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40kstats posted up a bunch of tournies for 4/24. This screenshot is for JUST that week. I highlighted marines for comedic effect. Based on the data there have been no other weekends since the DE book release with GTs except 4/10 and 4/24.

A slightly interesting note is perhaps the meteoric rise of DW who sits in a similar level of success to DE, but on far fewer games.

Behind Necrons and DG -- DE are the third most played faction if you keep the marine varieties separate. Astartes in general are played about 3 times as much as Necrons. The gradient is the point differential. DE are definitely scoring more while perhaps not always getting a good finish, because of some skew.



Here's the top 4 for the tournaments. I noted the commonly noticed strong elements on the DE lists. Worst so far is War in the Burg was 16% DE, but 40% of the top 10, but they failed to go 5-0. Lots of 10 point reavers, silly succs, and DT. Some courts sprinkled in, too.

Looking at those results I really am not seeing anything that dubious lol.

Especially considering the silly razor flail interaction and 10 point reavers are still being used apparently.

The 10 pt reavers is equal parts the fault of the inept TO's and the players disingenuous enough to take advantage of the situation.

DE are on a tear right now because they are a hard counter to the meta. The meta was small super elite multi wound units with multi damage weaponry.

DE units are small and hit just as hard but they aren't durable so they are getting twice the numbers. It's classic MSU, nothing new to the game but it's definitely a shift in the meta for 9th.

As soon as admech, sisters or other xenos show up and are also a glass hammer but conduct their work in the shooting phase then DE will be reigned in hard.

DE hate killing units like skitarii for example. They essentially charge in a more expensive unit to trade and lose out on the exchange. Marines are getting dunked on hard because they pay for 2 wounds and power armor which is meaningless to DE ATM.

It's this odd decision they made in 9th, "hey lets fix marines durability issue" only to reverse it via the ever escalating damage lol. At this point marines would have been better off being 1 wound and 30% cheaper.

The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.

Crix wrote:
Why should blade artists be removed when marines have access to ap shenanigans in every facet all the time? See it’s things like this that put people on the defensive.

Two wrongs do not make a right, this is what I mean when I say nobody wants nerfs, enjoy Rubric Marine Smite dealing 2d3 mortal wounds to keep up.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Looking at those results I really am not seeing anything that dubious lol.

Especially considering the silly razor flail interaction and 10 point reavers are still being used apparently.

The 10 pt reavers is equal parts the fault of the inept TO's and the players disingenuous enough to take advantage of the situation.

DE are on a tear right now because they are a hard counter to the meta. The meta was small super elite multi wound units with multi damage weaponry.

DE units are small and hit just as hard but they aren't durable so they are getting twice the numbers. It's classic MSU, nothing new to the game but it's definitely a shift in the meta for 9th.

As soon as admech, sisters or other xenos show up and are also a glass hammer but conduct their work in the shooting phase then DE will be reigned in hard.

DE hate killing units like skitarii for example. They essentially charge in a more expensive unit to trade and lose out on the exchange. Marines are getting dunked on hard because they pay for 2 wounds and power armor which is meaningless to DE ATM.

It's this odd decision they made in 9th, "hey lets fix marines durability issue" only to reverse it via the ever escalating damage lol. At this point marines would have been better off being 1 wound and 30% cheaper.

The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.

While I do agree that 10 point revears and broken succubus is not making the situation better, in what world is a 69% win rate not dubious? Again that’s what Ynnari had at their peak with any amount of play. Do you think that army was fair? Outside of ironhands at their peak, this is also what some of the worst IF, IH, and salamander lists where getting as well. Are those armies fair? And while 27 lists doesn’t give enough data to draw any full conclusion from, it’s at least enough to show a real trend.

Everything else you bring up is just theory on what you think will happen, which sorry, doesn’t mean much in comparison to facts.

GW really needs to stop sitting on the pot and get that FAQ out, so we can see how much impact fixing the obvious brainless errors has, and whether they're still a problem after that or not.

Salt donkey wrote:

Crix wrote:
Salt Donkey, from someone on your side of the discussion, and as the OP, how would you “fix” or address a perceived ‘broken’ Drukhari issue? I’m interested in seeing what page all of us are on.

There’s a lot things so I’m going to separate the nerfs I’d like to see based on style. That said I don’t feel all these nerfs would be needed to make the army fair, just a good chunk of them.

Army-wide.

Change points so that dissi’s can compete wit dark lances. Maybe a couple points nerf to darklances and a larger point cut for dissis.

