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 Amishprn86 wrote:

Oh trust me, me and a lot of the DE community told them.

Hey, while we're here, question for you: I see lots of mention that the DE lost a ton of stuff, and the army got broken into three subfactions, but nobody local does anything with them so I've not kept up for a long while.

What all did you lose? Was it just special characters or did a bunch of units go poof as well?

Wakshaani wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Oh trust me, me and a lot of the DE community told them.

Hey, while we're here, question for you: I see lots of mention that the DE lost a ton of stuff, and the army got broken into three subfactions, but nobody local does anything with them so I've not kept up for a long while.

What all did you lose? Was it just special characters or did a bunch of units go poof as well?

Every book from 3rd we lots multi units and gear. A lot of the problem are HQ's and special rules that made DE feel good to play I'll go over the units and then some of the special gear that completely change how they play. But the HQ's are for sure very important to us, as we always had "fast" HQ's till 7th, Bikes, Skyboards, etc.. part of DE's fluff is the Archons are highly skilled and rich, they will buy any gear/vehicle the can if it gets them to stay an Archon for longer.

Characters
Bike/Wing characters (At this point most has tho)
Smaller HQ's like Dracons, Ancients, etc..
Asdrubael Vect (Out Big boy and the ONLY army without their main guy)
Lady Malys (literally Yvarine is a copy of her, a lot of us think she was Lady M but GW changed it later)
Dias of Destruction (This is a heavy Transport for us that you need Vect to take, its basically the Land Raider for DE Its Ravager with better Armor and transport)
Duke Sliscus (A fav of a lot)
Kheradruakh (he is Mandrake HQ)
Baron Sathonyx (A Archon for Hellions, he rides a Skyboard, the most played Hero of all time for DE until mid 7th)

A couple Elite taken out for now reason (They are just Upgrades Troops to elites so they can use more weapons, they are our "Weapons teams" that IG has)
Trueborn: Literally every DE player used 1-3 of them in almost every game
Hexatrix, not used to much, but would be great to still have, having 4 wych weapons is really nice, would be highly used now with SM Primaris spam out, 4 Nets per 5? yes please
Technically they had Harlequins, but no one is sad they are removed b.c they are their own army again.

Gear and Special rules: This is going to be long

WWP's we used to be able to buy basically teleport becons as a webway portal, it was a 2.5" marker (small blast marker) that you can come out of, any HQ that wasn't named could buy them and place them anywhere, it was pin point DSing that ignore most of the DSing rules (Think GSC blip's but better). You could throw one down near a tank and have Trueborns with 4 Blasters jump out and blast. very fun but not OP b.c it was limited to 3 and they cost 35pts just to take them and if you HQ died it went away before you could even use it.

Flyby and HoW: The army had a lot of drive by/fly by/ HoW style rules, you "flew" over to deal auto hits to units, or if you charged you did a extra set of auto hits before the fight started. Reavers were know for this and it was their purpose. Cluster Caltrops (now does 1 MW on the charge) used to add to that it was D6 Str 6 auto hits. Their flyby normal rules was D3 str 4 -ap hits. B.c their had a Wych profile for melee you wanted to buy the Champion a weapon (now its a waste of points) and now you can not buff the Str of Reavers either b.c their Fly by is a set melee str attack....

Mandrakes special DS: Mandrakes used to have a super special DS rule. You picked 3 locations and when you DS you could DS out of 1 of those 3, very mind fething to the opponent.

Beasts and Beast masters: These used to be SUPER FUN. It was 1 giant uit of cheap throw away glass cannon pile of awesome. BM's were cheap, 12pts, you took 1-5, for every 1 you took you could take 1 set of Beasts (0-5 Khymera,s 0-2 RWF, 0-1 Clawed fiends). For around 250pts you had 5 BM's and 15 Dogs with 6 Birds, the Dogs had a 4++ so they took the damage first. It was just good and fun, but not to OP. You place the Baron with them and now the unit has is basically -1 to be hit with Hit and Run (also better at moving into terrain). Now they are full separated units and you see no one plays them.

Trueborn: I know i already talked about this, but they truely were that popular. They also were 3-10, 8th took away the minimal 3. WHen they were in 3mans you had insane amount of options for them as they can take 2 heavy weapons. People would make Dark Lance sniping teams (Oh look just like Eliminators) but they were squishy, having 3x3 DE models hiding in cover with 2 DL's each was so fun to see and play. Or you could do 7man with 4 blasters and 2 DL's or just 5mans with 4 Blasters (most did this).

