to charge them, the only upside to this is that I can decide not to do so if I haven't popped the transport. Given that I'd normally just wait until the next turn to make sure they're on the board before I try to charge them anyway, I'm not seeing a huge advantage.

I've thought of an alternative though, how about letting it overide the restriction of only being able to disembark if the vehicle moves 6" or less. I do like the thought of our Fast Vehicles moving 12" and then having the Incubi or Grotesques jump out to kill something, and fits in with the DE perfectly.

RAIDER WEAPONS
More options for our army is never a bad thing, ever. I defintiely want Venoms to be able to take Dissies but the problem is going to be in balancing their points cost, 5pts each over a Splinter Cannon might be too cheap, but would 10pts be too much?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah I feel like Dissies on Venoms would unbalance the already ropey relationship between Raiders and Venoms (although whether that's a valid convern given the current meta I'm not sure).

Raiders definitely need some help, but some of that problem is definitely down to 10 man units being distinctly sub optimal in most cases.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah I feel like Dissies on Venoms would unbalance the already ropey relationship between Raiders and Venoms (although whether that's a valid convern given the current meta I'm not sure).

Look at Corsairs and Harlequins, they get S6 on there Venoms/Starweavers. After playing those to armies (I stopped DE and played them b.c I couldnt stand DE anymore). it really shows DE weakness. S5, Poison and single S8 doesnt do enough, it didnt in 5th, 6th and still doesnt in 7th.

Giving Venoms Diss Cannons is a step in the right direction honestly. The point of a Venom is to be small hard to hit Gun platform that can carry some man forces.

Raiders SHOULD be the go to for forward pushing melee/alpha strike armies.

Venoms need:
Diss Cannons and HWB's, DE LACKS real Anti Vehicle

Raider needs:
More Survivable: Shock Prow need to give +1 Front armor and what it already does (to represent pushing forwards) make this 15pts
NFs should be 10pts not 15 and +1 cover (not stealth)

Bomber needs to be all D weapons or S10 ap1. If this doesnt happen lower price be 50pts

Razorwing Poison gun needs to be able to be a Lance/Diss Cannon, Also 15pts cheaper to start with.

Edit:Grammar English isn't my strong suit.

Yeah I see what you mean. I suppose it doesn't actually change the killyness of Venoms, just changes their versatility. Still, I'l like to try and avoid monobuilds as much as possible. Venoms are already the backbone of DE armies, and if they get Haywire and AP2 there's pretty much no reason to take any other units.

More competitive. Less fun.

I like the idea of a piece of wargear that lets Raiders disembark after moving 12". Would be a very useful piece of kit that I don't think would be overpowering.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah I see what you mean. I suppose it doesn't actually change the killyness of Venoms, just changes their versatility. Still, I'l like to try and avoid monobuilds as much as possible. Venoms are already the backbone of DE armies, and if they get Haywire and AP2 there's pretty much no reason to take any other units.

More competitive. Less fun.

I like the idea of a piece of wargear that lets Raiders disembark after moving 12". Would be a very useful piece of kit that I don't think would be overpowering.

But if you give Raiders meaningful upgrades... or at least cut the cost down. If raiders could get Front 11 with a better upgrade (TL for all weapons not just Splinter) then they both have their merits.

Raiders dont have Fire power, IDK why there Lance isnt TL or at least Splinter Racks SHOULD he "Gun Racks for 15pts) Makes the Vehicle and ALL units in it TL.

Raiders with TL and Venoms with HWC and Dis Cannons you would see a MUCH amount of varieties.

Yeah now that sounds like a better way of doing it

While you're at it, make one or all of the Ravager's Lances T/L, or at least something to increase the accuracy. 3 S8 AP2 shots sounds nasty, but from what I've heard they're a little lacklustre.

Actually, sod that. What Dark Eldar really need is there speed back.

Give them vehicle options that allow them to fire all (or at least some) of their weapons at full BS regardless of how far they've moved, and/or options to allow them to disembark after having moved more than 6".

So the piece of war gear that sounds the best to me is the one that lets us avoid mishaps. This would be extremely powerful for medusa who could deepstrike on top of a unit and then flame it with s4 ap3 goodness. Also Blasterborn who could deepstrike right up against the back facing of a tank and pop it. It would make those a lot more viable.

Reworking power from pain I think it would be better if it worked more like the khorne demonkin blood for the blood god rule where we spend pain tokens at the beginning of the turn for various effects.

But I don't think power from pain or our vehicles are a problem. I think all we need is hour HQ reworked and some formations. Right now the best HQ is a lhamaean which is a problem. We need HQs that are force multipliers or buff our army. Let our Archon manipulate reserve rolls and our succubus give drugs to people (drugs should also be reworked) But make our HQs worth taking.

