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 vipoid wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
It would be fluffy to give Mandrakes a strategem to allow them to target characters.....maybe even DS close to enemy characters.

They're supposed to literally step out of people's shadows, aren't they?

Yup, I'm pretty sure that's a thing, and they are always portrayed as quite assassiny.

Really want Kheradruakh The Decapitator as an option

 vipoid wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
It would be fluffy to give Mandrakes a strategem to allow them to target characters.....maybe even DS close to enemy characters.

They're supposed to literally step out of people's shadows, aren't they?

If they could be made to do mortal wound's on a 5+ or had multiple damage attacks they'd be a must have. I'm kind of agreeing with whoever said mortal wounds are kinda useless now (i think it was vipoid). I'm not sure if this is true among all armies but it seems true for dark eldar. Mortal wounds just don't do enough damage to take down monsters or vehicles and honestly that's usually what you need them for. The only thing that's durable enough to use them is probably grotesques and i've been ditching wych cults.

Oddly i had a decent bit of luck with warriors in raiders with dark lances and blasters. They do a decent amount of damage at a good range. Maybe i just had an easier opponent last time. I find outside of imperial guard and knights most vehicles or monsters don't go above toughness 7. This makes things like void lance kind of a waste most of the time. I've also been using obsidian rose lately for the blasters so they can hit 24" range which is useful for not getting charged. It's still a tad dangerous but when you gotta put some damage on things the blasters tend to be good and they're more spammable.

-----

It'd also be cool if dark eldar had a better character sniping unit. Sure mandrakes could do or they could boost hex rifles like they really should've been boosted a long time ago. Atm the only thing that works for character sniping is hex rifles with dark technomancers and it's far from good.

Actually the more I think about it the more I like the idea of moving our Mandrakes to a character assasination role. I hardly count hexrifles as a viable option due to the difficulty in taking them in any reasonable number if you are trying to fill a full Drukhari force with all three factions built in and they just have lackluster rules anyways. Cap this off with the fact they are locked to one of our three subfactions so if you don't run Coven or run limited Coven to fill larger Kabal or Cult forces then Hexrifles aren't useful anyways.

Re-write the rules for Mandrakes to make them absolutely haunting to enemy chars and that gives any Drukhari force (since they are mercs) a proper tool for character elimination.

I know people are fitting Mandrakes into their lists now and enjoy them but I feel that's a symptom of A) they perform one of the secondary objectives reliably and B) They are reasonable points for damage/survivability unlike many of our other options in the codex.

If other units in our dex became useful for what they're meant for or were given needed roles within our force then re-writing Mandrakes for this role could actually be a very fun slot fill for us that we don't currently have.

Regarding Mandrakes, making them more assassin-y would make a lot of sense.

However, I find myself wondering whether an actual Mandrake HQ would be much better served as the DE equivalent of a caster. In the fluff, Mandrakes have demonstrated all manner of strange, pseudo-magical powers. It seems like you could easily justify them giving a unit an extra move (perhaps creating a portal for it), as well as stuff similar to some of the new Necron cryptek abilities (specifically those of the Psychomancer and Chronomancer).

Basically, a unit that can stand in for a psyker in terms of offering buffs/debuffs/mortal wounds, but without breaking our army's fluff.

(Of course, I'd also be happy to see The Decapitator make a comeback as well. It's just that I prefer generic characters to special characters.)

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

It'd also be cool if dark eldar had a better character sniping unit. Sure mandrakes could do or they could boost hex rifles like they really should've been boosted a long time ago. Atm the only thing that works for character sniping is hex rifles with dark technomancers and it's far from good.

On this note, I really wish the Soul Seeker actually worked as a sniper weapon (let's be honest, it's not like Poison Tongue has much else going for it).

I love the idea and the fact that it can shoot models out of LoS. However, I think it really needs to both get an extra shot and also benefit from the Poison Tongue ability (it is their specific relic, after all). As it stands, with only AP-1, it just doesn't do enough damage.

