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I was trying to find a thread for this and came up empty. Is anyone playing Dark Eldar at the moment? I'm trying to muster some enthusiasm but they just feel so empty now. To me, they've always been about cunning tactics, and fun wargear and shenanigans - and that's all been stripped out. It doesn't help that I think every single one of my squads now has an illegal (or irrelevant) load out.

Anyone out there making them work, and having fun in the process? How?

My own Drukari work just fine.

I built them when their 9e Codex arrived. My list was 1 Archon, 1 Venom, 3x3 Talos & 3x3 Cronos. I'd have forgone the Archon but by the rules I needed at least 1 HQ.....
Worked wonderfully.

Here in 10e 1) everything got cheaper, 2) GW reduced my Talos/Cronos squads to two models instead of three :(
Then the shop instituted a ridiculous Rule of 2 (except for battleline & dedicated transports) for our Escalation Leagues.
So I had to add some stuff to the collection.

So now? I run various combos of 2-3 2 member Talos (interchangeable tales, chosen based on the game I'll be playing) & Cronos squads, 1 Succubus + Venom, another succubus + Venom, Drazar + venom, 2-3 5x Scourges (1 squad with splinter cannon, 2 squads with dark lances), 2 - 3 5x Mandrakes, 2 Voidravens, & 2 Razorwings.
Exact mix depends on size of game, but there's always Talos present + at least two of the aircraft.
The succubus now leads the force as she's the cheapest character model. Her ONLY real job is to carry the Pain Token granting enhancement & stay alive. so she hops out of the Venom T1 & often holds the home objective while her ride zips off to be useful.
The Mandrakes bounce around mostly taking objectives &/or doing secondaries.
Everything else concentrates on killing the foe, & doing actions/secondaries/taking primary objectives should the opportunity arise.

This mix works better than my original 99% Elf Free Talos/Cronos list ever did. It's still fun, but I haven't enjoyed it quite as much.

Crispy78 wrote:
I was trying to find a thread for this and came up empty. Is anyone playing Dark Eldar at the moment? I'm trying to muster some enthusiasm but they just feel so empty now. To me, they've always been about cunning tactics, and fun wargear and shenanigans - and that's all been stripped out. It doesn't help that I think every single one of my squads now has an illegal (or irrelevant) load out.

Anyone out there making them work, and having fun in the process? How?

For me, 10th killed Dark Eldar stone dead.

I'm sure they can still win, but all the things I actually enjoyed have been meticulously extracted so that only flavourless slop remains.

Power from Pain feels like a rule that the designers intended to finish writing but never got round to it.

Their first detachment's ability just feels like DLC for the Power from Pain rule.

All wargear options are gone. Enhancements are about as fun and exciting as colon cancer.

Which is your favourite DE HQ - the melee-only one with poisoned weapons, the melee-only one with poisoned weapons or the melee-only one with poisoned weapons?

Moreover, because 10th was written by a haddock rolling around on a keyboard, each HQ can only join their designated units. Like putting a Haemonculus with Grotesques? Tough. He has to go with Wracks now. Like putting an Archon with Mandrakes? Tough, it's not on the list. Want to put a Succubus with literally anything but Wyches? Nope, not allowed.

Oh and troops can disembark and assault from a Land Raider after it moves because it has a ramp. However, the open-topped vehicles where DE literally hang off them to jump right into battle have no such ability.

Boy, what fun and thrills this new edition has brought.

So yeah, if you want to have any sort of connection with your army, I'd recommend a different game.

I'm planning on playing through a three round DE arena fight on Jan 2. This is far from what you'd call a typical 40k game though- I don't do 40k the way other people do- my version is more like Inquisitor 28- as much an RPG as table-top miniature game.

I have two distinct 5 member Wych cults painted- all basic Wyches. After this 3-round battle, one Cult will earn a Succubus, both will earn their Hekatrices, one Cult will receive a pack of Kymerae pups- one of whom will grow to a full Khymera and 3 Wych weapons will be distributed.

I literally can't build or paint anymore Wyches UNTIL I fight this battle. I literally do not know whether my Succubus model will be male or female, nor what colour it will be.

I'm hoping to post it as a batrep, so if I manage to actually pull it off, you'll see it soon enough.

Once this fight is behind me and I build the minis that each Cult gains from the fight, then I might get closer to conventional games.

I agree with a lot of what Vipoid said above- I hope the Dex fixes some of these problems, but I'm not counting on it- GW has really given up a lot of the flavour and variety of editions past in the name of simplicity, and Drukhari have been hit particularly hard.

I've been playing my drukhari some. Although not as much as I'd like. I gave them a fair shake at the start of the edition and just got really sour on them really fast, mainly for the reasons vipoid spelled out.