Yeah seconded on Archon reserves manipulation. Give them Labyrinthine Cunning as a default rule and replace it with a different Warlord Trait. How about Succubi allow a second, additional roll on the drugs chart (re-rolling duplicates)? Increased chance of getting something useful, with the possibility of getting something awesome like +1S and +1T. Double drugs could also, just about, make Wyches usable again

For Combat Drugs, I'd like to see the +1 Initiative option be replaced with Crusader, maybe, and the +1 Leadership option with "Re-roll failed to-wound rolls of 1 in the Assault Phase". Something would need to be done with Wych weapons, of course, but we knew that already.

I'm absolutely in favor of getting speed back: Ravagers should be able to fire all weapons after moving 12", you should be able to disembark from a Raider that moved 12" and still shoot at full BS, and if you moved 6" (maybe with an upgrade) you should be able to disembark in the shooting phase instead, allowing you to stay mounted if the intended assault target doesn't end up working out. Enhanced Aethersails should allow a 2d6 move in the Assault Phase if you didn't go flat-out, just like Reavers can.

A few other things:
Change Splinter Rifles to R18 S1 AP5, Assault 2, Poisoned (4+).
Trueborn and Archons get Ghostplate Armor.
Sybarites, Dracons and Trueborn can exchange their splinter rifle for a shardcarbine for 2ppm.
An option for Haemonculi: Optimized Toxins. Any Poisoned weapons in any unit the Haemonculus joins get Fleshbane (3+). Not sure what this should cost - it is pretty potent in units of Wracks or Kabalite Warriors.

Some excellent discussion here, guys! Check out the update in the first post for...

*New drug rules
*New HQ options
*Rule for Kheradruakh, the decapitator!

Rather than making yet another beatstick, I wanted Kheradruakh to feel like something out of a monster movie, stalking his prey, picking them off, and then striking in a blur of lethal strikes before vanishing back into the shadows, skull in tow.

For combat drugs having 6 would be fine, just improve them like instead of +1 I you get shred, instead of +1ld you get fearless and instead of the last one you get +1 fnp. I like the idea of the drug dispenser but I think it would be better if we made it effect all units who take drugs. Like you pick at the beginning of the game and all units with combat drugs get that drug in addition to the one they roll.

Succubus with reaver troops seems too powerful to me but I love it. We need a HQ on jetbike. I would love if the succubus could take that or a skyboard.

For fixing wyches, I think if we fix combat drugs will not be enough. We need to give them a way to kill, like if they had rending similar the the eldar shuriken rending. Also it would be nice if their old shardnet and impaler was back and let us reduce the number of attacks enemy units had so we could stall a unit and slowly kill them off with rending hit.

Wyldhunt wrote:

UPDATE 12-16-2016
The conversation below inspired me to brew up some rules for our beloved HQs. Oh and look! Kheradruakh seems to have stopped slinking around in the darkness to say hello as a Lord of War choice! Obviously I haven't put much thought into the pricing of these abilities. I feel they're hard to price as their usefulness tends to scale up or down depending on the size of the game. Your thoughts?

COMBAT DRUGS: Reduce the drug table to a d3 chart with only the +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, and +1 Attacks results.

DRUG DISPENSERS: Any character in a Dark Eldar detachment may take a drug dispenser for 15 points. At the beginning of each assault phase, each model with a drug dispenser may choose to benefit form any number of combatdrugs of their choice for the duration of the phase. At the end of the phase, the model rolls a d6 for each drug they benefitted from that phase. If any doubles are rolled, the model takes a single wound with no save or FNP of any kind allowed.

HQ OPTIONS
ARCHONS: Gain access to the following options.
-Ancient Schemer: If this archon is your warlord, she gains has the Labyrinthine Cunning warlord trait automatically. X points.
-Raid Leader: Add +1 to the roll to determine whether or not Night Fighting is in effect. Dark Eldar models you place in reserve may opt to roll for reserves beginning on turn 1. Y points.
-Slave Taker: Before the game, count the number of enemy non-vehicle units. Keep track of any such enemy units destroyed by sweeping advances or weapons with the poison rule. Score an additional VP at the end of the game if the number of enemy units slain in this fashion is equal to at least half the starting number of such units. (Too wordy? Basically if you sweet or poison at least half the enemy non-vehicle units to death, you get an extra VP. Maybe this would make a better special mission than a special army-wide rule?) Z points.

SUCCUBI: Gain access to the following options.
-Reaver Queen: Reavers become a troop choice for your army, and this succubus may be mounted upon a reaver jetbike at no additional cost. X points.
-Toxic Arena: Units with the Combat Drugs rule benefit from an additional combat drug for the duration of the game, and this model may be equipped with a Drug Dispenser at no additional cost. Y points.
-Blood Sport: Increase the pain meter by an additional point each time you destroy an enemy non-vehicle unit in the assault phase. Z points.