I miss the idea of duke sliscus. Seriously the fact he was never given an actual model and then left on the cutting room floor is a war crime. A war crime even the dark eldar are disgusted at.

I'm just sad so many of our units never really touch the field. I never really use any of the archon's retinue (never have), all wych cults are terrible now even bikes and wyches which is unusual, trueborn were great so they had to be axed off and scourge are mostly worthless esp. due to tanks and monsters being so durable. Seriously only 4 wounds vs a chaos predator for 3 scourge squads and then they just auto-die. One of my bigger wastes of points in 9th for sure. Every time i want to try scourge again to see if they don't suck they always find a way to suck anyway beyond 7th edition.

--------

I had a game today vs necrons. My experience against them is as follows after having to leaving after turn 3. Oddly i'm more and more curious about disintegrators. Against necrons it sounds alright but then they have reanimation protocols and due to the numbers they have things like shredder scourge or possibly grotesques would do so much more to an absurd extent. The opponent got first turn which didn't help me and got to choose deployment zones due to rolls which also didn't help.

He almost killed one of my 2 void ravens and mostly murdered a unit of 5 wracks in melee. Interestingly wracks are fairly durable with PoF even when not buffed with a haemonculus. I say he got to melee because he basically teleported a unit to within DS range of a bunch of units and got a couple vehicles engaged (all of this can happen turn 1 before i get to even make a move to counter so screens matter if we can even have them). If i recall new necrons have this thing with command protocols or something where they get to move before movement so he was able to move twice and basically grab 3 of the 4 objective areas turn 1. At that point i realize this is already gonna be a tough game because dark eldar can get to objectives quickly if they have to but they can't easily shift a tough unit from an objective.

When i get my first turn he seems sorta smug about this so i take my 2 void ravens and drop void mines on his necron unit during my movement phase which killed 14 of them and then i finished the rest with the one engaged disintegrator ravager so that was his unit of 20 dead (i think it was basic necron warriors and he's taking the new str 5, ap 2, 2 shot weapon that only has 12" range but it's assault). After that i did some more damage (can't remember what).

I know i managed to charge my grotesques into his walkers which could apparently leave combat and still shoot as like a one turn only thing but i think he did it with another unit as well. That said the new walkers have to remain stationary to get their better and longer ranged shots so if you use corners and distance effectively you can really ruin their shooting phases (this is something that will probably help me more in the future against new necrons). The real issue here is that you will still need something that forces necrons off objectives and according to my opponent even the walkers had objective secured or something due to a sub-faction he took.

Anyway i hope he's not cheating with the new things necrons have. I probably should've tried looking at his book just in case to see if it was all legit.

I almost killed one of his cron overlords on a barge (he re-rolled its last failed wound and it remained on one wound till the end of the game). I also murdered his little other hq unit which i probably should've just used to take out his walkers instead. Killing it did ruin some of his later charges since it allowed him to re-roll those but that was never a huge issue for him.

The scourge and wracks units worked perfectly for the 'deploy scramblers' secondary objective and i got my 10 pts at the end of my 3rd turn. He couldn't or didn't really try to stop me. Oddly the harder one to score was the middle zone but i still managed it in my turn 2 without much issue. I imagine it's just super hard to screen all of them. Also necrons have their own secondaries based around objectives and some other things and i'd have to say they're probably way too strong esp. with lots of objective secured.

The game ended with me getting 27 pts (10 for deploy scramblers, 3 for bring it down for killing a walker, 10 from objectives and 4 or more for thin their ranks) and he had anywhere from just under or just over twice my score mostly due to objectives. Honestly i should've traded out bring it down for either linebreaker or engage on all fronts because i had units within 3 different table quarters for most of the battle and with the one scourge unit in turn 3 i was actually in every table quarter. Also when you have grotesques, scourge and a haemonculus in your enemy's deployment zone getting 4 points in a turn is pretty easy as well.