Archons: They were masters of weapon and gear (literally heir fluff) and could take LOADS of them. They had multi armors, lots of melee, and some range weapons. Almost all of that is gone. They had 18 piece of gear to customize them, now they had 6. People had extremely fun Archon builds and they were actually scary in combat.
Haemonculus: Same as Archon but they had 21 pieces of gear.
A couple of them become stratagems... which is not fun, and 1 of each become a rule on their sheets. But going from that many options to less than 1/2 (less than 1/3 for Haemonculus) is terrible.
Note: The succubus kept most of hero options even tho her kit doesn't come with them. But the wyches kits do. The Archon gear came from the Kabal kits so no one knows why GW removed all the options on Archon/Haemonculus when they are still in the game.

Grotesques: They used to have a Leader upgrade

Hellions: They had crazy anti character rules that they completely lost. Players where insanely scared of them. They could pull leaders out of units (that was a thing back them) and when they "Fellback" they got a Free attack vs that character and then was consider in combat with them from then on out. Just scary AF. Now they are flying Kabals but worst (Oh 2D.. so what no AP and no survivability).

Court of Archon: Basically they used to be in units, they need to be in units again.


And OFC most importantly, they work together as 1 army, b.c the Archon got them together and told them to fight for him, like you know how DE ACTUALLY OPERATES.

There are more rule, like Incubi could shoot at one point, we had other FW flyers, but really a lot of that was very small along with some other gear/rules that is missing but didn't really impact the game.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
...Asdrubael Vect (Out Big boy and the ONLY army without their main guy)...

Thinking...From a sub-faction perspective Vect is certainly more involved in the leadership of his whole faction than most named characters; Guilliman's position as the sort of CIC for the whole Imperium, Abbadon's efforts to get the Legions to follow him, and Cawl's position as Fabricator-General of Mars makes them sort of comparable. The Phoenix Lords have the transcends-subfactions aspect going for them, but with the Guard GW hasn't made any models at the Segmentum Lord-Commander rank since Macharius back in the dark ages. Creed is/was the boss of Cadia, sure, but there are a lot of Guard planets.

Be'lakor kind of works as "the main guy" for Daemons since he's supposed to have the blessings of all four gods. Knights don't have any named characters aside from Canis Rex, who isn't really in any kind of leadership position, Harlequins and GSC also don't have any named characters. Sisters get Celestine, we haven't heard anything about a Knight-Commander for the Sisters of Silence in the modern era. Custodes have Valoris, GK have Draigo, all the Chapters/Legions with their own standalone books have either a Primarch or a Chapter Master. Except for the Deathwatch and I don't know if there is any centralized leadership a level up from the commanders of individual Watch-Fortresses. There is a Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorium but he's unlikely to ever get a model. Discussing individual identity when it comes to Tyranids is moot, synapse creatures are all their main guy. Thing. Whatever. Necrons are going to get the Silent King soon, it's hard to say whether there's a "main guy" for Tau given the opaque leadership of the Ethereal Caste. Orks have Ghaz, and Ynnari have their trio.

So while Vect may not be the only "main guy" there isn't a model for he's probably the only one it makes sense to make that's missing right now.

Blood Angels for me.
In my opinion, Blood Angels are in a great place at the moment, and with the stuff from the new starter box, I’m really happy with what we look to be getting.
My hope for 9th would be that Assault Intercessors get Jump Packs, and a Primaris Dante mini. Also a way to buy Blood Angel transfer sheets would be great.
Really excited to see what comes.

I'm a heretic from the DE community, but I think a world where characters get skyboards/jetbikes has passed. I'm also not looking for them to waste resources making say plastic Sslyth.

What I want, if they are going to insist on balkanising the faction, is new stuff. So release some new kabalite units (vehicles perhaps if trueborn are too much like basic kabs), maybe with say a dracon/Malys. Do a Mandrake release (and put them all under Covens where they probably belong.) Another unit or two wychcult that are somehow functionally different from wyches+1.

But unfortunately these are all quite big releases and I don't see them happening. You are more likely to get say "here are some new mandrakes, they are fine function wise, but due to the way the faction operates still weirdly adjacent synergywise to everything else while we make the game more and more about stacking synergy, toodles."

Tyel wrote:
I'm a heretic from the DE community, but I think a world where characters get skyboards/jetbikes has passed. I'm also not looking for them to waste resources making say plastic Sslyth.

