Sneak Peek at New Drukhari Codex

I think back in 3e we had some special scenario rules like “Dark Eldar are always considered to be the attacker”, and something about gaining vp for captured slaves via melee kills...? Maybe that would be cool to have back on the 9e tables.

WrackYourBrains wrote:

I think back in 3e we had some special scenario rules like “Dark Eldar are always considered to be the attacker”, and something about gaining vp for captured slaves via melee kills...? Maybe that would be cool to have back on the 9e tables.

Thats what I am hoping too. I would be ok with mutually exclusive faction specific secondaries "interstellar slavers - gain VP for killing models in melee" (so long as its actually viable vs Scanners or Engage) and "exquisite agony - gain VP for killing models with splinter fire". Obviously I would prefer if they were not mutually exclusive, but I should be realistic about these things.

If you want to tie it to objectives, make it about killing things within 6" of an objective marker. Give us a reason to contest, a reason to stay and fight, a reason to push forward. Even if it removes our ability to score VP from the objective markers. THATS a reason for DE to fight on points, show the enemy they are not safe, even near their well defended locations. That squad radioing for help? Let their backup hear their screams. Those civies evacuating? Let them watch their soldiers cut down. I am all for us contesting points. Less so for parking a unit of wracks on them like we are setting up for a camping trip.

Sound like some good ideas. I do hope the codex brings something else to the game for us all. I would like nothing more than to see everyone happy playing DE.

FWIW, I've found that when I try to adopt the "take and hold" style of play that 9th edition incentivizes, I don't perform particularly well. Maybe that's a me problem, but I just don't think we're well suited to try that, unless building a pure coven list or something.

I've found that I do much better when denying my opponent the points they thought were going to bag easily. I took 2nd in a small tournament last weekend by building a list that was designed primarily to kill things very fast.

My most convincing win was vs a triple Redemptor, 6 Eradicator Iron Hands list. He took Oath of Moment, Bring it Down (I had exactly 10 vehicles, partially to dupe people into taking BID), and Deploy Scramblers.

Oath of Moment, in case anyone hasn't faced it, gives 1 VP each turn for not failing any morale, 1 VP for killing a vehicle (he was looking to double dip on killing vehicles), and 2 VP for holding the center of the board.

I knew I wasn't going to get much in the way of secondaries off him for reasons already pointed out in this thread, so my focus was on denying him his secondaries.

Turn 1, I killed a redmptor and hid. His turn 1 killed a raider and moved 15 intercessors onto the center.

Turn 2 I killed all 15, and brought in 3 units of scourges and a unit of mandrakes in his backfield, to take his focus off my vehicles. He had nothing else to try to retake the center, without completely vacating his zone, and thus allowing me free access to those objectives.

Turn 3 I killed his contemptor character, finished off both eradicator squads and brought in 5 wracks, haemonculus, and sslyth from strategic reserves--all declared fixing teleport homers. He had to choose between killing vehicles to score points or killing units that posed no threat to deny me points.

Turn 4 I killed almost everything else. He had 1 character and 4 incursors left.

I think the final score was something like 80 to 33.


TL;DR you only NEED to focus on holding objectives if you're trying to race to max points with your opponent. I think that's a losing proposition. You're trying to play the same game as them, with an army that isn't designed for it.

Instead, overwhelm them with threats and simultaneously focus on their ability to remove your units from the table. They'll quickly run out of ways to prevent you from scoring.

Make it so each choice they make is between 2 (or more) bad options. It feels very Dark Eldar.

Great read thanks for adding that

I understand the reason for not wanting 'kill everything' to be the win-all condition, but it can seem more than a little absurd at times.

"We may have lost Guilliman, Calgar and the most elite warriors of the Ultramarines, but at least we held this bridge for 5 minutes! Truly the day is ours!"

The term 'pyrrhic victory' comes to mind.

That goes both ways, it kinda depends on what you decide the objective is narratively speaking.
"We lost maybe 50 guardsmen, four tanks, and two self-propelled artillery pieces. Also we recovered an intact STC. I feel like maybe we did win this one even though we didn't kill the enemy's Chaos Knights."

