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Reading the Goonhammer review fills me with childlike joy that another fun and good codex got released.

4/4 codizes so far that are good.

I hope some of you can sleep better now at night :*

Tyel wrote:
2 attacks on wracks seems quite sad when you've got Wyches standing right next to them with (at least) 4. Max units of 20 though, which potentially does make bringing back D3 a turn more attractive.

It's good for internal balance though. The Coven ate the Cult's lunch for the whole of 8th, being both more resilent and as fighty. I'm glad to see Wych Cults as a relevant force within the faction as a whole.

Hmm some interesting bits from War Zone Charadon for the Cult of Strife, from 27:52 in the readthrough video:

Warlord traits:

Competitive Edge: After fighting and resolving its attacks, if they were all against one enemy unit, make an additional number of attacks equal to the number that did not make the inflict damage step. Basically sounds like a "do over" of any attack that did not get to inflict damage.

Unparalleled Agility: Attacks against the warlord have -1 to hit and -1 to wound.

Master Executioner: Re-roll to-wound rolls


And an interesting Relic:

Garland of Spite: At the start of the Fight Phase, one enemy model within Engagement Range (excluding Monsters and Vehicles) halves its Attacks. Secondly, the wielder of the Relic automatically hits with its melee attacks.

Dark Lotus Toxin: +1 S and Damage to all of the wielder's melee attacks (excluding Relics)

Sotahullu wrote:
Goonhammer giving lapdance on fancy new codex: https://www.goonhammer.com/codex-drukhari-9th-edition-the-goonhammer-review/

wow reading that is so much goodness - lore and game wise. Need to read it all see if anything broken but happy to see so much goodness for my Dark Eldar!

Are the Helions playable?

The Goonhammer review does seem to be overselling the book a tad, to the point of dishonestly in places.

 Jidmah wrote:
Found a "guy flipping through entire codex"-video. Have fun squinting.

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Same thing for Warzone: Electronic Arts

Shame i can only exalt once..

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Found a "guy flipping through entire codex"-video. Have fun squinting.

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Same thing for Warzone: Electronic Arts

Shame i can only exalt once..

Agreed.

@Spoletta: That Poison weapons working on vehicles stratagem, is that one unit, or the entire army?

 Niiai wrote:
Are the Helions playable?

Very very very likely, but they may find the meta hostile so probably not large units of them.

 harlokin wrote:

Tyel wrote:
2 attacks on wracks seems quite sad when you've got Wyches standing right next to them with (at least) 4. Max units of 20 though, which potentially does make bringing back D3 a turn more attractive.

It's good for internal balance though. The Coven ate the Cult's lunch for the whole of 8th, being both more resilent and as fighty. I'm glad to see Wych Cults as a relevant force within the faction as a whole.

I was number crunching last night, and assuming wracks had 3 attacks. They were way more point efficient then grotesques and even the talos. That poisoned -1 ap weapon profile already makes them very threatening. At 8ppm it would have been mental had they been 3 attacks. I kind of wish they were 10ppm and did have that extra attack, but this keeps all the options more viable.

Something I didn't expect were how damned impressive hellions are now. They actually are better then groteques now in several ways.

2 hellions from cursed blade with +1 T Are

34 pts move 14 S5 T5 4 wounds 6 attacks at -1 damage 2 They are infantry with a 5+ so can hunt from the shadows for a 3+ save and/or lightning fast for -1

1 grot stock

40 points move 7 S5 T5 4 wounds 5 attacks at -2 damage 2 They are infantry but only a 6+ so can use the strat to go to a 4+ and are not allowed to lightning fast but do have a 5+++


I actually think hellions are flat out better in almost every way now. More durable point for point, larger unit size. Fly, fall back and charge and a whole host of amazing strats.

I am pumped for my hellions but a bit sad for my grots, who honestly look worse then clawed fiends now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Found a "guy flipping through entire codex"-video. Have fun squinting.

Spoiler:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Same thing for Warzone: Electronic Arts

Shame i can only exalt once..

Agreed.

@Spoletta: That Poison weapons working on vehicles stratagem, is that one unit, or the entire army?