What I want, if they are going to insist on balkanising the faction, is new stuff. So release some new kabalite units (vehicles perhaps if trueborn are too much like basic kabs), maybe with say a dracon/Malys. Do a Mandrake release (and put them all under Covens where they probably belong.) Another unit or two wychcult that are somehow functionally different from wyches+1.

But unfortunately these are all quite big releases and I don't see them happening. You are more likely to get say "here are some new mandrakes, they are fine function wise, but due to the way the faction operates still weirdly adjacent synergywise to everything else while we make the game more and more about stacking synergy, toodles."

I think a reaver HQ would make sense as it would support theme lists and give another HQ for Cults. But yeah, I agree bike/skyboard Archons and especially Haemonculi are probably not a thing that will happen these days - especially after they took away all the marine bike HQs.

Perhaps though if they did a Vect plastic kit they might do an alternative build with a normal Archon mounted on a vehicle (if you put Vect on foot) as they did with Hellebron in WFB.

Definitely need more HQs though if they’re going to keep the segregation - e.g. bring Dracons back as a Lt level character as others have said, maybe an incubi character (that all three can use)

And also more Kabal infantry! They’re supposed to be the core of the race and they’ve got one unit and one tank!

diepotato47 wrote:
Blood Angels for me.
In my opinion, Blood Angels are in a great place at the moment, and with the stuff from the new starter box, I’m really happy with what we look to be getting.
My hope for 9th would be that Assault Intercessors get Jump Packs, and a Primaris Dante mini. Also a way to buy Blood Angel transfer sheets would be great.
Really excited to see what comes.

They're not in a great place. They are codex: tripiont. People hate playing against them, and I never wanted to be that army.

I'll have a stab at this - I don't necessarily play all these armies, but some of the ideas I've seen in this thread seem like sensible Quality of Life fixes, so I've repeated them below.

General point, for all books it applies to:
- Any Stratagem which is a unit upgrade (such as Veteran Intercessors or Skarboyz) is removed. Replace these with either an upgrade option on the base datasheet, or a datasheet for the upgraded unit, with appropriate costs in PL and points.

Other general points:
- When producing a 9th ed Codex, ensure *all* rules material from Vigilus and PA is replicated in the book.
- If a weapon or option used in Legends is amended for a new Codex/CA/FAQ/errata, update the Legends PDFs with the new cost. Give units a once-over at the start of the edition, even if they don't get looked at each year.
- Look at single target AT weapons, such as the Vanquisher Cannon or Hammerhead Railgun, and ensure they actually do their job better than a non-AT weapon...

AdMech
- Skitarii HQ - either just a Captain equivalent, or a Captain and Lt. equivalent.

Chaos Space Marines
- Take a look at the Legion traits. If they stay as they are, publish a Designer's Commentary on why they are as they are.

Dark Eldar
- Reintroduce second-tier generic HQ characters for each of the three branches (such as the Drachon for Kabal). You don't even need new models for most of these.

Deathwatch
- Phobos Kill Team
- Impulsor

Eldar
- Aspect Warrior & Phoenix Lord update for all shrines (and I say that as someone who likes most of the 2nd ed Phoenix Lords).
- Allow Wraithknights to mix & match weapons

Harlequins
- Add the Great Harlequin, and possibly Mime unit.

Imperial Guard
- Lasgun option for Sergeants
- Do something to make the Deathstrike actually feel like an ICBM is hitting a battlefield the size of a football pitch...
- Stop trying to make Stormtroopers into a mini-faction within the Imperial Guard

Necrons
- Fix Reanimation Protocols to be less all-or-nothing

Orks
- Fix. The. Damn. Stompa. Remember that it is a Knight-equivalent, not a Titan-equivalent.

Sisters of Battle
- Bring in (or bring back, I guess) the second-tier HQ character
- Ideally, introduce a Seraphim/Zeraphim-themed Canoness model

Tyranids
- Look at the toughness of bigger creatures. The Carnifex and Trygon as examples.
- Split the Hive Tyrant into two datasheets, for Flying and Walking versions, possibly with different saves

Not for 9th, for but a theoretical 10th or 11th edition
- Game-wide review of stat lines. In you're uncorking the scale for S and T, go through everything and try to get units to feel as they should, even if that means ignoring historical stat lines.

For Drukhari, if GW insist on keeping the annoying subdivision of the codex, I'd like the HQs to 'unlock' access to units of their subfaction. So, for example, a Battalion could include any of the three subfactions as long as you have an Archon, a Haemonculus, and a Succubus.

I would just really like them to create some design space for speed as defence. They keep removing things that represent this.