Besides, my buddy plays Lamenters. Losing half his battle company but holding a bridge for 5 minutes longer so some civilians can evacuate, and calling it a win, is absolutely narratively appropriate.

I'll try to be neutral here, and stick with facts. Bare with me...

First of all, I think we can all agree that editions before 8th were probably more flavourfull than 8th.
But the ballance was just gone. And if there was an illusion of some sort of ballance, it would evaporate the second a next codex would appear.
Heck, I remember a game with a friend (who played Nurgle Deamons) who defeated me solily with his Deamon Prince, as he first of all was a psycher, and second of all had the "flying" keyword. Meaning I could only hit him on sixes, since we had no "skyfire". That ONE model completely whiped my entire army off the board and I couldn't do anything about it.

Then 8th edition happened. It was not a "let's update some rules" -edition, it was a complete reset. It came with a bunch of completely new things, like our obsessions. And I have the feeling this was where they attempted to start from scratch (explains the Indexes instead of Codexes at the beginning of the edition), while first and foremost keeping ballance all over. Although this succeded (at least until the second Space Marine codex of 8th edition entered), this did ruin some kind of flavour.

Now there is the 9th edition. What I think they are doing is use the ballance of 8th, but bring back more flavour.
This is supported by their promise to give every faction their Suppreme Commander.
Seeing Lelith's stats made me wonder what reason someone would have to field her. My only answer with what we currently know is "because we need an HQ for our Wych Cult detachment, and we want something better than a regular Succubus.
That's not really impressive, and that makes me convinced this is where Vect will enter the battlefield again. Especially since they said that our suppreme commander is the faction leader we'd excpect it to be. How is this anyone but Vect? Second till 10th place are still Vect. After that we might maybe start to think that maybe they mean Lelith or Drahzar or Urien. (Although we'd quickly realise those aren't Faction leaders at all... As other's have said before, they just don't fill this description).

Why not give us new units before? Simple; GW is a modelling company. We had a lot of finecast models that were a hell to produce for them. Failcast costs a lot of money due to failed sprews they can't sell, so their first priority  is to replace those with something plastic. This is where Incubi, Drahzar, Lelith and even Wracks come in.
Drahzar and the Incubi had a serious increase of power since they became plastic. And if you include strats like Black Cornucopians, so did Wracks. No, Lelith is not impressive so far, but we don't know if the preview even includes HALF her new rules.

Also, I'm wondering if GW didn't give us much attention before because they look at the DE models they are selling and then come to the conclusion that we're just not a populair faction. (the reasoning here might be wrong though, because we probably don't buy much because they haven't given us any new units since the 5th edition gave us Venoms, and I personally didn't buy anything in quite a while simply because I already have it all...)
I also believe GW might judge what units may need improvement based on the results of tournaments. Unfortunately, 2020 happened... 'Nuf said. (-_-)

So, what am I expecting of our 9th edition codex?
Not to bring ballance (because that's what they did in 8th already), but to bring flavour. (Although I haven't got a clue on how that explains +1A for Kabalites) This might not seem that way now that we basically only have Space Marines and Necrons, but that's just it; We haven't seen much else yet.
This is also why they changed the way of earning Victory Points. It's not just a game where Marines walk over the board in a straight line like a lawnmower until the game is over. They are adding (or at least attempting to) flavour with these objectives. This is why I expect them to give us flavourfull secondaries that fit our army.
And maybe GW came to the conclusion that to effectively focus the game more on objectives, stats needed to change as well. This is why SM's got extra wounds. Therefor I believe other codexes will reflect this, to keep the ballance. However, we are now in this awkward phase where not ever army has their 9th edition codex yet, and therefor the ballance isn't there yet. YET.
I don't expect to them to make Lelith the awesomest evah, and don't mind that. I don't want her to be the deadliest of all and cost me 400 points to field.
I expect 9th to give us Vect. (although maybe not straight away a new model when the codex hits, but maybe later during 9th. Like PA in 8th.)