HAEMONCULI: Gain access to the following options.
-Teachings of Shaimesh (mostly stolen from jade_angel): Any model in the same unit as this haemonculus treat the poison rule of their weapons as being Poison(2+). Weapons without the poison rule gain no benefit.
-Cornucopia of Pain: For each haemonculus with this rule in your army, increase the pain meter's starting value by 2.
-Rapid Resurrection: If at least one haemonculus with this rule is still alive at the end of the game, roll a d6 for each friendly, non-vehicle unit with the dark eldar faction that was destroyed during the game. On a 5+, that unit was not considered to have been destroyed for purposes of victory points. So a chance at kill point denial, basically.


LORD OF WAR: KHERADRUAKH, THE DECAPITATOR
Points: I feel like he's comparable to a Phoenix Lord but without the ability to help out other squads (note the lack of the IC rule). His lack of an armor save makes him somewhat squishier in melee though. Call him 175 points?
Stats: WS 7 BS 7 S 5 T 3 W 3 I 7 A 4 Ld 10 Sv -
Special Rules: Bale Blast, Character, Fleet, Head Hunter, Hit & Run, Infiltrate, Move Through Cover, Night Vision, Plasma Grenades, Power From Pain, Precision Strike, Shrouded, Stealth
Wargear: Decaptitator

Decapitator: S User, Ap2, Any to-wound roll of 6 made by this weapon has the instant death rule.

Head Hunter

Like a gamer eyeing his choice of miniatures, the decapitator carefully seeks out the next skull to add to his collection. Before deployment, select on enemy character model. If Kheradruakh removes that model as a casualty during the course of the game, score 1 additional Victory Point.

Shade Stalker
Kheradruakh is a terrifying and enigmatic creature more likely to pursue his own strange agendas than to obey the whims of an archon. Kheradruakh may never be joined by an independent character. At any point in the Dark Eldar player's movement phase in which he is not locked in combat, Kheradruakh may opt to go into ongoing reserves. Kheradruakh may opt to not arrive from reserves each turn. At the beginning of any Dark Eldar turn in which Kheradruakh is in reserves, roll a d6 and consult the following table.

1-2 "What Was That?": Kheradruakh stalks his prey, filling them with dread. Select a single enemy unit. Until the start of the next Dark Eldar turn, that unit suffers a -2 to its leadership.
3-4 "Where'd you go?!" Kheradruakh thins the herd, eliminating lesser prey before they can cry out for help. Select an enemy non-vehicle unit. Your opponent must remove d3 non-character models from that unit as casualties. Models with a base cost (meaning their base price before wargear or other upgrades) of more than 25 points may not be selected as casualties.
5-6 A Blade in the Dark: Kheradruakh strikes with speed and precision, killing faster than the eye can track. Kheradruakh must be placed on the table and may be placed anywhere provided he is at least one inch away from enemy models. He may assault normally this turn despite having arrived from reserves. Until the start of the next Dark Eldar turn, all to-hit rolls made against Kheradruakh only hit on a roll of 6.

Interesting update, I made the same change to Combat Drugs in my own fandex, so that it was a D3 table with the same options you have. Din't think of the drug dispenser but I did give the Combat Drugs special rule to Archons, Kabalites, Trueborn, Incubi and Scourge since they have the drug injectors molded onto their breastplates.

Archons
Count me as one of those thinks Archons should have Labarynthine Cunning as a standard special rule, their equivelant to the Autarch's Path of Command.
I like Raid Leader but I gave a similar ability to Duke Sliscus in my dex to replace his free Deep Strike to all vehicles rule thats now obsolete.
Slave Taker is definitely too wordy but I like the intent, reminds me of the 3rd edition rule where you got a VP on the roll of a 4+ for every enemy model slain in close combat.

Succubus
I'm not too fond of bikes being made Troops to be honest, and a Succubus should definitely not get a Reaver Jetbike for free.
Again, not fond of free upgrades in general. Rather than giving out an extra Combat Drug roll, how about the Succubus can let you choose the CD if she's your warlord?
I like Blood Sport a lot.

Haemonculi
I really like Cornocpia of Pain and especially Rapid Resurection, though I think the latter shouldn't apply to Troops choices as fluff wise you'd expect it to only be available to more high ranking Kabal, Cult and Coven members.
Not sure about Teachings of Shaimesh, I think Poison (2+) might be a bit too much, how about Poison (3+) instead?

Interesting take on Keradruakh, we seem to have thought along the same lines though you've beefed him up by lot compared to any previous incarnation. The Shade Stalker table definitely looks to be overpowered though.

 lambsandlions wrote:
For combat drugs having 6 would be fine, just improve them like instead of +1 I you get shred, instead of +1ld you get fearless and instead of the last one you get +1 fnp. I like the idea of the drug dispenser but I think it would be better if we made it effect all units who take drugs. Like you pick at the beginning of the game and all units with combat drugs get that drug in addition to the one they roll.

Succubus with reaver troops seems too powerful to me but I love it. We need a HQ on jetbike. I would love if the succubus could take that or a skyboard.