The Sky Splinter Assault detachment did help them quite a bit. Almost all of the flavorful wargearand customization options are still gone, but being able to pounce out of a transport and having some mobility options for playing cagey with transports really does do a lot to help make them feel somewhat mobile. GW graciously allowing archons to join *the* unit known for body guarding them (incubi) is also a step in the right direction, although I'm pretty confident they weren't counting on full-reroll incubi with lance being a thing. Won't be surprised if that gets nerfed somehow in the codex.

Reaper's Mirth looks interesting and fits my fluff pretty well (Poisoned Tongue kabal is known to have ties to harlequins). So I'm looking forward to trying that out as a way to run drukhari units that don't want to ride in transports.

Basically, I think drukhari feel a lot of the downsides of 10th edition a little more harshly than some other factions because our wargear, warlord traits, etc. were not only interesting but frequently the whole point of our characters.

Haemonculi used to be able to choose between being cheap "medics", exotic beatsticks, and fielding whacky one-shot ranged weapons to now just being... precision melee poison guys? Who make wracks slightly more durable except you don't want wracks to be durable because their job is to die.

Succubi used to be quirky beatsticks that you could heavily customize through your choice of drugs, subfaction traits, and weapons. Now you just choose between the good gun and the bad gun, and she and wyches both hit too limply to really do any damage outside of sky splinter assault.

Archons used to be able to open up the whole armory. They could be shooty HQs, they could allow their squad to deepstrike as a quirky alternative to transports, they could be beatsticks, they could bring weird gear that played with the PFP mechanic or supercharged their own abilities as they killed things... Now they can choose between the good gun and the bad gun and give rerolls to incubi...

Also, you might run into the wirdness that is poison being Anti-Infantry (and only Anti-Infantry) if you face opponents with lots of mounted or beast units. It is bizarre fishing for 6s against fenrisian wolves because apparently the venom capable of incapacitating a marine just doesn't do much to a wolf.

Honestly, drukhari play pretty well on the tabletop. You can definitely have an enjoyable time with them. Just know that the current edition has taken away a lot of what made them interesting in the past and that playing them well these days means leaning into some of the gamey cut and paste tactics. Like, peekaboo venoms (hopping out of a venom around a corner to shoot your guns, then re-embarking later in the turn) is a genuinely useful tactic, but it feels super weird. Killing imperial knights with bricks of incubi with full rerolls is powerful, but you really feel like you ought to have different tools for that job. Charging out of a raider that moved is strong, but having to pay CP for the privelege is a bit irksome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PenitentJake wrote:

I literally can't build or paint anymore Wyches UNTIL I fight this battle. I literally do not know whether my Succubus model will be male or female, nor what colour it will be.

Obviously do what you want with your minis, but it's canon that men don't tend to advance very far in wych society. To the rank, for instance, of succubus. So a male succubus would be considered pretty unusual.


EDIT: I'm curious to hear from any players who decided to pick up drukhari in 10th edition. What was the appeal, and have the rules been what you were hoping for? I feel like a large part of what drew me to the faction in the first place is no longer present. So I'm curious to know what, if anything, is drawing people in today.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Killing imperial knights with bricks of incubi with full rerolls is powerful, but you really feel like you ought to have different tools for that job.

I do have different tools for that job. What do you think those Voidraven Bombers with voidlances, Razorwing Jetfighters & Sourges armed with darklances are for?
Certain Talos tales as well.

ccs wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Killing imperial knights with bricks of incubi with full rerolls is powerful, but you really feel like you ought to have different tools for that job.

I do have different tools for that job. What do you think those Voidraven Bombers with voidlances, Razorwing Jetfighters & Sourges armed with darklances are for?
Certain Talos tales as well.

Fair. I mostly meant that it feels weird that one of our most effective methods of killing big models is a supercharged infantry melee unit thanks to a probably unintentional wombo combo. (Given that the archon couldn't join them initially.)

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Obviously do what you want with your minis, but it's canon that men don't tend to advance very far in wych society. To the rank, for instance, of succubus. So a male succubus would be considered pretty unusual.

These guys were originally conceived as the secondary "NPC" Cult, and they were designed to be unconventional.

I put the details in a spoiler; it's just a brief description, but it is off-topic.



It's worth noting that 9th provided considerably more infrastructure for this sort of thing; this arena fight uses KT rules, but both Cults are intended to eventually grow to 40k size, and there's not really anything for them to grow into when they get big enough for 40k.

I tried to pick up the Killteam book today, but both shops were out. Not sure I'm going to have it by Jan 2, but it's coming soon.

Edit: What a dumbass- forget the spoiler tags!

@PenitentJake: I dig it.

Could always use the term "archite." I think it's technically meant to be fem-gendered version of archon, but it sounds pretty gender neutral to my ear.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
@PenitentJake: I dig it.

Could always use the term "archite." I think it's technically meant to be fem-gendered version of archon, but it sounds pretty gender neutral to my ear.