I have one more question to you here. If our codex doesn't have the same point costs as the last FAQ, will our codex points be the chapter improved points, or will our codex overrule those? Because the current point costs feel to me the same as the index in 8th did. Good enough to last until the codex comes with definite points.

Who else is painting like crazy until the codex drops?
I've gotten crazy motivation to finally getting some paint on my grey plastic and even repainting some of my less well painted models.

I wish. I'm holding off on assembling or painting anything until I know what will actually be worth my attention.

Does priming count?

I don't care anymore. I started the army because of the models, I learned to live with the rules.

I just bought a gangs of commoragh, who knows, maybe hellions will be fantastic

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/03/11/the-best-drukhari-codex-ever-here-are-5-new-reasons-why/

Quote :

Alongside the pick of those from the current Drukhari codex and Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising, the new codex features a whole host of new Stratagems.

Hey, wow! We're keeping all of the Drukhari stratagems from Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising. But hang on... we didn't get any stratagems in Phoenix Rising, did we? Oh well, let's just pretend that we did.

This is about what I would expect. Best Drukhari Codex ever, indeed.

Barking Agatha wrote:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/03/11/the-best-drukhari-codex-ever-here-are-5-new-reasons-why/

Quote :

Alongside the pick of those from the current Drukhari codex and Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising, the new codex features a whole host of new Stratagems.

Hey, wow! We're keeping all of the Drukhari stratagems from Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising. But hang on... we didn't get any stratagems in Phoenix Rising, did we? Oh well, let's just pretend that we did.

This is about what I would expect. Best Drukhari Codex ever, indeed.

That was lame af ROFL

Quote :

unleash shambling hordes of Wracks,

Oh man... every time I see the words "shambling hordes" I think of WS 2, 1 wound chaff units.
Hope that is not the case

Barking Agatha wrote:

Hey, wow! We're keeping all of the Drukhari stratagems from Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising. But hang on... we didn't get any stratagems in Phoenix Rising, .

And every day my fears of a low effort, no thought codex gets supported from GW.

So filtering that article through the PR speak:

Most units get an extra attack (and not much else)
Raiding Force might get expanded slightly but isn't fundamentally changing
Little bit of new lore
Crusade rules actually sound like they've had some thought put into them
We're losing some strats and gaining others

Hrm.

Wow, just wow.

I am now moving from cautiously optimistic to worried about our book.

At the very least the person who wrote the article posted today has no clue about dark eldar.

The literal number one reason this is the "best" drukhari codex is that most stuff is getting an extra attack... then citing the hellion and cronos as examples... those are so far from being a fix to those units issues its unreal.
Another reason is that we get to keep strats that were in the previous books.... really.... keeping old stuff is a reason this new book is great.... this just sounds like an excuse for an actual copy and paste job.
We didn't get any strats in PA so that's a moot point and they worryingly name one of the many highly situational and 99% useless strats from our codex (pray they don't take you alive).

I really hope all this is just another terribly misjudged press release.

If these are the things that rules writers have focused on in the book we could be in for one hell of a letdown. I'm now gonna wait until I read the book before buying. I'm not gonna commit money until I see the quality of that thing with my own eyes.

Barking Agatha wrote:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/03/11/the-best-drukhari-codex-ever-here-are-5-new-reasons-why/

Quote :

Alongside the pick of those from the current Drukhari codex and Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising, the new codex features a whole host of new Stratagems.

Hey, wow! We're keeping all of the Drukhari stratagems from Psychic Awakening: Phoenix Rising. But hang on... we didn't get any stratagems in Phoenix Rising, did we? Oh well, let's just pretend that we did.

This is about what I would expect. Best Drukhari Codex ever, indeed.

I stand by what I said before.

No one who had a hand in writing this book plays Dark Eldar.

No one who had a hand in writing this book gives the slightest feth about Dark Eldar.

GW has so little respect for Dark Eldar that we're not even seen as NPCs for Space Marines to massacre. We're beneath their notice, unworthy even of being crushed beneath their boots.

Instead, our only function will be to be NPC enemies for the Sisters of Battle and Admech.