For fixing wyches, I think if we fix combat drugs will not be enough. We need to give them a way to kill, like if they had rending similar the the eldar shuriken rending. Also it would be nice if their old shardnet and impaler was back and let us reduce the number of attacks enemy units had so we could stall a unit and slowly kill them off with rending hit.

Drugs:
The reason I don't necessarily like adding shred as an option is that we already have multiple drugs that add to your offense. Do we really need shred *and* +1Attack *and* +1 Strength? In fact, I'd probably be fine with trading either the +1 Attack or +1 Strength for something involving the pain meter or invul saves. Like, maybe +1 invul instead of +1 Attack to represent better speed. So you'd have a general defense drug, a melee specific defensive drug, and an offensive drug. Something along those lines. I don't know. I just feel like having tons off melee drugs means that someone will eventually do the math to figure out which option is mathematically better, and then you just have one "best" drug, and rolling the others is good-but-not-as-good-as-that-other-drug.

Fearless would be okay, but it would also be redundant once you get your PFP meter high enough.

I have strangely mixed feelings about making wyches more killy. Don't get me wrong, they need some sort of a boost, but they haven't traditionally really been a smashface melee unit. Back in the day, you took wych weapons to reduce enemy attacks and treated them as a sort of tarpit unit that held the enemy in place until your incubi could show up and do work. In 5th edition, you could mix a haemonculus in with them to give them 4+ FNP on top of their 4+ dodge (again making a tarpit unit), or you could just slap haywire grenades on them and send them tank hunting (something which became unintentionally too good with the introduction of hull points before it was clear that only one model can use a grenade per turn). So they've always been more of a tarpit than a coup de grace unit. Also, I kind of like the idea of wyches being less focused on killing and more focused on playing with their food to draw out the performance for the audience.

I kind of feel like blood brides should be the killy version of wyches. In another post a while back, I basically proposed that wych weapons (which I believe I revised) offered additional special rules to blood brides to represent their superior training with the weapons. Hydragauntlets gave you a ton of attacks, razorflails gave you rending (I think), and shardnets lowered the attacks of enemy models. So you could kill hordes, kill elites, or tarpit depending on your loadout.

Glad you like the reaver queen!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Imateria wrote:

Interesting update, I made the same change to Combat Drugs in my own fandex, so that it was a D3 table with the same options you have. Din't think of the drug dispenser but I did give the Combat Drugs special rule to Archons, Kabalites, Trueborn, Incubi and Scourge since they have the drug injectors molded onto their breastplates.

Archons
Count me as one of those thinks Archons should have Labarynthine Cunning as a standard special rule, their equivelant to the Autarch's Path of Command.
I like Raid Leader but I gave a similar ability to Duke Sliscus in my dex to replace his free Deep Strike to all vehicles rule thats now obsolete.
Slave Taker is definitely too wordy but I like the intent, reminds me of the 3rd edition rule where you got a VP on the roll of a 4+ for every enemy model slain in close combat.

Succubus
I'm not too fond of bikes being made Troops to be honest, and a Succubus should definitely not get a Reaver Jetbike for free.
Again, not fond of free upgrades in general. Rather than giving out an extra Combat Drug roll, how about the Succubus can let you choose the CD if she's your warlord?
I like Blood Sport a lot.

Haemonculi
I really like Cornocpia of Pain and especially Rapid Resurection, though I think the latter shouldn't apply to Troops choices as fluff wise you'd expect it to only be available to more high ranking Kabal, Cult and Coven members.
Not sure about Teachings of Shaimesh, I think Poison (2+) might be a bit too much, how about Poison (3+) instead?

Interesting take on Keradruakh, we seem to have thought along the same lines though you've beefed him up by lot compared to any previous incarnation. The Shade Stalker table definitely looks to be overpowered though.

Labyrinthine Cunning: I'd be fine with this, especially as a Poisoned Tongue player! However, Labyrinthine Cunning feels a bit "kitchen-sinky" to me. Making it a bit more streamlined (like the path of command rule) might help with that.

Slave Taker: Any suggestions on streamlining it? I didn't want to make it a per-model thing because that gives you huge bonuses against horde armies. Besides, an astartes captive is surely more valuable than some common guardsman!

Reaver Queen: I kind of felt that, with eldar, corsairs, marines, and even orks having access to a bike army, it sort of made sense for dark eldar to have the same option. It would be far less abusable than craftworlder scatbikes, and I figured someone out there would really enjoy using bikes but not vehicles. Note that the bike isn't "free" exactly. You pay the points for the Reaver Queen upgrade. It's just that you don't have to pay additional points on top of the reaver queen upgrade. It's simply easier than saying, "In addition, a model with this rule may purchase a reaver bike for X points."

Toxic Arena: See the note on not really being "free" above. I like the idea of letting her choose your drug result though!

Glad you like Blood Sport! Does that mean you're pretty happy with the general setup for PFP overall?

