FAQ is up

The only way that I can rationalise the Archon nerf was that it was intended as an indirect nerf on Courts and Trueborn. Sucks if you weren't taking either of them, but let's be honest - if you're running an Archon in a competitive list you were absolutely including at least one of those units.

Ya, I think if you are bringing an Archon you should probably be bringing both Trueborn and Court to make it worthwhile.

I honestly dont see much value in the Archon right now. You want Eternal Hatred on Draz, so the Djin Blade/Hatred Eternal combo isnt always viable. Fight Last is pretty nice though.

Yes the archon was the first thing I dropped from my lists now. Shame though. 1/3 of our HQs is useless again.

@Kalmah really? I don't play CoS, but even with the book of rust I thought Bloodbrides were generally frowned upon.

Bloodbrides keep poping into top lists. Generally at the cost of the 3ed unit of Incubi.

Ive never run the Bloodbrides, so my opinion doesnt mean much. But I think standard wyches are better at clearing chaff, and Incubi are better at killing MEQ. Maybe if you needed a toolbox unit that was OK at both roles, but why even bother...

fisheyes wrote:

Ya, I think if you are bringing an Archon you should probably be bringing both Trueborn and Court to make it worthwhile.

I honestly dont see much value in the Archon right now. You want Eternal Hatred on Draz, so the Djin Blade/Hatred Eternal combo isnt always viable. Fight Last is pretty nice though.

Do you know, in my last games I tried the Archon and I belive that between DrazharHE+Succubus+Succubus and ArchonHE+Succubus+Succubus+Drazhar I prefer the second one.
Drazhar don't need HE for real as I tought, he is a beast alone. The value on getting a 4th HQ melee blender is way better than just rerrolling 1s (usually) with Drazhar.
Or that's what my experience tells me.

But yes, usually if you run an Archon is because you want Trueborns/Courts. It was already like that before, nothing changed after the faq imho. While Bbrides are way too expensive now, I belive Trueborns still kicks. The versatile of being an embarked Troop still good even for +10 points.
In fact, it even helps with WWSWF.

@azrael my thinking (for what it's worth) is that the real increase cost comes from the Succubus now +20pts and each Wychs +2/model, you can't escape that when playing any Cult list, including the CoS.
The Bloodbrides are by themselves only +1pts/upgrade, so its not the Bloodbrides that is literraly smaked down by this point increase, but the entirety of the Cult subfactions.

The thing is that with the book of rust around, you're plainly WRONG if you don't play CoS in a competitive format, so by increasing those points, they "tried" to nerf the CoS indirectly, but by doing so, nerfed the entirety of any Cult list.

My 2 cents on the Archon points increase. They wanted to hit 2 things with it; one is the Court and the other is Trueborn. Both of these Units are limited by the Archon, and the court is rightly priced, in fact the Urghul is 1 point more that the Blackstone Fortress version already. The Trueborn they increase the cost by 1 point per model but it looks like they felt it needed a little more, but could not justify more than the 1 point per model. The Archon increase is minor, hits both units as a tax and makes you reconsider taking more that one of each unit. There were a lot of 2 Trueborn or 2 court lists out there.

Burnage wrote:

The only way that I can rationalise the Archon nerf was that it was intended as an indirect nerf on Courts and Trueborn. Sucks if you weren't taking either of them, but let's be honest - if you're running an Archon in a competitive list you were absolutely including at least one of those units.

This might well be true but it also goes back to a comment I made elsewhere - that our 'Master' abilities are already far too backloaded onto the troops.

Don't get me wrong - Trueborn and the like are certainly good units. But the fact that they get most of the benefits from our HQ master abilities makes Archons and Haemonculi feel rather lacklustre. Their main function is accomplished during the list-building phase, so for the actual battle they're just sort of there.

I think it would have been better to drop the Master requirement for these troops and have Master abilities instead provide some much-needed bonuses to the HQs themselves.

All in all, I must say I am still quite happy with the reballance. GW could have easily nerfed us into the ground. Even AdMech got hit harder than us (they were also better than us, fwiw).

The fact that we got point cuts in Coven is astounding. I still have a hard time believing it.

Consider me one happy Archon. We will see what happens a few weeks from now, once tournament results start to come in with the new point costs (I imagine the tourneys this weekend will not implement the FAQ, too soon).

Before this nerf, we were already trending just under a 60% win rate. I think we may now fall into the 55% area (although our main counters were also hit, so who knows).