Archite was the original term (in the reissued 3rd Ed codex) for what is now a Succubus (which at the time was used for the Wych squad leaders). So it’s probably intended to be gender neutral.

Not much to add to this litany of woe.

As Vipoid says, I think DE have been hit hard by the changes to 10th. As a faction its been hollowed out a lot since say the 5th edition codex.

Its perfectly "functional" - but that's not really enough to inspire my interest. You saw similar issues in 9th despite DE being the best faction/overpowered for about a year. I don't think people get into the faction for "roll dice/win game" - that's what CWE are for...

Rules wise I think DE have really suffered from GW's somewhat inexplicable desire to make them "3 factions in 1" - sort of like Daemons, where each faction gets about 3 units. That's kind of been unravelled, but you fear its going to come back in the detachments. The basic issue I think is that the model line up is so small, armies kind of write themselves. I mean massing pain engines is I guess a thing. Much like how spamming Wracks or Wyches could be a thing. But its not - to my mind - enough of a thing to be all that interested in.

I'm sort of hopeful that DE are going to get a big re-release, perhaps as the not-Marine 11th edition starting army that's probably due mid/late-2026. This might however be completely misplaced - and most of the kits still hold up very well so don't obviously need replacing. But certainly as a DE collector I'd like to be able to buy something new.

Tyel wrote:


Rules wise I think DE have really suffered from GW's somewhat inexplicable desire to make them "3 factions in 1" - sort of like Daemons, where each faction gets about 3 units. That's kind of been unravelled, but you fear its going to come back in the detachments. The basic issue I think is that the model line up is so small, armies kind of write themselves.

You think a model line of 24(25?) Kits is small?
Ok, its not SM huge, but....

ccs wrote:

Tyel wrote:


Rules wise I think DE have really suffered from GW's somewhat inexplicable desire to make them "3 factions in 1" - sort of like Daemons, where each faction gets about 3 units. That's kind of been unravelled, but you fear its going to come back in the detachments. The basic issue I think is that the model line up is so small, armies kind of write themselves.

You think a model line of 24(25?) Kits is small?
Ok, its not SM huge, but....

It's small if you divide it up into 4 sections (kabal, cult, coven, mercs) with only 1 of those sections benefitting from a hypothetical kabal/cult/coven-specific detachment.

I agree with Tyel here about the faction suffering from being pseudo split up. It was neat to see Covens get some love with their 7th edition splat, but it has honestly caused more harm than good in most editions. Ironically, 5th edition probably did it best where you definitely got the flavor of the big three factions existing but mechanically weren't really required to separate them out. So you had wracks as a troop choice if you wanted to do a purely coven army, but you could also stick your haemonculus in a wych squad to help them survive on their way to combat and get them that tasty furious charge a bit faster.

8th and 9th both had to jump through hoops to make the separation work out, and you still ended up basically using up all your "detachment slots" to unlock your full codex. 10th has *every army* heavily restricted on who their characters can hang out with, but it's definitely still annoying. Sticking a haemi with some wyches to give them FNP would be nice, for instance. And they had to do an errata to let the archon (and only the archon) hang out with our army's dedicated bodyguard unit.

5th really did it best by giving us the options and tools to lean into the separation as much or as little as we wanted.

Tyel wrote:
As Vipoid says, I think DE have been hit hard by the changes to 10th. As a faction its been hollowed out a lot since say the 5th edition codex.

Its perfectly "functional" - but that's not really enough to inspire my interest.

Yeah. That's pretty much it. I'm still enjoying playing occassional game with my DE, but most of the stuff that drew me to them originally is gone. Back in the day, they really nailed that feeling of the wind blowing through your hair as you jumped off a raider wearing bravado for armor and supercharging yourself through violence. Plus we had the most evocative, fluffy armory in the game. These days, the army is just a lot less juicy. If you enjoy giving your copy+paste archon's buffs to your incubi over and over, they're fine. But if you liked feeling fast or having lots of customization or risking a drug overdose to turn your characters in blenders or even just having quirky weapons... That stuff is all basically gone.

But hey! We're still fragile right? We're the only faction whose vehicles got less durable in 10th, after all.

ccs wrote:

Tyel wrote:

Rules wise I think DE have really suffered from GW's somewhat inexplicable desire to make them "3 factions in 1" - sort of like Daemons, where each faction gets about 3 units. That's kind of been unravelled, but you fear its going to come back in the detachments. The basic issue I think is that the model line up is so small, armies kind of write themselves.

You think a model line of 24(25?) Kits is small?
Ok, its not SM huge, but....

What are you comparing it to?

Not including FW or Fortifications:
Tau have 34 units.
Necrons have 46 units.
Tyranids have 47 units.
Orks have 49.
Eldar have 47 Craftworld units (so already almost twice as many as DE) plus another 7 Harlequin units plus another 2 Corsair units plus the 3 Ynnari characters - all folded into the Eldar codex for a total of 59 units.