Rapid Ressurection: Good call. It's fluffy, plus it helps mitigate the possibility of rolling insanely well on your kill point denial and basically negating all your opponent's kills. There's counter-play to it.

Teachings of Shaimesh: Hmm. Maybe. Considering he can only give it to the unit he's actively joined, you're looking at a pretty limited buff placed on what is probably a relatively squishy unit. We're talking either a massive webway blob of warriors or 9 guys in a raider, most likely. Or as a boost to some grotesques or wracks.

Shade Stalker: What specifically do you feel is OP, and do you have any suggestions on how to modify it? The -2 leadership would combo well with a freakshow list, but it's also the only thing he'd be doing that turn. The removig d3 models is nice, but it can't effect really pricey models like terminators, T-Cav, etc, and your opponent controls which guys die first. Plus, you'll only get this result twice per game on average if you spend 6 turns shade stalking. Blade in the Dark is meant to be a combination Genestealer Cult attack and defense against being murderized. I didn't want Kheradruakh to jump into a fight, kill a guy, and then be promptly turned to paste by the guy's friends the way lictors tend to; I wanted opponents to feel like they were being ambushed and having trouble hitting their assailant as they deal with the sudden, unexpected attack. I'm certainly open to suggestions though.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah seconded on Archon reserves manipulation. Give them Labyrinthine Cunning as a default rule and replace it with a different Warlord Trait. How about Succubi allow a second, additional roll on the drugs chart (re-rolling duplicates)? Increased chance of getting something useful, with the possibility of getting something awesome like +1S and +1T. Double drugs could also, just about, make Wyches usable again

Here's what i think.

Give dark eldar more army boosts on their warlord table if that's possible. I hate getting mostly useless buffs for the army esp. if your army isn't melee or infantry based. I generally don't care about fearless on my warlord since what he does generally doesn't require it. Fear usually doesn't help. Boosted to hit in melee is also crap. There's only really 2 or so buffs on the warlord chart that are even decent if you don't have a melee warlord and if you do they're very lackluster.

Combat drugs really depends based on how GW decides to go with reavers and if our wych units get good. +1 attack is kinda meh but ok, +1 WS is about the same sometimes, +1 T is great, +1 Ld is actually pretty good (given casualties), +1 I is the most useless buff ever right now, +1 str is alright.

Drugs would be nicer if they boosted some of the boosts we normally have anyway or gave us 2 rolls and allowed us to choose.

Wyches would be good if they could always dodge even if it was a 5+ inv. save outside of combat and 4+ to 3+ inv. inside of combat. That or give them more cover options for troops out in the open.

I still think reavers should either be given their fly-by ability back from their 5th edition book or maybe be given an inv. save in combat like wyches and give them more options so it's more than just a cluster caltrop units. It's a decent unit but it needs more depth besides just smashing into a unit all the time and praying the 'hammer of wrath' doesn't suck. That or make some other weapons options that give ap 3 or ap 2 to hammer of wrath as well. That said it might ruin things for incubi but i dunno. Maybe give them fleshbane hammer of wrath attacks. You could also just make the biker attacks better with a bike upgrade instead.

Now that i think about it just give all wych type units an inv. save in and out of combat or at least for everything outside of bikes. Hellions might be ok if they had any upgrade at all.

Agreed with Str 10 or D and ap 1 on the voidraven. Though honestly i'd be happier if the bomb was str 10 ap 1 and small apocalyptic blast (the one slightly bigger than a large blast). Considering how powerful it sounds that's good enough for me though Str D and ap 1 would make sense for something as powerful as it sounds.

Make more of our fleshbane missiles and weapons have a good ap value. At the moment some are ok but it's odd that so much of our poisoned weapons have a crappy ap. I mean in 5th imperial guard got banewolves which had like 2+ to wound and ap 3 templates. I should think dark eldar have something better than that but often it seems like we don't. This is supposed to be the faction that masters poison. We should at least have better ap with it.

This one might be going too far but give us fleshbane snipers and maybe put em on the haemonculus snipers (wounds on a 2+ always) or give them ap 3 or both. It might make snipers better and make them more worth it.

Give dark eldar more AA options. Not sure what atm but anything would be nice. Give us a dedicated AA skimmer or perhaps something infantry based even. You could also just give our jetpack units the ability to engage AA units.

Make blasters rapid fire perhaps (2 shots at half range).

Let us take more ravagers when bound and give them a serious points decrease.

Make shredders either large blast or template. I could see both working. Shredders may be worth it on scourge if they're large blast or templates.

Let all HQ take the soul trap and make the archon's huskblade ap 2 again. Possible re-work of soul trap but perhaps keep it the similar so huskblade isn't as insane as in 5th (allow it to be vs monsters and in characters whether in challenges or not). Then again considering gargantuan and riptide it might be needed (though riptide would probably just get away).

Let every vehicle take flickerfield again.