If I were to guess the new meta, it would be something along the lines of:

GK
TS
Orks
DE
Sisters
AdMech

Thats just my opinion. Time will tell.

Kalmah wrote:

@azrael my thinking (for what it's worth) is that the real increase cost comes from the Succubus now +20pts and each Wychs +2/model, you can't escape that when playing any Cult list, including the CoS.
The Bloodbrides are by themselves only +1pts/upgrade, so its not the Bloodbrides that is literraly smaked down by this point increase, but the entirety of the Cult subfactions.

The thing is that with the book of rust around, you're plainly WRONG if you don't play CoS in a competitive format, so by increasing those points, they "tried" to nerf the CoS indirectly, but by doing so, nerfed the entirety of any Cult list.

Yeah you're right

But I still don't get it. They nerfed dark technomancers when it was busted and not liquifier guns, why this heavy handed approach now?

Same with the flyers. All they had to do was saying "You can only include 2 Aircraft units in your game". Now the Guard flyers are nerfed even though they sucked to begin with.

fisheyes wrote:

All in all, I must say I am still quite happy with the reballance. GW could have easily nerfed us into the ground. Even AdMech got hit harder than us (they were also better than us, fwiw).

The fact that we got point cuts in Coven is astounding. I still have a hard time believing it.

Oh I'm sure the competitive builds got off lightly, all things considered.

What saddens me is the less competitive builds - which always suffer the most from indiscriminate nerfs.

Azrael already gave the example of fliers but I think another example is warlord traits and artefacts. Because these all cost the exact same, it means they can't be individually balanced. Hence, the only way to adjust them is to alter the cost of the models that can take them. And (for reasons of external balance) this almost always seems to be calculated based on the assumption that they'll have the best possible combination of warlord trait and artefact.

Thus, a muderizer-Archon with Huskblade and Hatred Eternal is assumed to be worth the exact same as a mild-nuisance Archon with Soul-Seeker and Towering Arrogance. Similarly, a Succubus with the Triptych Whip and Precision Blows might well have been 20pts undercosted, but what about a Succubus with Hyperswift Reflexes and Parasite's Kiss?

I'm sure I'm in the minority here but I can't help but sigh as I see many of my mediocre-but-fluffy builds become considerably more expensive, purely to balance entirely different builds that were too strong.

In an ideal world relics and warlord traits would have associated points costs, but right now they don't have any other balancing levers to pull to rein in characters.

I'd also suspect that players from most other factions would be very unsympathetic to hear that your particular Succubus has been unfairly nerfed when the average one has been a 60 point ball of murder for the last eight months. Running an intentionally fluffy build carries the risk that it's not as strong competitively, unfortunately.

I'm still waiting the "Every unit in your ARMY (besides <BLADES FOR HIRE>) must be <CULT OF STRIFE>" mandatory phrase for CoS rules.

Burnage wrote:

In an ideal world relics and warlord traits would have associated points costs, but right now they don't have any other balancing levers to pull to rein in characters.

I'm assuming it's because they're still trying to push Power Level? But yeah, it seems a pretty big misstep to have no way of balancing Relics and WLTs against one another.

Burnage wrote:

I'd also suspect that players from most other factions would be very unsympathetic to hear that your particular Succubus has been unfairly nerfed when the average one has been a 60 point ball of murder for the last eight months. Running an intentionally fluffy build carries the risk that it's not as strong competitively, unfortunately.

As I said, I'm sure I'm in the minority here. And I do think it's a good thing that the murder-Succubi went up in points.

I just think it's a shame that there's no way to reign them in without also punishing the less effective builds just as much.

Cerve wrote:

I'm still waiting the "Every unit in your ARMY (besides <BLADES FOR HIRE>) must be <CULT OF STRIFE>" mandatory phrase for CoS rules.

That would be a pretty severe restriction as it would mean we couldn't use ~2/3 of our units. Certainly it would make it far more restrictive than the comparable rules for other armies' expanded subfactions.

IDK, the point balance is clearly targeted at Competitive play.

If you really wanted to be running sub-optimal builds, chances are your opponent will be doing the same. And the DE sub-optimal builds are probably still better than most other armies sub-optimal.

Are you unable to discuss with your opponent? If you really feel like your at a disadvantage running DE, maybe you should go with a Highlander style game, or Power Level, or mono-detatchment, etc?