Drazhar up to 165 points. Currently he is an auto-include in any list. 165 would at least give people pause before playing him.

Raiders up 10 points. They got a large T boost but paid basically no points for the privilege. This by itself would make the army a lot more fair.

All units in a non realspace raid detachment need to share a coven, Kabal, cult keyword in order to keep obsessions.

No extra 2 CP for running triple patrol.

Incubi up 2 points. A very undercosted unit atm.

Kabals

I don’t think this is the OP part of the book. Needs little to no nerfs. Maybe court of the archon needs some point increases.

Wyche cults

First clear up obvious oversights (infinite attack succubus, 10 point reveals for all those WAAC players trying to abuse this)

Nerf succubus somehow further (no tournament list should be spamming 3 and feeling good about it.)

Change book of rust cult of strife to require an army to not use mercy. Buff beastmasters/ beasts.

Coven

Dark techomancer needs drastic changes. It this point I’d be ok if it got nerfed to something like +2 S in range weapons that don’t auto-hit.

Buff Talos and chronos. They’re both quite bad.

That’s really all atm. That said it should be clear based on the length of the list why I consider this army OP.

These you listed seem very small issues. SM and deathguard have many more broken combos to deal with.

I also disagree about talos (decent at least) and chronos (quite good) as they're not bad at all.

The only nerfs I can agree with are the loss of 2CPs for the the multiple patrols list, +15ppm for a basic succubus, competitive edge that generates extra hit rolls (not attacks) and maybe allow one liquifier every 5 wracks. Anything else I wouldn't change, in fact there are units that even need some love from GW.

Incubi and raiders I think they're already quite expensive. So is Drazhar probably, as a SM smash captain isn't really that worse but it's also cheaper. I play a wolf lord on TWC with TH and armour of russ, which I believe it isn't even the best SM captain available. 130 points for M10'' (plus advance and charge) T5 7W 2+/4++ and 4A at S8 Ap-2 D3 combined with +1A pretty much everytime and AP-1 during assault doctrines. Warlord trait wolfkin gives him D3 attacks instead of +1, but beastlayer give him +1A in combat if in range of vehicles/monster and +1 to wound against those. And ability to make a selected enemy unit fight last. Against tough stuff drazhar isn't much better but it's also (much) easier to kill than a lord on TWC.

Ragnar Blackmane has 10A at S6 AP-4 D2 base plus SM/SW bonuses, he has 3 aura abilties and costs 130 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Behind Necrons and DG -- DE are the third most played faction if you keep the marine varieties separate.

Which sounds reasonable as they have the newest codex and they're pretty good against marines and equivalents. Give them a couple of months and their numbers will drop as other codexes will be out and players will figure out how to adapt to counter them.

I think drukhari being present in considerable numbers in tournaments is a very good thing because it could lead to decrease the number of SM (and equivalents) lists in tournaments first and in casual metas later. Which is something I'd love to happen.

Okey, but the same was said like a year ago about harlequins that people just need time to learn how to play against them, and that they will fall out of favour and their win rates will drop.

And the only change we actually see, is that CWE players take harlequin detachments as parts of their armies, and the army that was supposed to be bad is getting in to top 8s on a regular basis. At the same time majority of the broken marine armies don't even show up in top 8, like at all. I don't think there was a salamander top 8 placing after the aggresor nerf or a DW high placing at all.


Alsot the main difference between all marine HQs that are ment for melee and something like Drazhar is the fight last thing. Melee has two problems, comparing to shoting, having to actually get in to the range and the opponent being able to strike back. Eldar armies have little or no problems with the first, and mitigate a lot of the second. And dead models don't hit back. And while yes some marine HQs come with auras, those work only if there are units next to him that actually want to be buffed.

Something like a succubus or drazhar works like the old style, they work at full efficiency being alone.

I think drukhari being present in considerable numbers in tournaments is a very good thing because it could lead to decrease the number of SM (and equivalents) lists in tournaments first and in casual metas later. Which is something I'd love to happen.

What about all those people that have one army, and can only afford one then? Having an anti marine army, and we have enough of those already, just makes the enjoyment of the game worse for those people, and marine players kind of a make up most of all the players . Plus what are those people suppose to play if not marines? harli/cwe soups, demon soups there isn't much other stuff left that could be good in an anti marine saturated meta. Because DE and similiar armies, don't really have problems with killing something like GSC, IG, Necrons or Tau armies.



The stuff DE got in their book are very powerful, in an edition made around pushing opponents off objectives.