I would note, too, that one of the areas we are most lacking is HQs - Tyranids have 10, Tau have 12, Orcs have 17, Necrons have 20, Eldar have 25. DE, meanwhile, have just 6 (only 3 of which are generic).

Further, as Tyel and Wyldhunt have said, trying to split what is already one of the smallest Xeno armies into 3-and-a-bit subfactions has made things even worse. Because now our already-limited unit roster is locked into very specific combinations. Each subfaction has just a single HQ to pick from (and Mandrakes and Sourges, which don't fit into any of the subfactions, don't have any HQs). What's more, Haemonculi can't join Grotesques, and Succubi can't join Hellions or Reavers because they have 0 mobility options. It also means that many of the already extremely limited stratagems and enhancements are locked to units from particular subfactions.

We then have the joy of Harlequins and Corsairs, which the already-fat Eldar codex gets as standard units, but which DE can only take as allies (adding two additional subfactions to a codex that is already far too divided).

Moreover, thanks to some astonishingly bad design, DE can take Corsairs but not the Wave Serpent (which is the only Transport Corsairs are permitted to embark in). Nor will Corsairs deign to embark in any of DE vehicles, even though Corsair Venoms were a thing in 7th.

Oh and I'd just like to point out that Ynnari has gone from being 'any combination of Eldar/DE/Harlequins*' in 7th to 'still any combination of Eldar/DE/Harlequins* but each faction has to be in a separate, legal detachment' in 8th to 'Ynnari are now an Eldar army - you can include DE/Harlequins but they're not allowed to be your warlord and you can't have more of them in any slot than Eldar units' in 9th to 'Ynnari are even more an Eldar army - Harlequins are okay but DE can never be more than 25% of your total points'. DE also lost access to PfP but no longer gain any bonus whatsoever from being Ynnari.

So we've gone from being able to make Ynnari armies that are 100% DE (and/or Harlequins) to Ynnari being a Craftworld Eldar thing where you can maybe include a few DE units if you really must. Except they no longer trade PfP for Strength from Death, so it's basically pointless.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. It's just frustrating that so many things (Harlequins, Ynnari, Corsairs) have been folded into the Eldar codex, while DE are given nothing but table-scraps.

(minus a few units)

Its all been said - but yeah, I'd say the roster is small.

Sort of channelling the older editions - but Kabalites consist of... Kabalites and Ravagers.
Compared with Wyches, Hellions and Reavers.
or Wracks, Grots, Talos & Cronos.

Sure you could bulk it out with Incubi/Mandrakes/Scourge, transports and flyers. But its looking quite narrow to me.

Its more than new Squats - but this is a faction that's notionally never stopped being playable since around 1998.

Hey, we're approaching tau levels of datasheets if you include all those units they've removed over the years. You know. True born, blood brides, Kheradruakh, the duke, the baron, Malys, Vect, Kruellagh, generics on bikes, master haemis...

Can't wait to find out which units we'll lose in 10th. I know some people think it will be grotesques or the court, but my money's on those pesky beast packs that they never seem to know what to do with.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
Hey, we're approaching tau levels of datasheets if you include all those units they've removed over the years. You know. True born, blood brides, Kheradruakh, the duke, the baron, Malys, Vect, Kruellagh, generics on bikes, master haemis...

And all of them lost before Legends were a thing, so we don't even have GW's half-arsed pretence of rules for them.

Incidentally, I feel I owe Kheradruakh in particular an apology for all the mean things I said about him in 5th edition. Not that any of it was untrue, but if I'd seen how DE would end up I'd have made the most of him at the time.

I think it's extra frustrating in 10th because we can be pretty confident the things we'd most like to see return (customization, mobility, quirky rules) are exactly the sort of things that 10th has gone out of its way to remove.

So it's like, it's not just a temporary design accident that we can hope will be remedied with the codex. It's an intentional design direction.

Like, 9th edition drukhari frustrated me because I felt like they replaced a lot of the flavorful options and more big brain rules with simplistic over the top offense so that we could trade well despite our fragility. But oh my gosh do I miss the *flavor* and *variety* of 9th.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

Can't wait to find out which units we'll lose in 10th. I know some people think it will be grotesques or the court, but my money's on those pesky beast packs that they never seem to know what to do with.

It is my hope that the DE release will include the Court, the Beasts and the Gotesques. The restructuring of both the Beasts and the Court for 10th does suggest a build-what's-in-the-box design philosophy... Which in turn might suggest that boxes are indeed on the way. The Court build is just mandatory 1/1/1/1, so that does (sort of reflect how they were sold) but the beasts are a mandatory 1,2,3- not sure if the razorwing flocks were sold in 3's.

DE seem to be a late release this edition. I'm not aware of any rumours at all.

Only time will tell.