And we can always look over at AdMech and their nerf. It appears to be much heavier than ours (but I am not AdMech player, so I could be wrong).

fisheyes wrote:

If you really wanted to be running sub-optimal builds, chances are your opponent will be doing the same. And the DE sub-optimal builds are probably still better than most other armies sub-optimal.

Sorry, but I fail to see how you can possibly come to that conclusion. Surely other armies have vastly better sub-optimal builds because their characters aren't wholly reliant on artefacts and warlord traits to be worth a damn even at their basic function. A SM Commander who spends his artefacts on random crap can still punch with a S8 AP-3 D2 Power Fist. A Necron Overlord who declines to purchase an artefact Warscythe is still striking at S7 AP-4 D2 (or even S10 AP-4 D3 with -1 to hit). Plus the latter still has two excellent support abilities that are entirely independent of artefacts and WLTs.

In contrast, non-optimal builds for the Succubus are the difference between 9 attacks with Poison 2+ AP-3 D2 weapon that inflicts 2 Mortal Wounds on a roll of 6+ to hit, and 6 attacks with Poison 4+ AP-3 D1 with no Mortal Wounds.

I'd wager that's a far more substantial difference than exist for HQs in most other armies. Especially ones that are supposed to be dedicated melee characters.

fisheyes wrote:

Are you unable to discuss with your opponent? If you really feel like your at a disadvantage running DE, maybe you should go with a Highlander style game, or Power Level, or mono-detatchment, etc?

As I've said two or three times now, I'm not claiming that DE have ceased to be competitive. What I've said is that it's depressing to see weaker builds constantly punished. The entire codex is already build around the philosophy of 'strong but boring', did the balance patch really need to push that even more?

And yes, I know that they can't tweak relic costs but let's not pretend that there was nothing else they could have done. They could have upped the Succubus' cost and also made her basic equipment actually worth a damn. e.g. make Agonisers and the Glaive D2. Now you haven't changed her power level when equipped with the Triptych Whip or such but you have made other builds much more viable. Same with the Archon. Again, make the Agoniser D2 and make the Huskblade closer in stats to the Djin Blade. Now his strongest build is no stronger but other builds are now far more viable.

The Archon increased by 5 points.  If that’s enough to make your suboptimal Archon unplayable then submit your list and we would all be happy to give you input on where to find those 5 extra points.  As for the Succubus if you just want her Agonizer and Glaive to be D2, prepare to be overwhelmed with joy because you’re actually allowed to equip your beloved basic Succubus with the Dark Lotus Toxin and, voila, her weapons are now D2.

So, Soulless, I've got a question.
We know your view on HQs by now, that's well documented.
But what other units do you feel fit under "fun but suboptimal" in the codex right now?

Because I look at the codex and basically the only units you could bring that would make me go "so... what's your plan here, exactly?" would be Beasts and big o'l footslogging 16-20 man infantry blobs. I guess if you wanted to try and lean hard on morale with a Poisoned Tongue/Dark Creed build with Grisly Trophies and Phantasm Launchers everywhere, I'd also suggest that you keep in mind that several factions flat ignore morale - which isn't so much a problem of our codex as it is that GW's continually promised that morale will matter and then given Fearless to anything that moves.
But these rather fringe outliers aside, building with even a modest nod toward being able to respond to different target profiles seems sufficient to get at least a passable army out of our codex almost no matter how you cut it.

So as a genuine good-faith question - outside of HQs, what would be an example of a Fun But Weak drukhari army list right now?

sweetbacon wrote:

As for the Succubus if you just want her Agonizer and Glaive to be D2, prepare to be overwhelmed with joy because you’re actually allowed to equip your beloved basic Succubus with the Dark Lotus Toxin and, voila, her weapons are now D2..

Not everyone plays Cult of Strife

Patayou wrote:

sweetbacon wrote:

As for the Succubus if you just want her Agonizer and Glaive to be D2, prepare to be overwhelmed with joy because you’re actually allowed to equip your beloved basic Succubus with the Dark Lotus Toxin and, voila, her weapons are now D2..

Not everyone plays Cult of Strife

If you want a D2 Agonizer and Glaive then it’s either Strife or complain about it on the internet.  One of those options seems more practical than the other…

sweetbacon wrote:

The Archon increased by 5 points.  If that’s enough to make your suboptimal Archon unplayable then submit your list and we would all be happy to give you input on where to find those 5 extra points.

Sigh. It seems I really can't say anything without someone responding to an argument I never made.

I didn't say the Archon was unplayable with +5pts. However, when you have a model that already feels about 30pts overcosted for what it brings to the table, seeing it go up in points is pretty bloody disheartening.