Crackedgear wrote:
For what it’s worth, I’ve been in a TTS tournament that’s been going for a little while now. 16 teams of 4, 7 drukhari lists. Current individual rankings are 3rd, 7th, 17th, 33rd, 42nd, 46th, and 59th.

Most of the lists have a succubus with competitive edge and razorflails, six of them are heavy on the dark technomancers, and five of them have at least 15 hellions. One or two have 40.

Druka individual rankings are fairly lower than one would expect, only one in the first 6 spots... These results are even stranger when you know that TTS means "play whatever quantity you like of anything" as you don't need to buy and paint any models.

Karol wrote:
Okey, but the same was said like a year ago about harlequins that people just need time to learn how to play against them, and that they will fall out of favour and their win rates will drop.

True, in fact they're not OP at all. If people still tailor against marines and then autolose against harlies it's their problem . Take aggressors, many SM players ignore them as they're terrible against other marines but they're very good against drukhari, harlies or orks. All counter meta armies. If those players refuse or fail to adapt it's no surprise the harlies win rate stays the same.

Karol wrote:

Alsot the main difference between all marine HQs that are ment for melee and something like Drazhar is the fight last thing. Melee has two problems, comparing to shoting, having to actually get in to the range and the opponent being able to strike back. Eldar armies have little or no problems with the first, and mitigate a lot of the second. And dead models don't hit back. And while yes some marine HQs come with auras, those work only if there are units next to him that actually want to be buffed.

Something like a succubus or drazhar works like the old style, they work at full efficiency being alone.

Fight last for drazhar only works on a roll, and against high LD it doesn't have good odds to work. Armour of russ works automatically. All smash captains work alone, they simply need the appropriate target, just like drukhari HQs. A succubus goes down against 10 boyz if they strike first.

Karol wrote:

What about all those people that have one army, and can only afford one then? Having an anti marine army, and we have enough of those already, just makes the enjoyment of the game worse for those people, and marine players kind of a make up most of all the players . Plus what are those people suppose to play if not marines? harli/cwe soups, demon soups there isn't much other stuff left that could be good in an anti marine saturated meta. Because DE and similiar armies, don't really have problems with killing something like GSC, IG, Necrons or Tau armies.

They'll keep playing their armies. I'm not saying that I wish a meta with no marines at all, just less marines and equivalents. A considerable amount of players owns multiple armies, especially SM players as getting a SM armies is easier than most of the other factions. Some will keep playing them, others will not. At that point competitive lists will be much more TAC oriented and not tailored against elites with benefits for everyone.

Karol wrote:

The stuff DE got in their book are very powerful, in an edition made around pushing opponents off objectives.

So are SM, necrons and deathguard books.

 Red Corsair wrote:


The game is going to suffer from this issue forever lol. Anyone remember when we all tolerated the breakneck pace of 8th's codex cycle because we were promised the idea that once everyone had their book the game would all meld together? Yeah only for supplements and then 9th edition codex cycle to literally keep that mark on the horizon.

A year from now marine players will be complaining once again that they are so terrible and they will get their second 9th codex thus breaking the meta wide open again and the cycle will repeat when 10th launches lol.

To be fair, the period between when the sisters codex came out and space marines 2.0 was really nicely balanced. Yes there were a few outliers like grey knights, but the majority of factions were sitting around a 50% win rate.

 Blackie wrote:

Salt donkey wrote:

Crix wrote:
Salt Donkey, from someone on your side of the discussion, and as the OP, how would you “fix” or address a perceived ‘broken’ Drukhari issue? I’m interested in seeing what page all of us are on.

There’s a lot things so I’m going to separate the nerfs I’d like to see based on style. That said I don’t feel all these nerfs would be needed to make the army fair, just a good chunk of them.

Army-wide.

Change points so that dissi’s can compete wit dark lances. Maybe a couple points nerf to darklances and a larger point cut for dissis.

Drazhar up to 165 points. Currently he is an auto-include in any list. 165 would at least give people pause before playing him.

Raiders up 10 points. They got a large T boost but paid basically no points for the privilege. This by itself would make the army a lot more fair.

All units in a non realspace raid detachment need to share a coven, Kabal, cult keyword in order to keep obsessions.

No extra 2 CP for running triple patrol.

Incubi up 2 points. A very undercosted unit atm.

Kabals

I don’t think this is the OP part of the book. Needs little to no nerfs. Maybe court of the archon needs some point increases.

Wyche cults

First clear up obvious oversights (infinite attack succubus, 10 point reveals for all those WAAC players trying to abuse this)

Nerf succubus somehow further (no tournament list should be spamming 3 and feeling good about it.)