It's one unit. But you can make a succubus with 12 attacks hitting on 2's with poison 2+ at -3 damage 2..... so there is that lol

All looks very promising and the next month is going to be fun seeing what lists people come with.

 Red Corsair wrote:

I am pumped for my hellions but a bit sad for my grots, who honestly look worse then clawed fiends now.

I'm sad now, I love my Grots I do

 vipoid wrote:
to the point of dishonestly in places.

Which parts make you feel that way?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
to the point of dishonestly in places.

Which parts make you feel that way?

Off the top of my head:

"Flavour. A ton of things that just didn’t quite feel right in 8th edition have been addressed."

This seems excessively generous, frankly.

Some things were improved but there's still a ton of janky stuff in the flavour department, with other things actually being made worse.

HQs can ride in transports with units now. Great! Except that their auras still don't work. So a Master Archon can now ride with his Trueborn retinue and . . . sit around eating sausage rolls, I guess.

Outside of one HQ in one highly-specific detachment, you're still limited to HQ A only being able to affect Troop A, HQ B only being able to affect Troop B etc.. With so few HQs, it doesn't exactly make for a ton of options as far as list-building is concerned. Nor does it make much sense that Haemonculi suddenly forget how to do their job when confronted even by stuff they've helped to augment in the past (like scourges).

Speaking of Scourges, most of their weapons have become Heavy and they have no way around this. So we've got a unit that's supposed to be highly mobile but which you're encouraged to use like a squad of SM Devastators. Hell, bloody Chaos Havocs are functionally more mobile than Scourges.

Not only are Raiders still slow, the fact that Lances/Disintegrators no longer become Assault when equipped mean they've effectively become slower. And with the change to Flayed Skull, the best - the absolute best - they can do is match Eldar heavy tanks for speed.

Going back to Haemonculi, the characters known for bringing all manner of eldritch artefacts and esoteric wargear get... 0 wargear options. This, apparently, is an increase in flavour.

etc.


"Archons are actually worthwhile in a fight now."

Watch out, lads - I hear an Archon can kill a whole Primaris Marine.

Also, apparently having their only remotely good weapon nerfed into uselessness and no longer rerolling hits from his own aura somehow constitutes an improvement.


Just seems to be quite a bit of stuff like this.

Like, there have certainly been quite a few positive changes. I just think some people are being a little dishonest and pretending that every single thing has been fixed.

Yeah I'm not shocked they forgot to fix Archons regarding transports.

 vipoid wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
to the point of dishonestly in places.

Which parts make you feel that way?

Off the top of my head:

"Flavour. A ton of things that just didn’t quite feel right in 8th edition have been addressed."

This seems excessively generous, frankly.

Some things were improved but there's still a ton of janky stuff in the flavour department, with other things actually being made worse.

HQs can ride in transports with units now. Great! Except that their auras still don't work. So a Master Archon can now ride with his Trueborn retinue and . . . sit around eating sausage rolls, I guess.

Outside of one HQ in one highly-specific detachment, you're still limited to HQ A only being able to affect Troop A, HQ B only being able to affect Troop B etc.. With so few HQs, it doesn't exactly make for a ton of options as far as list-building is concerned. Nor does it make much sense that Haemonculi suddenly forget how to do their job when confronted even by stuff they've helped to augment in the past (like scourges).

Speaking of Scourges, most of their weapons have become Heavy and they have no way around this. So we've got a unit that's supposed to be highly mobile but which you're encouraged to use like a squad of SM Devastators. Hell, bloody Chaos Havocs are functionally more mobile than Scourges.

Not only are Raiders still slow, the fact that Lances/Disintegrators no longer become Assault when equipped mean they've effectively become slower. And with the change to Flayed Skull, the best - the absolute best - they can do is match Eldar heavy tanks for speed.

Going back to Haemonculi, the characters known for bringing all manner of eldritch artefacts and esoteric wargear get... 0 wargear options. This, apparently, is an increase in flavour.

etc.


"Archons are actually worthwhile in a fight now."

Watch out, lads - I hear an Archon can kill a whole Primaris Marine.

Also, apparently having their only remotely good weapon nerfed into uselessness and no longer rerolling hits from his own aura somehow constitutes an improvement.