Agreed on splinter racks being for all weapons. Would be nice to see twin linked units of all kinds in there.

Buff mandrakes a bit or make them a unit slot choice. Perhaps get them out of elites and into something else like fast attack or increase the elite choices we can take.

Give dark eldar a haemie unit that's gargantuan much on the scale of cronos and grotesques.

Give us biker heroes.

Give us grenades on most assault units.

Make incubi have a helm ability.

Make fear bomb style things better.

-------------

I'm sure this is asking for too much but it could be cool. Even if we got half of that esp. the last few i'd be happy.

I don't think Reavers, Blasters or Mandrakes need any help. They're decent enough as is.

Giving arena units an inv in combat is also a step in the wrong direction I feel. Dark Eldar should be a glass cannon army. Dead killy, but killed dead if caught in the wrong place. Wych's inv in combat but shoddy armour outside is perfect enough. They just need to cost less so you can fill boatloads of Raiders with them and hurl them into combat.

I do like the idea of Wyches being more of a tarpit though, reducing enemy attacks with Shardnet/Impalers. That does feel very fluffy, and would add to their survivability without just giving them a better save, although a 6++ dodge outside of combat would be nice. Still squishy, but slightly more survivable. Maybe apply their 4++ dodge to overwatch?

Biker HQs are a must, and I'm failry certain the only reason we don't have them is the Chapterhouse lawsuits and the panic 'no model, no rules' idiocy.

Shredders should absolutely be monofilament flamers (and costed as such).

I love the idea of a +1inv drug to represent them being so hopped up on drugs they can dodge bullets much better than +1I

When I was doing a rewrite of the core rules for fun, I made shooting about comparing BS to Initiative. The idea is high Initiative isn't dodging bullets per se (though with I 10, maybe it is), so much as predicting where the guns are about to be pointed and not being there/taking the best avenue of approach.

As for regular 40k, I like the idea of Wyches having a 4++ for the entire Assault Ph se and not just a Fight Subphase. Matrix-time. To represent the fact they're entertainers and dealers in pain as much as anything else, I also like the idea of some rule like "Ludus Dolorum" ("school of pain") or so: Whenever a Wych unit is engaged in an assault, that unit and all other DE units within 12" of it add +1 to their Power from Pain result.

Making the Wych Weapons more exotic would be nice too, especially when you see the sexy toys Harlequins or GSC get.

It's nice, simple, and doesn't rely on banking on a single shot like the Animus Speculum or otherwise.

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I don't think Reavers, Blasters or Mandrakes need any help. They're decent enough as is.

Really, Mandrakes are fine? You must be the only person to think that.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
When I was doing a rewrite of the core rules for fun, I made shooting about comparing BS to Initiative. The idea is high Initiative isn't dodging bullets per se (though with I 10, maybe it is), so much as predicting where the guns are about to be pointed and not being there/taking the best avenue of approach.

As for regular 40k, I like the idea of Wyches having a 4++ for the entire Assault Ph se and not just a Fight Subphase. Matrix-time. To represent the fact they're entertainers and dealers in pain as much as anything else, I also like the idea of some rule like "Ludus Dolorum" ("school of pain") or so: Whenever a Wych unit is engaged in an assault, that unit and all other DE units within 12" of it add +1 to their Power from Pain result.

Making the Wych Weapons more exotic would be nice too, especially when you see the sexy toys Harlequins or GSC get.

It's nice, simple, and doesn't rely on banking on a single shot like the Animus Speculum or otherwise.

Yeah 4++ for the whoel Assault phase and more exotic Wych Weapons would be perfect

 Imateria wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I don't think Reavers, Blasters or Mandrakes need any help. They're decent enough as is.

Really, Mandrakes are fine? You must be the only person to think that.

I thought they were half-decent now...

Stealth/shrouded/move through cover makes them half-decent at camping a far-flung objective in cover. AP4 isn't bad at all (although not great in a Marine meta unless they use scouts). Plus, they're 3-man squads and dirt cheap allowing you to easily fit them into lists where you've got points spare.

Granted, they could be scarier, but they're much better than their previous incarnation. All they really need is a half-decent formation.

Oh, and they clean up shop when coupled with Reavers in Kill Team...

Mandrakes arnt bad, the problem is there is to much in the game that can counter them and b.c the lack of power DE has we cant afford to take them :/

 Imateria wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I don't think Reavers, Blasters or Mandrakes need any help. They're decent enough as is.

Really, Mandrakes are fine? You must be the only person to think that.

I use them in my competitive lists. I do a lot of beta-striking, so having a cheap source of 2+ (cover) saves to sit on objectives or hide behind buildings helps out a lot. Granted, my competitive lists lean heavily on craftworlders for their offensive punch, so I can afford to give up a couple true kin elite slots to fit the mandrakes in. In casual games, they actually do quite well. You just have to accept that they're a shooty unit of infiltrators with a 2+ cover save instead of the melee unit their fluff suggests they should be. Ignores cover isn't actually that common now that serpent spam isn't a thing. The things that ignore cover only rarely ignore line of sight, so they usually have a role to play. That said, I'd really like to see more options for mandrakes. Aelindrachi wargear could be really cool. Arcane runes? Aelindrachi portals to cause night fighting for a turn? Maybe a shadewyrm to serve as assault grenades?