Change book of rust cult of strife to require an army to not use mercy. Buff beastmasters/ beasts.

Coven

Dark techomancer needs drastic changes. It this point I’d be ok if it got nerfed to something like +2 S in range weapons that don’t auto-hit.

Buff Talos and chronos. They’re both quite bad.

That’s really all atm. That said it should be clear based on the length of the list why I consider this army OP.

These you listed seem very small issues. SM and deathguard have many more broken combos to deal with.

I also disagree about talos (decent at least) and chronos (quite good) as they're not bad at all.

The only nerfs I can agree with are the loss of 2CPs for the the multiple patrols list, +15ppm for a basic succubus, competitive edge that generates extra hit rolls (not attacks) and maybe allow one liquifier every 5 wracks. Anything else I wouldn't change, in fact there are units that even need some love from GW.

Incubi and raiders I think they're already quite expensive. So is Drazhar probably, as a SM smash captain isn't really that worse but it's also cheaper. I play a wolf lord on TWC with TH and armour of russ, which I believe it isn't even the best SM captain available. 130 points for M10'' (plus advance and charge) T5 7W 2+/4++ and 4A at S8 Ap-2 D3 combined with +1A pretty much everytime and AP-1 during assault doctrines. Warlord trait wolfkin gives him D3 attacks instead of +1, but beastlayer give him +1A in combat if in range of vehicles/monster and +1 to wound against those. And ability to make a selected enemy unit fight last. Against tough stuff drazhar isn't much better but it's also (much) easier to kill than a lord on TWC.

Ragnar Blackmane has 10A at S6 AP-4 D2 base plus SM/SW bonuses, he has 3 aura abilties and costs 130 points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


Behind Necrons and DG -- DE are the third most played faction if you keep the marine varieties separate.

Which sounds reasonable as they have the newest codex and they're pretty good against marines and equivalents. Give them a couple of months and their numbers will drop as other codexes will be out and players will figure out how to adapt to counter them.

I think drukhari being present in considerable numbers in tournaments is a very good thing because it could lead to decrease the number of SM (and equivalents) lists in tournaments first and in casual metas later. Which is something I'd love to happen.

Where did those bad marines touch you?

I hated dealing with marines with their 2.0 dex, but as my last thread stated times have changed. I may harp on tournament win-rates a lot, but I do so because they are are immune to personal bias, anecdotal evidence, and theory crafting. As many on this thread have correctly pointed out, there are some flaws in solely relying on them, but the truth of situation is much more likely to revealed by stats than something like “what Blackie thinks”

To that end I just don’t understand how you in good faith can call something that is winning less than 40% of the time in many of iterations OP, and something that is winning 69% fine/good for the health of the game. Even with many changes and high variance, it seems impossible to me that is these factions are in the same league. Maybe you’re just trolling me and I took the bait. Who knows?

Blackie
If both characters you mentioned were that good, they would be played more. Lots of people own SW armies. SW suffer from the same issues other marines have. And thunderwold cavalry have large bases and cant move through terrain like infantry, so you can easily move block them with units you want to trade. At least any half decent player can do this (the army needs to have screens of some sort too but most do).

Drazhar and Super Succubi can move through terrain EZ with their infantry status, advance and charge as of turn 2 out of their raider (hiding behind an obscuring piece of terrain). Again if you had at least played against Druka since theior codex dropped, you would know this. I think your claims come from your "John Snow level of knowledge" of how the new Druka codex works. And I do mean in practise, on the table top. Not in theory.

Salt donkey wrote:


Where did those bad marines touch you?

I hated dealing with marines with their 2.0 dex, but as my last thread stated times have changed. I may harp on tournament win-rates a lot, but I do so because they are are immune to personal bias, anecdotal evidence, and theory crafting. As many on this thread have correctly pointed out, there are some flaws in solely relying on them, but the truth of situation is much more likely to revealed by stats than something like “what Blackie thinks”

To that end I just don’t understand how you in good faith can call something that is winning less than 40% of the time in many of iterations OP, and something that is winning 69% fine/good for the health of the game. Even with many changes and high variance, it seems impossible to me that is these factions are in the same league. Maybe you’re just trolling me and I took the bait. Who knows?

If they are so bad why even in tournaments most of the players bring a SM army? I'm simply sick of them being so damn common in every meta, that's it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 addnid wrote:
Blackie
If both characters you mentioned were that good, they would be played more. Lots of people own SW armies. SW suffer from the same issues other marines have. And thunderwold cavalry have large bases and cant move through terrain like infantry, so you can easily move block them with units you want to trade. At least any half decent player can do this (the army needs to have screens of some sort too but most do).