Initiative meant fast light units could strike first to avoid being killed. Multi modifiers to hit made it so units could be hard to hit in the first place, but with the reduction to -1 max this is gone.

The game is shrinking to just being toughness and armour, so armies like Eldar lose the thing we keep getting told they do-use speed for defence. Not they used nothing and are T3 chaff.

I don't care how they represent it, they just need to give them something. You can't keep them at T3 with mostly bad armour and expect the not turn into a chaff army which is completely at odds with their conceptual philosophy.

Some examples of what they could do, given there will still not be an initiative value and now a reduction in modifier stacking.

All Eldar units can't have their armour reduced to less than 5+, as their blinding speed makes it impossible to ever score a solid hit.

Or

You can never hit an Eldar unit on better than 3+ regardless of modifiers as their speed makes them hard to hit.

And/or

Eldar alway attack first in the melee phase whether they charged or not - which is what initiative gave them anyway



Just something that gives them that speed defence. I was hoping to see it back in 8th as they brought back hit modifiers (2nd Ed had -1 to hit units moving 10" or more which is how fast almost all Eldar went)


People complain about how lethal the game is when discussing space marines, bit it's more lethal for T3 crappy armour armies that are expensive because they're also supposed to be ELITE.

^Agree 100%

I'd also add morale to that, too. Used to be that morale was one of the Space Marines defining characteristics with ATSKNF. That's been replaced by a 2nd wound in Primaris, turning what was once psychological toughness into physical toughness. As you say, the design space has shrunk to just toughness and armor, more or less.

Tyel wrote:
I'm a heretic from the DE community, but I think a world where characters get skyboards/jetbikes has passed. I'm also not looking for them to waste resources making say plastic Sslyth.

What I want, if they are going to insist on balkanising the faction, is new stuff. So release some new kabalite units (vehicles perhaps if trueborn are too much like basic kabs), maybe with say a dracon/Malys. Do a Mandrake release (and put them all under Covens where they probably belong.) Another unit or two wychcult that are somehow functionally different from wyches+1.

But unfortunately these are all quite big releases and I don't see them happening. You are more likely to get say "here are some new mandrakes, they are fine function wise, but due to the way the faction operates still weirdly adjacent synergywise to everything else while we make the game more and more about stacking synergy, toodles."

For the Mandrake release, give us back Kheradruakh the Decapitator. I say leave them Mercenary, that way they can work with Cults, Covens or Kabals, just like Incubi and Scourges do.

Your Wyches +1 are the Hekatrix Blood Brides; they get more wych weapons in addition to being better fighters.

I know a lot of folks don't like the weird subfaction thing, but I always thought it was awesome, although Harlokin's suggestion that the HQ unlock units for inclusion isn't bad. The only thing is then you have to figure out which Obssession you take for the detachment. What the tripartite system did was allow you to give a Kabal style obssession to your Kabalites while giving your Haemonculai a coven style Obsession. If you come up with a system that sees multiple subfactions in one detachment, you'll end up sticking someone with an obsession that isn't suited to their subfaction.

I like the beasts, beastmasters and court of the Archon models and I do want them in plastic with rules updates that make them more viable. I think they add a sense of dark pageantry

I'm not sure mounted HQ is done; I mean CWE have their share. I'd love all of those characters back; Vect, Kheradruakh and Baron Sathonyx at least. Sliscuss and Malys aren't as big a deal to me, Others have pointed out that Malys and Yvraine basically occupy a similar design space, and some have hypothesized that Yvraine was sculpted as Malys, and then there was this idea touse the model a different way.

Speaking of Yvraine, I think that Ynnari will continue to grow, and one of the cool things that could do is add some really wild things to the range. They could make one or two Exodite units, one or two Corsair units, and then put them under the Ynnari banner so that they don't have to make enough of each force to release a dex. Sliscuss or Malys could fit into this space too.

For Thousand Sons:

1. Give us obliterators!

2. Less of an emphasis on psychic powers. Instead of lots of spells, focus on a few, meaningful ones. Personally I'd make Squad sergeants not be psykers but instead have an optional upgrade, eg biomancy can make the unit tougher or bring back models, pyromancy makes the unit shoot better etc. The psychic phase at the moment is overlong and all about smite...

3. Introduce more opportunities to resurrect rubrics/scarabs - make this part of our gameplay approach

4. Instead of the cults being multiple 'factions' make them an opportunity for different units/upgrades that bring different buff (like the variety of Death Guard characters)

5. Make Rubrics worse in combat (not the sorcerors)

6. Give us psychic dreadnoughts!

7. Maybe add automata?