Oh, and thanks for the reminder of the Archite title- if the Faceless men's MVP wins, I think I will go with Archite. I'll be doing another check in for the KT book tomorrow.

Played a 1000 point battle against my mate's tyranid army yesterday. I will add a massive disclaimer that I am generally pretty gak at this game and was 100% not making full use of everything I had - but damn did I ever get crushed. Full wipe of my army in turn 3, other than the Voidraven disappearing off the table edge.

Not looking for a full breakdown of everything I did wrong as frankly there aren't enough hours in the day! But wanted to particularly call out how utterly disappointed I was with the Voidraven's void mine. He had a load of things bunched together coming at me in a wave, and I thought they were an ideal target... I had the opportunity to hit his Exocrine, his Termagants, his Genestealers and his Barbgaunts. For starters I only rolled a 2 for the 'within D6 inches' roll, so that saved his Genestealers. Then I also rolled poorly on 'on a 4+ each unit takes D6 mortal wounds' so I only ended up actually wounding his Termagants - and then only killed 3 of the buggers. Feels like, for a once-per-game special nuke, there's just too much mitigation of the effect...

Bumping this as the codex is now up for pre-order.

So, what have we got? Looks something of a mixed bag really.

New Malys model, obviously. And new and much improved Archon model. But, on the flip-side, they've just wiped out all the remaining finecast models. So no Court Of The Archon, no Beastmaster and beasts, no Grotesques, and no Urien Rakarth. That's a bit of a kick in the teeth - especially when, in the same breath, space marines get new assault terminators, new terminator ancient, new Ultramarines bits box, (another) new Calgar model, new Cato Sicarius, new Victrix Honour Guard for seemingly no other reason than it's a day with a y in it...

Detachments are... fine I suppose, if not especially imaginitive. Basically you have the existing Realspace Raiders mixed factions detachment, the existing Skysplinter Assault mounted-in-vehicles detachment, the existing Grotmas DE-plus-harlies detachment, and then new detachments focusing on Kabalite / Wych Cult / Haemonculus Covens.

Power From Pain has been re-worked again too. Back to earning PFP tokens, but now each individual unit has it's own unique powered-up rule. It's flavourful I suppose but adds a fair bit to the mental load of running the army.

There are technically some new units, as you can now field the DE Kill Team as a unit, which look a bit like they might function more or less as Kabalite Trueborn used to. No idea if there are still the equivalent +1 units for Wyches and Wracks, probably not as no models. They have also split scourges into 2 separate codex entries, so you now have vanilla scourges with shardcarbines and heavy weapons scourges with the other stuff. Oh, and Wych special weapons exist again - but with a single generic profile.

Overall, am I excited about it? I don't know really. Bit skint at the moment so probably not rushing to buy the book. But also given that I've only played a couple of games of 10th, and we are where we are in the lifecycle, it doesn't really seem worth it anyway. Think I will probably be focusing my attention elsewhere for now, and see what 11th brings.

Thought about writing a response myself.

I think it's mixed.
The loss of units is noticeable in an already thin faction. I think someone noted that Marines are getting more in this release than DE have managed since the 5th edition range refresh.

I don't like Power from Pain being an alternative suite of stratagems powered by an alternate command point resource. It's not that hard to learn for a DE player. (Hey, if you can only choose from twentyish datasheets, there's only twentyish abilities.) But I suspect opponents who play DE rarely will constantly be asking you about what units can do.

In terms of power the codex has it. If the points are what various people are claiming then certain things seemed priced to move.

I think Covens probably get the worst of it. But then if a Wrack is genuinely 13 points for 2 T4 5+/6+++ that is probably good? I mean that's Guardsmen points per wound. Stick on -1 to wound if the strength exceeds toughness from the detachment and these are looking like a solid blob.

Haemi seem a bit meaningless though. Never sure how to price up healing units back. If they can't wipe out 20 wounds of Wracks then great. But if they can't, and I could bring 120 wounds worth for 780 points, aren't I just going to blob on objectives and win? All the Coven detachment enhancements feel a bit meh as a result. +1 toughness is good maybe. Although because of the detachment rule this only effects S4, S8 and S9 attacks. Good into some armies, not doing a huge amount into others.

Talos seem to be stuck on this journey of being weaker but cheaper. For 80 points its probably okay. But would you want it to be 80 points? I guess the argument is to bring two in every unit. Cronos continues to just be very cheap wounds and some not terribly impressive guns.

Wych cults by contrast have been topped up. Wyches plus Lilith or Succubus will tear up most things. Hellions on paper blend everything - but potentially have the issue of probably being a one and done missile. But if they can pick up something twice their cost do you care? Reavers could compete with Mandrakes in the objectives scoring stakes. Drugs as a detachment bonus further tune this up.

Basically it's all a bit 9th without the broken jank. I suspect they will do okay - even well in terms of tournaments. But there's not much flavour here beyond the kind you make yourself. Some will find for example the Kabalite detachment idea of hunting down contracts fun. But I feel it's hard to make your Kabalites in transports much different to anyone else's Kabalites in transports.