Just seems to be quite a bit of stuff like this.

Like, there have certainly been quite a few positive changes. I just think some people are being a little dishonest and pretending that every single thing has been fixed.

Thanks for that.

On the Character auras in transports - no one has that. Hadn't thought about the loss of run and gun on the boats - interesting.

On Scourges with heavy weapons: Give them the +1BS Combat Drug. They're now hitting on 3s after moving, and 2s if they don't. With 14 movement, fly, and built in Deep Strike, that's slightly more mobile than Havocs.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
On Scourges with heavy weapons: Give them the +1BS Combat Drug. They're now hitting on 3s after moving, and 2s if they don't. With 14 movement, fly, and built in Deep Strike, that's slightly more mobile than Havocs.

Can they take drugs? Are they Wych Cult?

I thought they were Mercs.

Well about Haemonculus, it is not as its unchanged wargear wise. Haemonculus now has Tools, Ichor Injector, Stinger pistol and scissorhands (that is +2A) as default.

But it doesn't sit well with me either really.

They are not Wych Cult, and therefore cannot take Drugs.

Too bad they didn't get that special rule that allows them to move while firing heavy weapons like literally every other heavy weapons team unit has gotten in the last couple years. Even though they have wings.

There's some really good changes with this codex, and as usual some very frustrating changes that make no sense.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
On Scourges with heavy weapons: Give them the +1BS Combat Drug. They're now hitting on 3s after moving, and 2s if they don't. With 14 movement, fly, and built in Deep Strike, that's slightly more mobile than Havocs.

Can they take drugs? Are they Wych Cult?

I thought they were Mercs.

Right. It's Hellions I was thinking of. Whoops.

You can't give them drugs.
There are however ways to buff them up in a Realspace Raiders detachment when there wasn't before - using the Archon with everyone's favourite relic you can reroll 1s to hit and wound.

Really though - the argument surely is that you can still hit on a 4s.

I'm paying 100 points for 4 18" S8, AP-4, D6+2 damage shots.

Whereas 5 Havocs with Lascannons is 145 points?

Shooting a T8 3+ target (T7 favours the lance).

4*1/2*1/2*5.5=5.5.
4*2/3*2/3*5/6*3.5=5.18.

So the Scourge expect to do more damage for around 2/3rds the points. If hitting on 3s its just comical.

Partly this reflects how bad Lascannon rules are - presumably at some point they'll be buffed to the new MM meta - but still.

Missed opportunity: Remember our old splinter cannons at rapid fire 3? Yeah so do I... Well with the new splinter wracks allowing rapid fire splinter weapons to fire at full effect up to their maximum range it really feels like a kick in the shin that it was changed to Heavy 3. Like this would have been a really awesome chance for some synergy and would have been the only reason left to take a splinter cannon on a Kabalite. Now they just feel like really sad heavy bolters that don't quite fit anywhere.

Even on Venoms they feel counter-intuitive to me. Like the venom got a nice boost to melee capabilities and wants to be up front anyways to deliver its payload yet a heavy splinter cannon doesn't quite mesh with that idea. Our old version wasn't really wrecking the meta and this new one has the same single target damage potential (worse vs single wound models) as our half range version so why couldn't they just slap on the -1 ap to the RF3 profile and call it a day?

Don't get me wrong the codex in general is looking reeeeally good and most of the major gripes have been resolved but there are some glaring design choices that I can't wrap my head around. Splinter cannons just stand out as one that has me less than enthused. Looking like I may be chopping up a few of my Kabalites this week.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Thanks for that.

Sure.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

On the Character auras in transports - no one has that.

That's true but then no other race has this playstyle. Or auras that are as limited in what they affect as the DE ones.

Otherwise, the Archon didn't have to have an aura at all. He could have had something else that would work from inside a transport.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Hadn't thought about the loss of run and gun on the boats - interesting.

Yeah, it's one of the changes that just seems plain weird, more than anything else.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
to the point of dishonestly in places.

Which parts make you feel that way?

Off the top of my head:

"Flavour. A ton of things that just didn’t quite feel right in 8th edition have been addressed."

This seems excessively generous, frankly.