This is the sole purpose of our codex and the only guiding philosophy.

GreyArea wrote:

The literal number one reason this is the "best" drukhari codex is that most stuff is getting an extra attack... then citing the hellion and cronos as examples... those are so far from being a fix to those units issues its unreal.

But GreyArea, aren't you excited about the Cronos getting an extra S5 AP-1 D1 attack?

GreyArea wrote:

At the very least the person who wrote the article posted today has no clue about dark eldar.

Don't worry - the person who wrote the codex has no clue about Dark Eldar either.

Gelmir wrote:

/.../ but to bring flavour. (Although I haven't got a clue on how that explains +1A for Kabalites)

Let me explain why I, personally, am really fond of the +1A for kabalites.

In the background the drukhari are supposed to make up for their atrophied/lack of psycic abilities with martial prowess.
This used to be represented, in-game, by them having higher combat stats (WS, BS, and Initiative) than standard craftworld eldar (aspect warriors being on par with the kabalite warriors), while craftworlders made up for their normal stats with a wide access to psykers and buffs (along with better gear and a higher rate of fire).
In 2013, when carftworlds got their 6ed codex, for some reason all their units got buffed to have the dark eldar/aspect warrior statline, as a base. So the difference in the background hasn’t been characterized in the game for the last 8 years.
The weirdness this creates when comparing the two armies is profound (at least the way I see it!).
I’ve been assuming there is no going back to where we were, but giving the Kabalites double the amount of attacks, compared to a... guardian. Is at least something, and I really like how it (along with the 4+save) makes Kabalites more like the elite version of craftworlders again!*

Or it could just be a way of converting the old Iniative-stat; Being quicker now meaning an additional attack, instead of just a higher movement value. Or something.

Either way I like it, and think it fits well with what kabalites are supposed to be! (I get that their rules puts their usefulness, on the table, in a more specific role not suited to make use of this stat increase. But that doesn’t matter to me as much as their statline being representative of their background does ^^’ )

*of course, we’ll see what happens once CWs get their next codex. I could see them getting a 4+ Save also, but I’m not expecting them to get the +1A.

GreyArea wrote:

The literal number one reason this is the "best" drukhari codex is that most stuff is getting an extra attack... then citing the hellion and cronos as examples....

Hey now! The cronos getting an extra attack, bringing it to 4, count em, 4 attacks that hit on 4's means we might get 2 str 5 ap-1 hits on an enemy model! that is nothing to laugh at only costing a measley 70 points!
To kill a SINGLE custodes guardian model, it will only take 12 rounds of combat! Is that the new game length?
Freaking Cronos are NOT hth models, they are SHOOTING models! once again, giving attacks to shooting models and calling it an upgrade is just plain stupid!




And now we know why the Hellions went up so much in cost! They got an extra attack!
makes sense to me!

I'm still cautiously optimistic but I'm definitely leaning much harder into the "cautious" part now. Next week's where we get the meaty information but emphasising +1 attack for Cronos and the inclusion of our best stratagems from Phoenix Rising as big selling points is setting off huge alarm bells for me.

So we’re getting the +1 attack across the board which is decent. Also I really hope they have made it so we can choose a wych cult, Kabal obsession and Coven rules all in one detachment. Sounds as though that is the case.

I’m really looking forward to finding out the faction rules and the strats. Until I’ve read them all I’m going to be excited and optimistic.

Gelmir wrote:

I'll try to be neutral here, and stick with facts. Bare with me...

First of all, I think we can all agree that editions before 8th were probably more flavourfull than 8th.
But the ballance was just gone. And if there was an illusion of some sort of ballance, it would evaporate the second a next codex would appear.
Heck, I remember a game with a friend (who played Nurgle Deamons) who defeated me solily with his Deamon Prince, as he first of all was a psycher, and second of all had the "flying" keyword. Meaning I could only hit him on sixes, since we had no "skyfire". That ONE model completely whiped my entire army off the board and I couldn't do anything about it.