We are stuck with a faction that's been going since 1998 having not many more options than the Votann. And I think my bitterness about that sort of clouds everything. Certainly the forced positivity of certain other forums has grated on me a bit. (I mean you shouldn't be negative all the time and I find posts to the tune of "GW stole my lunch money in 2006 and I'm still hurt about it" to be tedious. But claiming this book is a triumph really is lost on me.)

I'll have the book the day I see it on a shelf.

The Goonhammer Crusade review is up: https://www.goonhammer.com/codex-drukhari-10th-edition-the-crusade-rules-review/

And of course, it's what interests me the most. The review provides a lot of detail, but not ALL of the details. Adding Rival Lords was a cool thing, but in my case, it'll need some tweaks- I designed the campaign before those rules existed, and so I created my own antagonists- the backstory is that some of the Slaaneshi Daemons that piggy-backed into Commorragh through Yvraine's Ascension have seized a splinter realm, and my Ascendant Lord Sykil Draeven has to take it back.

So I think I might modify one rival's rules to represent the Slaaneshi forces; other rivals can exist as usual.

A few thoughts on the new book:

- The new Power from Pain is... interesting. On one level, I suppose it's nice they actually put a bit of effort into it. On another, it seems to be a little too much complexity.

Personally, I think a good compromise would have been better to have a few standard abilities and then just let characters have some additional ones (which either activate automatically when their unit is empowered or can be activated separately for a different/stronger effect.

- The Wych Cult detachment is emblematic of the one-detachment-type-fits-all policy of 10th edition, with the central rule being Combat Drugs. An ability that used to just be included as standard on Wych units. Bleh.

- Kabalite Cartel looks by far the most fun detachment IMO. Though I note that your Warlord Archon has to be on the battlefield at all times if you want to avoid losing your detachment bonus for the rest of the game. Because heaven forbid the leader of a faction based around Transports could actually lead from within a Transport.

Also, Double-Cross is the most poorly-written rule I've ever had the misfortune to read.

Regardless, still by far my favourite of our detachments.

- Archons actually have options now. Well, a few. They're allowed a choice of melee weapons, which is something. And, credit to GW, they've actually given them a decent selection of options in that department. And then GW looked at their ranged weapons and gave up entirely. Their starting pistol is literally just the exact same godawful pice of crap that you'd find in a Kabalite squad (and even they are embarrassed by it). A single shot with 0AP and D1 is beyond pathetic for an HQ. And even the Blast Pistol is little better, having substantially worse damage than it's counterpart and a laughable 6" range. So basically you're taking the Soul Trap, which is decent albeit rather odd in design.

Also, the Archon's Shadowfield still removes his invulnerable save completely on a failed save. This also means he doesn't even have the 6+ invulnerable that the rest of the army gets. And there's no way to give him an alternative invulnerable save or recharge his Shadowfield, because I guess a 5++ on a T3 4-wound character would just be too strong.

Still, on the positive side he's still by far the best of our three generic characters. The Haemonculus is fine, yet almost completely lacking in character. He's supposed to be a mad scientist who goes into battle to test out his newest artefacts and creations, and yet he has 0 weapon options and 0 wargear choices outside of the one Enhancement that every HQ can potentially get.

But it's the Succubus who really takes the cake for worst HQ. And she's so eager to win that she dives forwards and goes over the finish line face-first. Again, we've got 0 weapon and wargear choices, but now we're a duellist with a D1 melee weapon. Whoopee!

At least she's cheap, but again we're forced to acknowledge the limitations of 10th. She's on foot, so she can't join Reavers or Hellions. But, because 10th is a pile of arse on a stick, she's also not allowed to join any other unit either. So we have an HQ with 0 options in terms of wargear, followed up by 0 options in terms of what unit you can pair her with. What boundless excitement.

Speaking of which, shall we get to the sperm whale in the room? The fact that we've lost:
- Beastmaster
- Clawed Fiends
- Khymerae
- Razorwing Flocks
- Sslyth
- Ur-Ghuls
- Medusae
- Lhamaeans
- Grotesques

That amounts to, what, more than a quarter of our entire codex? Awesome.

But yeah, we definitely should have expected this because GW is phasing out finecrap and couldn't possibly just give us plastic versions of our models. No, obviously the entire modelling team is needed to faithfully render the left arse-cheek of Space Marine Lieutenant #930493.1.

But it's okay, because we get two new units - a special character and a glorified Kabalite squad.

To be as charitable as possible, Lady Malys is... fine, if rather uninspired. Her model certainly doesn't give the impression that the designer was burdened with creativity. The rules are little different - her dataslate has a hell of a lot of white space, and most of what is there has just been ported over from 5th.