Ultimately i'd still likely lose from him holding the objectives so hard and gaining at least 10 pts from primary and lots of points from secondary from that. At best i could've approached his total but never really topped it unless i knocked him off more of those points and without shredder scourge or grotesques that's just extremely unlikely.

My main opponent is a Necron main.

That pre-game move is actually part of their Custom Chapter abilities. Doesnt work on C'Tan or LoW. The Fall Back from CC and Shoot is a 1 turn army wide ability from going mono-dynasty (basically they build a PfP table before the game). Sounds like he is playing it correctly.

Wait until you see what the Nightbringer C'Tan can do. Basically deletes a squad of Grotesques each turn in CC, plus doing 2-4 Mortal Wounds on something near by. The maximum 3 damager per phase ability is bonkers good against us. Good thing you have the Voidraven Bombers, basically an auto-include when facing Necrons.

Eviscerating Fly-by, Slashing Impact obsession and Grav Talons work vs the C'Tan too.

Edit: I mean, its dmg on the movement and charge phases.

So for after 5k of Marines, Guard and Custodes each, I've been wanting to get into a non-Imperium army, and have been thinking either Cult or Dark Eldar.

Problem is, I'm unaware of any list that's even semi-competitive that doesn't simply consist of 5x Kabalites in Venoms with a Blaster and some Talos'. I do enjoy the modelling potential and overall aesthetic but the playstyle does seem a bit monotone. Overall I'd like to have a rather mixed army, with Kabal, Kult and Coven or a combination of 2. If there's potential to run say a Patrol Detachment of Harlequins alongside even better.

While I've read the Codex several times I'm wondering if what units I can consider to maintain a balance between fluff and competitiveness.

Thanks

 Valkyrie wrote:
So for after 5k of Marines, Guard and Custodes each, I've been wanting to get into a non-Imperium army, and have been thinking either Cult or Dark Eldar.

Problem is, I'm unaware of any list that's even semi-competitive that doesn't simply consist of 5x Kabalites in Venoms with a Blaster and some Talos'. I do enjoy the modelling potential and overall aesthetic but the playstyle does seem a bit monotone. Overall I'd like to have a rather mixed army, with Kabal, Kult and Coven or a combination of 2. If there's potential to run say a Patrol Detachment of Harlequins alongside even better.

While I've read the Codex several times I'm wondering if what units I can consider to maintain a balance between fluff and competitiveness.

Thanks

DE competitiveness is in the middle for sure , very hard to win events, but can easier go 2-1, 3-2, and can go 4-1 with someone used to playing DE. With that said b.c we are mostly focusing on getting max secondaries we suffer in primaries and that is why you see lots of Talos, Grots, Wracks, aka coven b.c Coven can get primaries for us much easier than Cult and exponentially easier than Kabal.

Now with all of that, we do have tools outside of Coven to take primaries, Cult, Incubi, Mandrakes can. Just know its way more glass holding the points so a wrong target pick, a wrong movement, etc.. means that unit wont be there to hold the primary. B.c of that you have to focus on MSU and putting MSU on the primaries. Venom with Incubi in it, Raider with Kabal and wych in them, Reavers with Kabals, etc...

DE is playing on hard mode right now b.c we got a high points increase compare to our power. Sadly CWE had the same thing done to them so we are not alone.

If you have any questions let us know.

@Amishprn86: I agree so much that primaries, secondaries and at least our shooting is becoming less relevant. Gun-line definitely doesn't work like it used to for dark eldar when the enemy can just shift more hard to kill necrons or space marines onto an objective and wych cults are so squishy they can't really last very long.