Drazhar and Super Succubi can move through terrain EZ with their infantry status, advance and charge as of turn 2 out of their raider (hiding behind an obscuring piece of terrain). Again if you had at least played against Druka since theior codex dropped, you would know this. I think your claims come from your "John Snow level of knowledge" of how Druka work in practise, on the table top, not in theory.

I could argue that at least any half decent player can counter an optimized drukhari army, especially those who have a 9th edition codex. If they refuse to do it, that's their problem.

And I've actually played both drukhari and SW for several editions. I'll give you I haven't played 9th with them though, although I know the army very well and I think that those results in tournaments are mostly a consequence of: A) Codex is new, army is not extremely common and people are not experienced against them, yet B) Lists are still tailored against armies with very different statelines.

Of course if you still play them using a pure anti SM list you'll lose, as it should be.

The characters I mentioned are not that common because SM of any flavour have a bazillion of options. Drukhari have not, they just have 3 general HQs and 3 named characters available for lists that need 3+ HQs typically. And each subfaction (coven, wych cult, kabal) has really just a single option to pick. That's why you see them frequently, SM have way more options and lots of them are actually good.

Salt donkey wrote:
While I do agree that 10 point revears and broken succubus is not making the situation better, in what world is a 69% win rate not dubious? Again that’s what Ynnari had at their peak with any amount of play. Do you think that army was fair? Outside of ironhands at their peak, this is also what some of the worst IF, IH, and salamander lists where getting as well. Are those armies fair? And while 27 lists doesn’t give enough data to draw any full conclusion from, it’s at least enough to show a real trend.

Everything else you bring up is just theory on what you think will happen, which sorry, doesn’t mean much in comparison to facts.

69% is obviously wrong but as you say there are clear broken things that will get fixed (or they won't, who knows with GW).
The question is what that win rate does once the obvious broken gak is fixed. If it would still be to high (which is entirely possible) more changes would be needed but I think its kind of important to first see what happens when the obvious stuff is fixed.

I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.

For now at least the competitive power of DE seems to be incredibly fast MSU that punches above their weight. So you control the board and favourably trade away forces. But that's surely how the army is meant to run - the question is whether its too efficient, and whether it will remain so as new books etc emerge.

I'd be very suspect about massive faction-wide nerfs all at the same time (i.e. remove razorflail/competitive edge and increase Succubus cost and gut DT in general and increase Drazhar's points by 20% and increase Incubi points by 10% and nerf Raiders and nerf Hellions, etc etc)

When Iron Hands hit the scene there were 8 larger tournaments. IH won 6 of them (while White Scars+IH won another). Of the 32 top 4 places, IH got 15 of them. Marines as a whole got 21.

DE may get there - but yeah, I'm sorry, I'd force people to play a few more weeks before going beyond FAQing Reavers and the Razorflail/Competitive edge interaction. (Its bad for losing options, but I think 1 liquifier per 5 man squad of wracks, 2 or 3 in a unit of 10 would also largely mitigate DT as an issue.)

From everything I've seen the book has come out in strangest times and whilst I do NOT agree with immediate nerfs, the obvious does need rectifying

10 pt reavers - Obvious typo

DT - Make it work on non auto hit

Succubus - the obvious book of rust silliness.

Other than that wait and see. It counters marines fantastically while having loads of weakness still. It's well designed codex with few dud units and I've had a blast designing lists that are strong and dont spam the same 4-5 units.

The meta will balance out when more books are brought out, actual wide scale tournies are able to be played again and when people adjust their lists to handle it all better.

Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.

I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.

Crispy78 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.

I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.

That's because up until relatively recently it seemed most players did take fluffy thematic TAC lists, even on internet forums (which have always been more competitively minded). There has been a definite shift that happened around 7th edition 40k/8th edition fantasy battle. I think a migration of gamers who grew up with video games and not wargaming has also been a factor here.

Crispy78 wrote:
I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.

The thing is while there's a lot of contempt thrown - it may not have been picked up by the playtesters. I mean we've seen some of the best players in the game running or including DE and they aren't running 30 liquifiers (or really Grots/Talos/Cronos in general). They are tending to run loads of small units. So there may be a view at the highest level of play that it doesn't work.