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
I don't think Reavers, Blasters or Mandrakes need any help. They're decent enough as is.

Really, Mandrakes are fine? You must be the only person to think that.

I use them in my competitive lists. I do a lot of beta-striking, so having a cheap source of 2+ (cover) saves to sit on objectives or hide behind buildings helps out a lot. Granted, my competitive lists lean heavily on craftworlders for their offensive punch, so I can afford to give up a couple true kin elite slots to fit the mandrakes in. In casual games, they actually do quite well. You just have to accept that they're a shooty unit of infiltrators with a 2+ cover save instead of the melee unit their fluff suggests they should be. Ignores cover isn't actually that common now that serpent spam isn't a thing. The things that ignore cover only rarely ignore line of sight, so they usually have a role to play. That said, I'd really like to see more options for mandrakes. Aelindrachi wargear could be really cool. Arcane runes? Aelindrachi portals to cause night fighting for a turn? Maybe a shadewyrm to serve as assault grenades?

Ooh Aelindrachi wargear would be really cool

Something that forces Night Fighting would be excellent, and would synergise with the rest of Dark Eldar forces really nicely.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

Interesting update, I made the same change to Combat Drugs in my own fandex, so that it was a D3 table with the same options you have. Din't think of the drug dispenser but I did give the Combat Drugs special rule to Archons, Kabalites, Trueborn, Incubi and Scourge since they have the drug injectors molded onto their breastplates.

Archons
Count me as one of those thinks Archons should have Labarynthine Cunning as a standard special rule, their equivelant to the Autarch's Path of Command.
I like Raid Leader but I gave a similar ability to Duke Sliscus in my dex to replace his free Deep Strike to all vehicles rule thats now obsolete.
Slave Taker is definitely too wordy but I like the intent, reminds me of the 3rd edition rule where you got a VP on the roll of a 4+ for every enemy model slain in close combat.

Succubus
I'm not too fond of bikes being made Troops to be honest, and a Succubus should definitely not get a Reaver Jetbike for free.
Again, not fond of free upgrades in general. Rather than giving out an extra Combat Drug roll, how about the Succubus can let you choose the CD if she's your warlord?
I like Blood Sport a lot.

Haemonculi
I really like Cornocpia of Pain and especially Rapid Resurection, though I think the latter shouldn't apply to Troops choices as fluff wise you'd expect it to only be available to more high ranking Kabal, Cult and Coven members.
Not sure about Teachings of Shaimesh, I think Poison (2+) might be a bit too much, how about Poison (3+) instead?

Interesting take on Keradruakh, we seem to have thought along the same lines though you've beefed him up by lot compared to any previous incarnation. The Shade Stalker table definitely looks to be overpowered though.

Labyrinthine Cunning: I'd be fine with this, especially as a Poisoned Tongue player! However, Labyrinthine Cunning feels a bit "kitchen-sinky" to me. Making it a bit more streamlined (like the path of command rule) might help with that.

Slave Taker: Any suggestions on streamlining it? I didn't want to make it a per-model thing because that gives you huge bonuses against horde armies. Besides, an astartes captive is surely more valuable than some common guardsman!

Reaver Queen: I kind of felt that, with eldar, corsairs, marines, and even orks having access to a bike army, it sort of made sense for dark eldar to have the same option. It would be far less abusable than craftworlder scatbikes, and I figured someone out there would really enjoy using bikes but not vehicles. Note that the bike isn't "free" exactly. You pay the points for the Reaver Queen upgrade. It's just that you don't have to pay additional points on top of the reaver queen upgrade. It's simply easier than saying, "In addition, a model with this rule may purchase a reaver bike for X points."

Toxic Arena: See the note on not really being "free" above. I like the idea of letting her choose your drug result though!

Glad you like Blood Sport! Does that mean you're pretty happy with the general setup for PFP overall?

Rapid Ressurection: Good call. It's fluffy, plus it helps mitigate the possibility of rolling insanely well on your kill point denial and basically negating all your opponent's kills. There's counter-play to it.

Teachings of Shaimesh: Hmm. Maybe. Considering he can only give it to the unit he's actively joined, you're looking at a pretty limited buff placed on what is probably a relatively squishy unit. We're talking either a massive webway blob of warriors or 9 guys in a raider, most likely. Or as a boost to some grotesques or wracks.