I have a very awkward upcoming idea for a list. I may use clawed fiends from DS of all things (two squads of 6) and then two 5 man squads of grotesques in raiders zooming up the field. I may also take ravagers with dark lances. I've been considering shredder scourge but i don't know if they'll realistically do enough. I'm definitely going to take 3 model reaver units for preventing DS though and hopefully blocking transports. I don't know what else i'll bring but it's definitely going outside of my comfort zone.

The thing is dark eldar can take objective points quickly but so can a lot of other factions now and the problem with dark eldar is once an enemy takes a point they tend to do so in enough numbers that we can't shift them even if we direct all our firepower against said objective. My last game against necrons had him double move onto 3 of the 4 objectives by which point i couldn't really shift him. Even though we're squishy overall we really can't play the long ranged shoot from a distance approach much anymore and it really bugs me.

So, for the ones that didn't know:

Reaper: 170 pts, still Cabal, Coven or Cult. Went down to 10 wounds, kept all the abilities on the chassis.
The Weapon changed, no longer stops the enemy from advancing, but now the Beam is D3+3 and the Blast version is -1 AP.

So a buff to the damage, a great buff IMO.

Tantalus: Basically the same, auto advance 12" instead of double, but went down to 310 points from... 400?
Rest of the datasheet basically the same.

Another great buff.

Thats great, thanks for the sneak peek.

I won't lie though, am disappointed that the Reaper isn't Kabal only.

Anything about the Tantalus transporting Scourges?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Skari providing a quick look at the Reaper and Tantalus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7L8od4qAM
Drukhari start at 1:38:46

I've been having a real tough time with dark eldar. I faced custodes yesterday with a list i made up on the spot for take all comers (he got to choose deployment zones and go first). Dark Technomancers is good and all but my list needs something. Perhaps i need chaff and was thinking of 3 units of 3-4 reavers as well as some cheap units for early DS prevention.

9th edition is just really hard for my common playstyle because i need to move around which is easy for dark eldar but we can't easily fight in a melee or in any area where the enemy is heavily concentrated. We just don't have the melee or even the firepower to shift them quickly enough esp. given all our troops are super fragile, over-costed and mostly crappy now (obsec spammed throughout enemy armies is BS). Also we can take areas easily but we can't hold them very easily.

 harlokin wrote:
Thats great, thanks for the sneak peek.

I won't lie though, am disappointed that the Reaper isn't Kabal only.

Anything about the Tantalus transporting Scourges?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Skari providing a quick look at the Reaper and Tantalus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7L8od4qAM
Drukhari start at 1:38:46

Its selling point is that it CAN be Wych and Coven, Kabal has the Ravager, they don't need a 2nd vehicle that does the same thing.

It can't transport Scourge or Hellions anymore.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
Thats great, thanks for the sneak peek.

I won't lie though, am disappointed that the Reaper isn't Kabal only.

Anything about the Tantalus transporting Scourges?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Skari providing a quick look at the Reaper and Tantalus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7L8od4qAM
Drukhari start at 1:38:46

Its selling point is that it CAN be Wych and Coven, Kabal has the Ravager, they don't need a 2nd vehicle that does the same thing.

It can't transport Scourge or Hellions anymore.

Sure its a "selling point".

But it's only a good thing if you think that Coven should be the most resilient subfaction, AND the the shootiest. Ravagers werent available to Coven for a reason.

Then again, I think that DT/MoM is a cancer to the internal balance of the Drukhari codex.

 harlokin wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
Thats great, thanks for the sneak peek.

I won't lie though, am disappointed that the Reaper isn't Kabal only.

Anything about the Tantalus transporting Scourges?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Skari providing a quick look at the Reaper and Tantalus:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7L8od4qAM
Drukhari start at 1:38:46

Its selling point is that it CAN be Wych and Coven, Kabal has the Ravager, they don't need a 2nd vehicle that does the same thing.

It can't transport Scourge or Hellions anymore.

Sure its a "selling point".

But it's only a good thing if you think that Coven should be the most resilient subfaction, AND the the shootiest. Ravagers werent available to Coven for a reason.