Exactly why isn't as clear - but it may be that if you go second, this "charge forward, ignore the objectives, just table the opponent and get all the points in turn 4 and 5" doesn't work. Its too risky to have raiders blown up on the starting line or something.

TTS is also interesting - because in theory if something is overpowered, you'd expect it to become wall to wall.

As an edit - I guess you could say 8th edition WHFB started the shift to competitive lists (not convinced, so many people had all cav armies because cav was busted and had a meltdown when 8th came out) - but that's the middle of 5th in 40k terms. Over 10 years ago now.

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
From everything I've seen the book has come out in strangest times and whilst I do NOT agree with immediate nerfs, the obvious does need rectifying

10 pt reavers - Obvious typo

DT - Make it work on non auto hit

Succubus - the obvious book of rust silliness.

Other than that wait and see. It counters marines fantastically while having loads of weakness still. It's well designed codex with few dud units and I've had a blast designing lists that are strong and dont spam the same 4-5 units.

The meta will balance out when more books are brought out, actual wide scale tournies are able to be played again and when people adjust their lists to handle it all better.

I would add a MW cap on the Hellions strat, but apart from that I agree with this.

Crispy78 wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.

I think that's why GW get so blindsided by some of the overpowered stuff. They seem to work on the assumption that people build fluffy thematic TAC lists like they do. Dark Technomancers is probably not that bad if it's only applying to a single unit of Wracks and a Talos within a Patrol or Raiding Party detachment. I honestly think it never crossed their minds that people would build entire 2000 point armies of DT Covens, spamming Liquifiers on everything.

Thats what playtesters are supposed to be for.

And after the devs got stomped by spam lists when they played in a tournament in early in 8th edition, leading to the introduction of the rule of 3, you would expect them to know better.

Spoletta wrote:

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
From everything I've seen the book has come out in strangest times and whilst I do NOT agree with immediate nerfs, the obvious does need rectifying

10 pt reavers - Obvious typo

DT - Make it work on non auto hit

Succubus - the obvious book of rust silliness.

Other than that wait and see. It counters marines fantastically while having loads of weakness still. It's well designed codex with few dud units and I've had a blast designing lists that are strong and dont spam the same 4-5 units.

The meta will balance out when more books are brought out, actual wide scale tournies are able to be played again and when people adjust their lists to handle it all better.

I would add a MW cap on the Hellions strat, but apart from that I agree with this.

For how many MWs though? It's a 2CP stratagem, we know the baseline for MWs on demand from a strat is basically D3 for 1 from any number of various sources. So if I was spending 2CP to just deal MWs wherever I want on demand I'd expect to get about 4.

The theoretical wet and wild and crazy maximum with 20 hellions that all manage to move over the same unit would be 10 vs an INFANTRY target, and that requires getting a 240 point light infantry unit across the board with approximately the defenses of 40 ork boyz with the added weakness of being able to be targeted by D2 weaponry.

I guess if I was going to cap it I'd say...six? That leaves it totally unchanged for Reavers, who after their points bump I think will be a totally reasonable unit, and still leaves it a very good option for Hellions to take out characters and such if they manage to get over them, which is kind of cool as kidnapping and swooping away with Characters was kind of hellions 'thing' back when characters were usually attached to squads and the last guys in the unit that could take wounds, Hellions could hit and run out and take the character with them to chop hiim up in the next fight phase.

Personally I'd consider a 2-3 point adjustment on hellions, a 1pt adjustment on wyches, an at least 5pt (to the dark lance profile) adjustment on Raiders and a 10-15pt adjustment on succubi to be more impactful than a cap on the slashing impact stratagem. Basically, the stat buffs they gave those units were well more than enough to make them extremely worth their cost because the principle problem before was that wyches simply could not do their job vs any MEQ unit - they were a pure melee unit that would LOSE to equal points of basically any MEQ.

The stat buffs, +1A, -1AP, Blade Artists, better drugs and various small special weapon improvements, closed the gap that the +1W and Shock Assault had created. The drop in PPM almost across the board (not on hellions or reavers granted but the stat buffs on hellions are NIGHT AND fething DAY they're a whole new unit now) was just categorically unnecessary.It made sense when MFM 2021 released, it doesn't make sense now.

But sadly that's likely to wait until the next mfm since thats how GW does things. When I play pure wych cults I'll just have to self-nerf by bringing units of beasts, lol.

That is great, but not for the factions they disigned with the idea in mind of running more then 3 of the non troop options, and then leaving them for 2-3 years without any fix or updates.

GW changes are always knee jerk reactions, and they don't really balance stuff, they just nerf stuff or have no impact.