Shade Stalker: What specifically do you feel is OP, and do you have any suggestions on how to modify it? The -2 leadership would combo well with a freakshow list, but it's also the only thing he'd be doing that turn. The removig d3 models is nice, but it can't effect really pricey models like terminators, T-Cav, etc, and your opponent controls which guys die first. Plus, you'll only get this result twice per game on average if you spend 6 turns shade stalking. Blade in the Dark is meant to be a combination Genestealer Cult attack and defense against being murderized. I didn't want Kheradruakh to jump into a fight, kill a guy, and then be promptly turned to paste by the guy's friends the way lictors tend to; I wanted opponents to feel like they were being ambushed and having trouble hitting their assailant as they deal with the sudden, unexpected attack. I'm certainly open to suggestions though.

Labarynthine Cunning: The part that people care most about is the re-rolls to reserves, but personally I'm fine with it as is.

Slave Taker: How about at the end of the game rolling a dice for every enemy unit destroyed in close combat, on a 4+ gain a Victory Point?

Reaver Queen: It would have to be at least 20pts for the upgrade, and with the Realspace Raiders Detachment we can already effectively deploy a bike army, whitness Tabletop Tactics Lawrence winning the No Retreat III tournement with 36 Reavers in a RRD.

Power from Pain: Yes, I'm very happy with it, I think yours might actually be the best balanced version I've seen so far, it's always been a hard thing to balance between horde and elite opponents when basing it's bonuses on kills rather than game turns.

Teachings of Shaimesh: A Grot bomb with Poisoned (2+) sounds horrific to me, I mean 3 of them are already putting out up to 24 attacks on the charge as it is! I'm also not happy with the name, as far as I know the Dark Muse Shaimesh is more associated with Lhamaeans (it's why they carry a Shaimeshi Blade) than Haemonculi, though this is a nitpick.

Shade Stalker: It's the automatically remove models I don't like, even with D weapons on a 1 you do nothing. I wouldn't say he was OP at all though, in fact at T3 you've left in his biggest weakness, that he's pretty easy to paste. Personally I bumped him up to T4, allowed him to join Mandrakes (in fact in my codex I made it so you could only take him if taking a unit of Mandrakes) and gave him an ability where he and a Mandrake unit he's joined can be removed from the table and then placed into area terrain anywhere on the board once per game, even if locked in combat. I'm not sure he should be a Lord of War choice either, it doesn't feel like he fits that kind of role.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I make use of MAndrakes as well, as objective holdeers in cover they're work but I wouldn't call them fine at all, if they are hit with Ignores Cover they have no save of any kind so if someone wants to take them out they are very easy to deal with. Assault Grenades would be nice as well, I can't help but feel that was a massive over sight on GW's part.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Mandrakes arnt bad, the problem is there is to much in the game that can counter them and b.c the lack of power DE has we cant afford to take them :/

Really depends what you do with them. In unbound or possibly if mandrakes were troops they'd actually be pretty good. Problem is they're elites so they compete for space with things like grotesques, incubi, trueborn and to a smaller extent wracks (if given the ossefactor). The covens units can be taken in their own separate book but those 3 choices might still be better used with incubi and trueborn. Perhaps if dark eldar could have more elite slots this might not be an issue. The covens having so many elite slots might help but i'm unsure. It's a rather shame as i think they are even decently costed for what they do. Wyches are only 2 points less while mandrakes have move through cover, infiltrate, fear, stealth, shrouded and a good amount of shooting. As i said if they were troops people would look at wyches and warriors and take mandrakes almost constantly.

But no one plays Unblound and they are not troops.

I agree they can be playable its just they are over shadowed by so many things.

Honestly I wish they could do what GSC do and return tot he Shadows to ongoing reserves, this is what they are missing. Keep them the same cost put if you must increase them, only do so by 1-2 pts

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Mandrakes arnt bad, the problem is there is to much in the game that can counter them and b.c the lack of power DE has we cant afford to take them :/

Really depends what you do with them. In unbound or possibly if mandrakes were troops they'd actually be pretty good. Problem is they're elites so they compete for space with things like grotesques, incubi, trueborn and to a smaller extent wracks (if given the ossefactor). The covens units can be taken in their own separate book but those 3 choices might still be better used with incubi and trueborn. Perhaps if dark eldar could have more elite slots this might not be an issue. The covens having so many elite slots might help but i'm unsure. It's a rather shame as i think they are even decently costed for what they do. Wyches are only 2 points less while mandrakes have move through cover, infiltrate, fear, stealth, shrouded and a good amount of shooting. As i said if they were troops people would look at wyches and warriors and take mandrakes almost constantly.

Yeah competing for slots with Trueborn is probably their biggest issue. You can (and should) take Grotesques in a Grotesquerie anyway so they're not a problem, but Trueborn are just so effective.

Really, what would make Mandrakes a real solid take is a formation. 3 min squads (or 5-man if you want to give it a little penalty) of Mandrakes as a formation that allows you to force Night Fighting for a single turn.

Maybe a little overpowered for a formation with few drawbacks, but basically anything that allows you to take them without using up a slot would be very nice