Some things were improved but there's still a ton of janky stuff in the flavour department, with other things actually being made worse.

HQs can ride in transports with units now. Great! Except that their auras still don't work. So a Master Archon can now ride with his Trueborn retinue and . . . sit around eating sausage rolls, I guess.

Outside of one HQ in one highly-specific detachment, you're still limited to HQ A only being able to affect Troop A, HQ B only being able to affect Troop B etc.. With so few HQs, it doesn't exactly make for a ton of options as far as list-building is concerned. Nor does it make much sense that Haemonculi suddenly forget how to do their job when confronted even by stuff they've helped to augment in the past (like scourges).

Speaking of Scourges, most of their weapons have become Heavy and they have no way around this. So we've got a unit that's supposed to be highly mobile but which you're encouraged to use like a squad of SM Devastators. Hell, bloody Chaos Havocs are functionally more mobile than Scourges.

Not only are Raiders still slow, the fact that Lances/Disintegrators no longer become Assault when equipped mean they've effectively become slower. And with the change to Flayed Skull, the best - the absolute best - they can do is match Eldar heavy tanks for speed.

Going back to Haemonculi, the characters known for bringing all manner of eldritch artefacts and esoteric wargear get... 0 wargear options. This, apparently, is an increase in flavour.

etc.


"Archons are actually worthwhile in a fight now."

Watch out, lads - I hear an Archon can kill a whole Primaris Marine.

Also, apparently having their only remotely good weapon nerfed into uselessness and no longer rerolling hits from his own aura somehow constitutes an improvement.


Just seems to be quite a bit of stuff like this.

Like, there have certainly been quite a few positive changes. I just think some people are being a little dishonest and pretending that every single thing has been fixed.

Thanks for that.

On the Character auras in transports - no one has that. Hadn't thought about the loss of run and gun on the boats - interesting.

Theres plenty of things "no one" has aaprt from a certain faction has... Thats the whole points of having individual factions and armies having their "thing".

It seems looking at the starts and what not is a whole lot of nothing burger sadly.

 Brutus_Apex wrote:
They are not Wych Cult, and therefore cannot take Drugs.

Too bad they didn't get that special rule that allows them to move while firing heavy weapons like literally every other heavy weapons team unit has gotten in the last couple years. Even though they have wings.

There's some really good changes with this codex, and as usual some very frustrating changes that make no sense.

Marines don't have that outside of iron hands, really.

Am I correct in thinking that DE HQs aren't CORE, so their auras don't even work on themselves?

 vipoid wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Hadn't thought about the loss of run and gun on the boats - interesting.

Yeah, it's one of the changes that just seems plain weird, more than anything else.

The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

If they were still assault they could...

Run, shoot, charge, and shoot into combat with an eventual 5++ on top of prows, hooks, trophies, etc - they be the most versatile units in the game.

 vipoid wrote:
Am I correct in thinking that DE HQs aren't CORE, so their auras don't even work on themselves?

That's one of the points of the CORE keyword. From 'Core Units and Characters' on Warhammer Community:

A crucial side-effect of this change is that Characters themselves won’t be affected by aura abilities that utilise the Core keyword – they’re supposed to be commanding others, not inspiring themselves to do better! In the example shown above, the Space Marine Captain won’t be able to re-roll his hit rolls of 1 and will instead have to rely on his own merit to strike home. To be fair, he’ll usually hit on a 2+ anyway!

Nor will the aforementioned Captain be affected by a Lieutenant’s Tactical Precision aura ability – a Captain has been there, seen it, and done it all, which is why he’s in charge and has such an amazing profile in the first place! However – and very much as intended – a nearby Core unit of Space Marines will be significantly more effective when in the presence of their Captain and/or a Lieutenant, just as they should be.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Hadn't thought about the loss of run and gun on the boats - interesting.

Yeah, it's one of the changes that just seems plain weird, more than anything else.

The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

If they were still assault they could...

Run, shoot, charge, and shoot into combat with an eventual 5++ on top of prows, hooks, trophies, etc - they be the most versatile units in the game.

Granted. But I'd rather gunboats be good at being gunboats, rather than trying to be melee units.