Then again, I think that DT/MoM is a cancer to the internal balance of the Drukhari codex.

Who says Coven and Wyches can't have a Heavy Vehicle? At one point in time Coven units could give Power from Pain tokens to Ravagers.

I don't care what traits they can get it being DT, ToS, or MM, I care if they just CAN be Wych/Coven. FFS the fluff makes no sense that they can't be anyways.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


Who says Coven and Wyches can't have a Heavy Vehicle? At one point in time Coven units could give Power from Pain tokens to Ravagers.

Of course they can have Heavies, they are called Talos and Cronos. What they had in old codexes is uttlerly irrelevant, I'm talking about the internal balance of the current codex.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


I don't care what traits they can get it being DT, ToS, or MM, I care if they just CAN be Wych/Coven. FFS the fluff makes no sense that they can't be anyways.

The codex we have is already all over the place when it comes to the fluff, but it can't be a justification to undermine what internal balance there is. Any fething point taking Kabal?

 harlokin wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:


Who says Coven and Wyches can't have a Heavy Vehicle? At one point in time Coven units could give Power from Pain tokens to Ravagers.

Of course they can have Heavies, they are called Talos and Cronos. What they had in old codexes is uttlerly irrelevant, I'm talking about the internal balance of the current codex.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


I don't care what traits they can get it being DT, ToS, or MM, I care if they just CAN be Wych/Coven. FFS the fluff makes no sense that they can't be anyways.

The codex we have is already all over the place when it comes to the fluff, but it can't be a justification to undermine what internal balance there is. Any fething point taking Kabal?

K so wyches shouldn't have a heavy, and Talos/Cronos are not vehicles. And yes fluff should matter, otherwise why even write 100's of pages of fluff for every subfaction.....

Honestly jus let us mix and match again and then it wouldn't matter. Not all of us plays 2k and not all of us likes taking 3 patrols to play our book.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


K so wyches shouldn't have a heavy, and Talos/Cronos are not vehicles. And yes fluff should matter, otherwise why even write 100's of pages of fluff for every subfaction.....

Vehicle or not is just semantics, what matters is the role that it plays in an army. Some Heavies have the vehicle keyword, some don't, it doesn't affect their purpose in-game.

It wasn't an accident that Kabals have access to Ravagers, Razorwings, and Voidravens, Cults have the latter two, and Coven have none. It is because the design intent (however misguided) was that Kabals are shooty, Cults are a hybrid, and Coven are resilient. With DT/MoM and Reapers, Covens now do everything better than Kabals and Cults.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Honestly jus let us mix and match again and then it wouldn't matter. Not all of us plays 2k and not all of us likes taking 3 patrols to play our book.

I couldn't agree more, the segregation of the subfactions within the codex was completely ill-judged.

Honestly i wish it was the opposite and that GW would stop restricting units in these subfactions

Its super annoying to have a codex that forces fake decisions and doesnt function like any other codex in the game.

I'm pretty hyped about the tantalus pts drops, finally pulled the trigger on one and i'll be having fun with it. Reapers didnt need a buff IMO but eh, 9th seems to be the "killing power is at 11" edition.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:
Honestly i wish it was the opposite and that GW would stop restricting units in these subfactions

Its super annoying to have a codex that forces fake decisions and doesnt function like any other codex in the game.

YEP!

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

I'm pretty hyped about the tantalus pts drops, finally pulled the trigger on one and i'll be having fun with it. Reapers didnt need a buff IMO but eh, 9th seems to be the "killing power is at 11" edition.

Reaper is not a buff to it for it, its what all Dark Lances will most likely be, it also went up 20pts so not really a buff anyways.

I feel kinda crap i don't use forge world. It's not so much i'm against it i just never bought from it before and normal 40k is too expensive for me as is. It's sad though. I feel like if i don't go forge world that dark eldar has a really hard time right now.