Then 8th edition happened. It was not a "let's update some rules" -edition, it was a complete reset. It came with a bunch of completely new things, like our obsessions. And I have the feeling this was where they attempted to start from scratch (explains the Indexes instead of Codexes at the beginning of the edition), while first and foremost keeping ballance all over. Although this succeded (at least until the second Space Marine codex of 8th edition entered), this did ruin some kind of flavour.

Now there is the 9th edition. What I think they are doing is use the ballance of 8th, but bring back more flavour.
This is supported by their promise to give every faction their Suppreme Commander.
Seeing Lelith's stats made me wonder what reason someone would have to field her. My only answer with what we currently know is "because we need an HQ for our Wych Cult detachment, and we want something better than a regular Succubus.
That's not really impressive, and that makes me convinced this is where Vect will enter the battlefield again. Especially since they said that our suppreme commander is the faction leader we'd excpect it to be. How is this anyone but Vect? Second till 10th place are still Vect. After that we might maybe start to think that maybe they mean Lelith or Drahzar or Urien. (Although we'd quickly realise those aren't Faction leaders at all... As other's have said before, they just don't fill this description).

Why not give us new units before? Simple; GW is a modelling company. We had a lot of finecast models that were a hell to produce for them. Failcast costs a lot of money due to failed sprews they can't sell, so their first priority  is to replace those with something plastic. This is where Incubi, Drahzar, Lelith and even Wracks come in.
Drahzar and the Incubi had a serious increase of power since they became plastic. And if you include strats like Black Cornucopians, so did Wracks. No, Lelith is not impressive so far, but we don't know if the preview even includes HALF her new rules.

Also, I'm wondering if GW didn't give us much attention before because they look at the DE models they are selling and then come to the conclusion that we're just not a populair faction. (the reasoning here might be wrong though, because we probably don't buy much because they haven't given us any new units since the 5th edition gave us Venoms, and I personally didn't buy anything in quite a while simply because I already have it all...)
I also believe GW might judge what units may need improvement based on the results of tournaments. Unfortunately, 2020 happened... 'Nuf said. (-_-)

So, what am I expecting of our 9th edition codex?
Not to bring ballance (because that's what they did in 8th already), but to bring flavour. (Although I haven't got a clue on how that explains +1A for Kabalites) This might not seem that way now that we basically only have Space Marines and Necrons, but that's just it; We haven't seen much else yet.
This is also why they changed the way of earning Victory Points. It's not just a game where Marines walk over the board in a straight line like a lawnmower until the game is over. They are adding (or at least attempting to) flavour with these objectives. This is why I expect them to give us flavourfull secondaries that fit our army.
And maybe GW came to the conclusion that to effectively focus the game more on objectives, stats needed to change as well. This is why SM's got extra wounds. Therefor I believe other codexes will reflect this, to keep the ballance. However, we are now in this awkward phase where not ever army has their 9th edition codex yet, and therefor the ballance isn't there yet. YET.
I don't expect to them to make Lelith the awesomest evah, and don't mind that. I don't want her to be the deadliest of all and cost me 400 points to field.
I expect 9th to give us Vect. (although maybe not straight away a new model when the codex hits, but maybe later during 9th. Like PA in 8th.)

I have one more question to you here. If our codex doesn't have the same point costs as the last FAQ, will our codex points be the chapter improved points, or will our codex overrule those? Because the current point costs feel to me the same as the index in 8th did. Good enough to last until the codex comes with definite points.

This made a lot of sense...great post.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

So we’re getting the +1 attack across the board which is decent. Also I really hope they have made it so we can choose a wych cult, Kabal obsession and Coven rules all in one detachment. Sounds as though that is the case.

I’m really looking forward to finding out the faction rules and the strats. Until I’ve read them all I’m going to be excited and optimistic.

it says MOST units not all lol... We laready know that our close combat specialists incubi are NOT getting it...! But hey our transports DO
man even writing it is not even funny im serisously considering the possibility that they might be trolling us by now lol

man also the title ...i mean WTF
THE BEST DRUKHARI CODEX EVAAAAAAHHHHHH
who the hell wrote this it sound like somehting a 20 year old girl on tik tok would say