As to the Hand of the Archon, they just feel like a complete mess. I wasn't even being facetious when I called them glorified Kabalites because that's exactly what they are. They don't even feel like an upgrade so much as a sidegrade, trading their standard abilities for the option to take a lot of random crap, like two mediocre melee weapons in a unit that otherwise sucks in melee. In short, I already miss Sslyth.


Might add some more thoughts later, but overall I just don't see a point in buying this codex. I don't feel like paying GW to remove yet more units from an already anaemic codex. The points are likely going to be invalid on day 1, and the entire codex will probably be invalid before too long as well.

I know it's rumoured that we'll get some new models in 11th (not holding my breath on that one), but even if the stars align on that front, I don't see why I wouldn't just hold off and buy that codex, if it ever materialises. That way, I might at least be paying for a book with more units than the previous one, rather than fewer.

Tyel wrote:
We are stuck with a faction that's been going since 1998 having not many more options than the Votann. And I think my bitterness about that sort of clouds everything. Certainly the forced positivity of certain other forums has grated on me a bit. (I mean you shouldn't be negative all the time and I find posts to the tune of "GW stole my lunch money in 2006 and I'm still hurt about it" to be tedious. But claiming this book is a triumph really is lost on me.)

I think forced positivity can definitely grate.

I looked at a few reviews of the book and some of them somehow sound more positive than Trump reviewing his own work.

"This unit is the greatest. Greatest thing in the world. Absolutely greatest. I was so impressed with this unit. Love it. Absolutely love it. Take one, take three in every list I make. Every single list. It's true. It's a hundred percent true. And now this unit, even better. I'm not lying, it's even better. Even better. Take three in every list. Every single list I make I take three of these at least. Fantastic unit. Truly fantastic . . ."

I don't know, I guess there's just a point at which fawning over GW for giving you an early codex starts to get rather ridiculous.

I didn't look to closely at the leaked copy- I always have a hard time reading photos of glossy curving pages, so I usually don't even bother... But I agree with a lot of your assessments Vipoid.

I think MOST pistols should have a 12" range, and I think they Archon does need better ranged options- it looks like my beloved Poisoned Weapon upgrades from 9th ed Crusade that made splinter weapons interting are gone, so it's a double whammy. The Succubus and Haemonculus should have at least as many options as the Archon. The loss of the Court and Beasts are devastating- I think there's a chance Beasts will come back, but I think the Court is gone because I think the Hand was designed to replace them. It's most obvious in the Lhamaean vs. Disciple of Yaelindra situation- it's such obvious duplication that there's no way both were ever going to coexist.

Grotesques, I think, are almost guaranteed to return- there is an even greater chance for them than there is for beasts. It absolutely should have happened this edition... But I have little doubt that it will eventually happen.

As for the Succubus: the one damage weapon IS pretty brutal, but there's a lot of other stuff going on with the sheet... Like having Precision is nice... though again, not a great weapon. Here's what the Goons had to say about her:

"Your generic Wych Leader option is the Succubus, who is being subjected to a prolonged experiment to determine whether it’s possible to make a worthwhile melee Character with D1. Maybe, finally? She’s still dirt cheap, and has 7A with ANTI-INFANTRY 3+ and AP-2 (plus PRECISION). This is augmented by SUSTAINED HITS 1 when leading a unit, and a built-in ability for full Hit and Wound re-rolls (for herself only) against Character units, plus a 1CP reward if her unit kills a Character. That is decent – if you throw her at a 4W Character with a 4+ Invulnerable save, she does now have a shot at killing them, and adds a decent weight of output into any Character unit. There are also a couple of Enhancements that make her legitimately scary on top of this slightly improved profile. Finally, her Pain effect is slightly unremarkable, but nice to have – it gives re-rolls to either Advances or Charges. Since you’ll already be Empowering Wyches in the Charge Phase to get their Advance/Charge, that’s effectively a free re-roll for a spend you were already making, so why not."

I don't know if any of that helps you feel any better about her, but it makes me at least curious.

On a final note: hypothesizing about 10th in the store today, and one of the guys has a pet theory that 11th is going to be a heavy bike edition. If he's on to something (hope is the first step on the path of disappointment), we MIGHT just get lucky and end up with mounted HQ's again.

 vipoid wrote:


Speaking of which, shall we get to the sperm whale in the room? The fact that we've lost:
- Beastmaster
- Clawed Fiends
- Khymerae
- Razorwing Flocks
- Sslyth
- Ur-Ghuls
- Medusae
- Lhamaeans
- Grotesques

That amounts to, what, more than a quarter of our entire codex? Awesome.

I hardly count 2 units as more than a quarter of our codex....