I think i'm gonna go heavy on dark technomancers and hex rifle acothysts as well as haemonculus with hex rifles. I'm trying to aim for secondary objectives but i just don't think i can make them without playing the objective point holding game. Sadly dark eldar have issues holding ground esp. when we go first. The other issue is we have to kill opponents off objectives and that's easier said than done. I suppose i should up my infantry killing through the roof in the future to handle obsec but i'm just not sure that's what i need.

I have an old edition (second hand) Raider with a magnetised converted huge cannon under the chassis that I play as a Reaper now and then, and no one complained.
If someone does, I have more people to play with.

I bought a Reaper, because they are very nice looking models, but it is basically a Raider with a long prow gun, and a larger sail.

Lot's of people kitbash their own....As I recall one of the Craftworld Support Weapons works particularly well for the Reaper's gun.

All of that is fine until I go back to games workshop again. That said i prefer the local flgs to playing at gw now.
Gw is more of a springboard to meet people to play warhammer with. However it could work to kitbash. I've done extremely limited model kitbashing. I think I had an old hellion that I had a hellion leader holding a skull in his hand. It just sorta worked out. I've never done extreme model work. It sounds fun but the price is always a problem. A kitbashed reaper could work though.

Guys I'm having a bit of trouble with dark eldar in 9th. I can't shoot or melee some enemies off objectives fast enough. I may use minimum squad size reavers as a small screen to prevent deep strike being effective against me. As people have said we tend to be too squishy to hold points but fast enough to take them. I've been rolling up getting 2nd turn a lot tho. Oddly enough I may spam anti light infantry and anti-meq so that i can get rid of enemy obsec units and what tends to be some of an armys faster models. God i dont know. I may get more grotesques and shredders or poison as well as some dissies. Sadly dissies don't seem to kill off enemy infantry fast enough and the poke an enemy to death from a distance just isn't that effective anymore due to needing mass firepower right away.

I also may spam hex rifles with dark technomancers wracks units in raiders so I can get some character assassination. It's probably a waste of time even if I have like 8 to 10 hex rifles.

DE is in a hard spot right now, which is not all that bad for winning games. The problem is its not as fun to play b.c of how we have to play to win.

You need meat to hold objectives or MSU on each objective. Grots are great at this and so are wracks.

You'll need some fire power eithe rin melee or shooting, well Grots that does for Melee. Reapers/Ravagers for shooting along with things like Mandrakes.

You have to focus hard on 2-3 objectives, get your scramblers and engage for each turn. Basically ignoring the 4th-6th objectives completely.

Your goal should not be to play like other armies, example; Quins, sisters, marines, custodes, daemons, where you can deny their primary and secondaries, instead focus on maxing your points. This will give them a higher score, but if you can play it right you should be 75-90pts compare to 60-70pts unless you just completely out match them (which can happen).

I'm thinking of just shooting enemies off of objectives and capping easier objectives myself. However it may be more important to deny the enemy at least 1 or even 2 of the primary objectives due to shooting enemies off of easy objectives. I may have to stay away from center objective though. As was said before it tends to get clogged with enemies and dark eldar can't fight in those circumstances.

Yeah don't go to the center, vs an marines or custodes, but at the same time don't let them pick off units easily as well.

We can't really out shoot a lot of armies right now, we have tools to camp a couple objectives, use them, if you can lock down 2 objectives for sure over 3 turns, then you can shoot holes into another objective.

Also Incubi/Draz can go and take objectives if you wanted to deny and take. Have vehicles and small 5mans in them shoot up to support.

I'm disappointed (but not surprised) that GW simply scrubbed the Reaper's gun's special rule, standardised the damage, and left it at that.

The gun looks like a supersized Haywire Blaster, and I think it would have been fitting to give it the Haywire rules.

"Just like the Reaper you knew, but a bit blander"

We always lose our special rules, its what GW does to us.