How often do we see castellans being played after their fix or Inari? We don't because GWs killed them as a choice, and if someone wants to keep playing w40k, they can just go on and buy a different army.


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True, in fact they're not OP at all. If people still tailor against marines and then autolose against harlies it's their problem . Take aggressors, many SM players ignore them as they're terrible against other marines but they're very good against drukhari, harlies or orks. All counter meta armies. If those players refuse or fail to adapt it's no surprise the harlies win rate stays the same.

Because unlike DE or harlis, the marine player can't just buy 2000pts of models and have a good army, he would have to rebuild an army for every opponent. Which they could end up with him being called out for tailoring, and that is assuming his army actually can do that, and people will just stop playing him. So now he not only spend more money to buy extra models, but now the people who this models would be good against will just not play against him.

Am not sure what is funny about how good harlis are, maybe this is some universal eldar player thing I don't get. Because when other armies had win rates like harlis too, there were claims put forth that the game is going to die. And GW let harlis be the way they are for year now.

Fight last for drazhar only works on a roll, and against high LD it doesn't have good odds to work. Armour of russ works automatically. All smash captains work alone, they simply need the appropriate target, just like drukhari HQs. A succubus goes down against 10 boyz if they strike first.

A TWC lord won't even get to charge, if there is terrain on the board. And it is not a question of appropriate target. A marine player, having a unit that maybe will be good against that one ork player at the store, is a way different position, then this is a succubus she kills everything bar 30 man units chaff. Don't charge her in to chaff.

They'll keep playing their armies. I'm not saying that I wish a meta with no marines at all, just less marines and equivalents. A considerable amount of players owns multiple armies, especially SM players as getting a SM armies is easier than most of the other factions. Some will keep playing them, others will not. At that point competitive lists will be much more TAC oriented and not tailored against elites with benefits for everyone.

What about people that play marines, but those are the bad armies right now. Like csm players that want actual csm in their armies and stuff like that? Do Death Watch have it easier, just becaue they have the supposed OP codex ?

Also the no tailored doesn't work in w40k from my expiriance. If the store is 50-60% some sort of marine players, and the other marine armies are bad, then the only problem a DE player may have with his quality of fun game time is when he plays a harli list or a cwe/harli soup list. And how often he is going to play those people, if he doesn't do events? At the same time his army rules are unfun to play against for the majority of the store players, aside for maybe those that play the really tournament focused and build marine lists. IMO making the minority have fun over the majority of players is not good.

So are SM, necrons and deathguard books.

There is a good and there is GOOD. in 8th ad mecha were a good army, but comparing to something like Alaitoc or pre nerf Inari they were not. Same way bad is scaled. GK right now are bad, but something like GSC or Knight is BAD.

yukishiro1 wrote:
GW really needs to stop sitting on the pot and get that FAQ out, so we can see how much impact fixing the obvious brainless errors has, and whether they're still a problem after that or not.

Yes, please. Email them, people!

 the_scotsman wrote:
[


I guess if I was going to cap it I'd say...six? That leaves it totally unchanged for Reavers, who after their points bump I think will be a totally reasonable unit, and still leaves it a very good option for Hellions to take out characters and such if they manage to get over them, which is kind of cool as kidnapping and swooping away with Characters was kind of hellions 'thing' back when characters were usually attached to squads and the last guys in the unit that could take wounds, Hellions could hit and run out and take the character with them to chop hiim up in the next fight phase.

But then they would just be killing marine support characters in one go. Not to mention the fact that losing 2/3 of unit of termintors or a whole unit of power armoured models, just because they moved over you is stupid. Because there is no way to protect against it.

Tyel wrote:
I think the problem is getting a grip on how DE are winning the game.

Because different things bother different people. I think the Razorflail Succubus is stupid - but by itself its not winning the game. I don't think 3 units of two liquifier DT wracks are breaking the game. Spammed 10 point reavers could break the game - but one unit of 6 probably isn't etc etc.

It is probably just the combination of those three things. Succubus can annihilate a key unit. DT punches above its weight. Reavers give point handicap.

An army with a gigantic play percentage as big as marines (rarely under 1 in 3 players) is obviously going to have a difficult time getting over a 50% winrate unless the balance of the game is an absolute joke. It's pretty clear that the marine lists focusing on mobility and durability seem to be doing alright dealing with the splash of the - again, seriously broken pre-FAQ version of - the drukhari list, while the marine chapters like Salamanders and Space wolves that generally rely on overwhelming damage are not doing so hot.