But as long as those units show up in Legends? It won't effect me at all.
●And if they don't? At the worst my Beastmaster, 2 flocks, 2 kymeras, & 2 clawed beasts will miss out on the rest of the edition - when I play my Drukhari in an Escalation league/Crusade/or random games at the shop. So not really that many games now - June '26.
And I'm pretty certain Drukhari arent going to be my next Crusade/Escalation force. (I've got other ideas!)
+ I only use my BM in about 1/4 Drukhari games anyways.
Though GW will earn another entry in my Book of Grudges for that slight inconvenience/annoyance.

As for the rest of the Codex?
Aside from how PfP will now work & when i tally up the new pts? I didn't see anything changing in my force.

4 Units: Court, Beasts, Urien, Grotesques...

But yeah, I was going to mention that Court and Beasts haven't been listed as separate units for a long time. I didn't bother, cuz I still agree with Vipoid's general point- that the loss of these units is a pretty terrible blow... And as someone mentioned earlier, releasing all of the Marine stuff we've seen lately at the same time as you're taking away Drukhari units is really just throwing salt in the wound.

 PenitentJake wrote:
4 Units: Court, Beasts, Urien, Grotesques...

But yeah, I was going to mention that Court and Beasts haven't been listed as separate units for a long time. I didn't bother, cuz I still agree with Vipoid's general point- that the loss of these units is a pretty terrible blow... And as someone mentioned earlier, releasing all of the Marine stuff we've seen lately at the same time as you're taking away Drukhari units is really just throwing salt in the wound.

Still nowhere near 1/4.

And there's always more SM stuff being added.

They've disconnected weapon profiles from the actual gun these days with all their identical bolters with different profiles, why not the DE HQ pistols? Make them AI2+ D2 with 3 shots or something. It's not going to break them...

also, IMO the shadowfield should just reduce in effect once you fail, ie once you roll a 1, you can only succeed on a 4+ for the rest of the game because energy and reflexes or something. It's a T3 model, it's hardly going to break the game if it saves a couple of extra hits.

I've skimmed the leaks but am holding off on a deep dive until I have the book in my hands. Still, it's always interesting to read folks' first impressions.

From what I remember skimming, there seems to be a lot to like, soured slightly by all the little things that feel like they could have been avoided: removing units, hellions still being mounted instead of infantry thus making them *so* much harder to deliver, shadowfields, etc.

But despite those annoyances, it's nice to have a few more wargear options for characters (soured by the knowledge that we used to have so much more). The new raider rules seem genuinely interesting and fun to use, even if they are technically a nerf for kabalites and a weird abstraction of what used to be a more visceral rule for wyches. The bespoke Pain abilities feel like someone put some effort into them, and it's nice knowing that each unit was thought about individually in the same way it's nice to see 10th edition units each having their own special rules. Although mandrakes *might* have come out worse for it.

Like I said, I don't have the full picture yet, but what I did skim makes me excited to at least give it a try.

 PenitentJake wrote:
4 Units: Court, Beasts, Urien, Grotesques...

But yeah, I was going to mention that Court and Beasts haven't been listed as separate units for a long time. I didn't bother, cuz I still agree with Vipoid's general point- that the loss of these units is a pretty terrible blow... And as someone mentioned earlier, releasing all of the Marine stuff we've seen lately at the same time as you're taking away Drukhari units is really just throwing salt in the wound.

Yeah. The removed units really do sting. The beasts and court especially hurt. Those units were great for showing off the flavor of Commorragh with its wide variety of weirdos, and the models absolutely welcomed all kinds of cool conversions. Every chapter-specific marine kit we get in the near past/future could have been resources spent preserving our unit roster instead of bloating the marines'.

And while I really don't want every army to have marine levels of unit bloat, it does kind of sting that drukhari have roughly the same (arguably fewer?) datasheets than we did in 3rd edition.

Compared to third we've gained:
* 2 flyers
* the venom
* Malys (Then we lost her. Now we have her back again.)
* the hand of the archon
* wracks
*the cronos

And I think that's it?

We've lost:
* Vect
* Urien
* Kheradruakh
* Kruellagh
* Dracons/Dracites
* Beasts/Beast Masters
* Grotesques
* The bike archon/archite (succubus)/ haemonculus. This one is sort of iffy as they weren't their own "datasheets" back in third, but they would have been had they survived into 10th.
* The non-raider version of kabalites (small loss here as it was basically just a different warrior configuraiton, but still.)

And then there's all the stuff that we've both gained and lost between 3rd and now:
* Expanded beast units.
* The court of the archon which is either 1 unit or 4 depending on how you look at it and which edition you're looking at.
* The Duke
* The Baron
* Master haemonculi
* Trueborn
* Blood brides
* Reapers
* Tantali... Tantalusese... the Tantalus

So depending on how you look at it, we've gained 7 datasheets, but lost something like 11, and then had another 9+ removed that were added after not being in the original roster. The harshest reading of the above says that we've lost about 25 datasheets compared to the 7 we've gained. That's... pretty brutal.

So anyway, who's buying the next primaris lieutenant?