I'm sorry, looking at lists with stuff like 9 MM attack bikes or 3 squads of eradicators I just don't think people aren't tailoring NOW. They're just tailoring their lists to the exact opposite thing that DE and Harlequins are, and obviously that's one-sided as feth.

 Daedalus81 wrote:


It is probably just the combination of those three things. Succubus can annihilate a key unit. DT punches above its weight. Reavers give point handicap.

Well, and the transports are just nuts. It just mitigates so many alleged weaknesses in the army (e.g. being squishy) and forces chained interactions to solve (e.g. kill the transport and hyper-points efficient stuff inside without leaving yourself open to the counter-punch) across too many instances of those same transports.

If, say, Impulsors went back to having Fly, add 2" movement, got the 5++ for free, 11-man capacity, open-topped so ... dunno ... 5 Eradicators could shoot out (I know... gravis.. ), strapped on a D3+3 super-lascannon and dropped from their current 120ish(?) points back to 85, you'd see them spammed and up the Marine game as well.

Karol wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
[


I guess if I was going to cap it I'd say...six? That leaves it totally unchanged for Reavers, who after their points bump I think will be a totally reasonable unit, and still leaves it a very good option for Hellions to take out characters and such if they manage to get over them, which is kind of cool as kidnapping and swooping away with Characters was kind of hellions 'thing' back when characters were usually attached to squads and the last guys in the unit that could take wounds, Hellions could hit and run out and take the character with them to chop hiim up in the next fight phase.

But then they would just be killing marine support characters in one go. Not to mention the fact that losing 2/3 of unit of termintors or a whole unit of power armoured models, just because they moved over you is stupid. Because there is no way to protect against it.

Except that there is. There's more of a way to protect against it than most mortal wound on demand stratagems - don't be like 12" away or whatever distance it takes for the hellions to pass completely over you and be able to land. Or just shoot them - every one you shoot is one fewer die that gets to roll for MWs. The cap of 6 is only achievable with a completely undamaged maximum size unit of Reavers or a unit of Hellions over 12-man.

For 3CP, space marines can pick a point on the battlefield and dish out a guaranteed D3MWs to all units within 3" (1/3 chance of D6MWs) and almost guarantee D3mws to all units within 6". for 1cp they can deal 2d3 MWs to a vehicle in melee. For 1CP they can shoot any 48" range missile launcher at a flyer to cause 2d3mws on a 3+ roll you can reroll if need be. Heck, they have almost the exact same stratagem as Hellions except that it triggers off of charging a unit and you roll equal or higher to their toughness, meaning it causes a MW on 4+ against marines - admittedly, less powerful because IIIRC you can only get a 10-man jump pack squad, but also only 1cp.

There are a lot of mortal wound stratagems that deal as many or more MWs per CP with less counterplay available than slashing impact. Whoops, you have a flyer on the board and I have a missile launcher in my army, I guess you're taking 2d3 MWs per turn until either I kill you or you kill my missile launcher.


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Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:


It is probably just the combination of those three things. Succubus can annihilate a key unit. DT punches above its weight. Reavers give point handicap.

Well, and the transports are just nuts. It just mitigates so many alleged weaknesses in the army (e.g. being squishy) and forces chained interactions to solve (e.g. kill the transport and hyper-points efficient stuff inside without leaving yourself open to the counter-punch) across too many instances of those same transports.

If, say, Impulsors went back to having Fly, add 2" movement, got the 5++ for free, 11-man capacity, open-topped so ... dunno ... 5 Eradicators could shoot out (I know... gravis.. ), strapped on a D3+3 super-lascannon and dropped from their current 120ish(?) points back to 85, you'd see them spammed and up the Marine game as well.

Got -1 toughness, got -1 save, -1 wound, lost the assault vehicle rule...

 the_scotsman wrote:


Got -1 toughness, got -1 save, -1 wound, lost the assault vehicle rule...

Sure. But trades most people take any day. assault vehicle is nice, but forcing the opponent to crack the shell before getting to the squishy insides is better. The extra wound only means you bleed more secondaries (Giving Raiders 11 wounds would actually be quite a good way to make them pay a little more in secondaries for spamming them) and the save means nothing for the majority of weapons that people use to crack transports / medium vehicles..


Either way. Removing fly alone made the difference between people running 4-6 Impulsors to running basically none. Even without open topped, without a dark lance and at a solid 33% higher point cost, showing how extremely undercosted that keyword alone still is for almost anything (but especially non-infantry) GW puts out (and Drukhari benefit from it immensely).