I'm sure I can find 5pts to drop (though I feel obliged to point out that, given the rest of the balance patch, I need to find a hell of a lot more than that 5pts), the bigger question is if it's worth bothering with at all. Especially since Trueborn got more expensive as well. Or if I do bother, I guess I should just take the Djin Blade + Hatred Archon, because the cost certainly assumes that that's the only build I'll ever use.

sweetbacon wrote:

As for the Succubus if you just want her Agonizer and Glaive to be D2, prepare to be overwhelmed with joy because you’re actually allowed to equip your beloved basic Succubus with the Dark Lotus Toxin and, voila, her weapons are now D2.

OH WOW! REALLY? Thank you so much. I definitely never noticed until now that the Succubus had artefacts that could get her a D2 Glaive. There's just no possible way I might want to use my relic on anything other than giving the melee character a melee weapon actually worth a damn. Nope. No siree.

But just as a thought experiment, let's say I want give my Succubus Parasite's Kiss. What, then, are my options for getting a D2 melee weapon on my melee character? I'm sure there must be dozens that I've overlooked.

mynamelegend wrote:

So, Soulless, I've got a question.
We know your view on HQs by now, that's well documented.
But what other units do you feel fit under "fun but suboptimal" in the codex right now?

I'll split that question into two if I may. In terms of units I think are suboptimal:

- Kabalites. While Wyches and Wracks both got AP-1 on their basic attacks, Kabalites got, er, +1A. And with Blasters and Blast Pistols not getting the improved profile of Dark Lances, it seems they're really lacking in punch (especially against troops that have had their durability doubled). Trueborn *might* be an exception, though with them going up in points plus the Archon tax plus the Master tax I'm wondering whether they're still worth it.

- Bloodbrides. I already thought they were the weakest of the three Elite-troops, and with the price increase I'm honestly struggling to see the point of them.

- Beasts (which you already alluded to). They're in a weird place in that they're Blades for Hire but (because of the Beastmaster) are nevertheless locked to Cult armies. Except that they still don't benefit from any of the Cult bonuses. There's also a strange aspect wherein Beastmasters are characters but ones that are largely forgotten by the codex (they can't be warlords and almost all the artefacts are linked to Archons, Succubi or Haemonculi).

- Most of the Archon's Court (except Sslyth and possibly Ur-Ghuls). For Lahameans, losing the Mortal Wounds on wound rolls of 4+ was a pretty big blow for a unit that still only has 2 attacks with no AP. Their support ability is also very strange as it only works for units that are dismounted. Lastly, it has weird, anti-synergy with Poison Tongue (which you'd expect to be the faction that would use them most). Firstly, because PT gives 0 benefit to them, as their weapons are already Poison 2+. But secondly because their ability overrides the wound roll, thus making PT's +1 to wound less relevant. Medusae don't really bring anything that isn't available on troops.

- Mandrakes are great for objectives but are in a bit of a sad place if you want to use them for anything else.

- Scourges are a mobile unit carrying weapons that penalise them for moving.

- Venoms are very expensive for what they bring to the table.

- Both the fliers are pretty meh, especially compared with the alternatives.

As to the fun aspect, that's obviously subjective (e.g. I've never cared for fliers so, on a purely personal level, I don't really care if ours are efficient or not) so some of the above bother me more than others. I certainly miss taking piles of Warriors in Venoms/Raiders and feeling like they were a worthwhile investment. But then I also miss Trueborn being an actual unit, which could be effective in small units - rather than basically being locked as a single, 10-man squad.

I also really miss Lhamaeans. I loved my PT Lhamaean death-squad in 8th. With rerolls to hit from an Archon and rerolls to wound from PT, they actually did surprisingly well. Now they're just pointless.

I like the idea of Beasts and think they'd make a cool theme but they seem perpetually under-developed, so I've never been inclined to invest in them (or, more likely, in alternative models that are more reasonably priced ). Lastly, as someone who owns a lot of Venoms, it's certainly depressing when the army-building advice is frequently 'Nah, buy more Raiders instead.'

Note: Before I'm misquoted again, I'm not claiming that any of the above are unplayable (with the possible exception of Lhamaeans ) - merely that they seem overcosted and/or poorly designed. It might not be too bad if you're just including one unit but if, for example, you're trying to play a PT list with a lot of Venoms, the cost will start to rack up pretty quickly.

mynamelegend wrote:

So as a genuine good-faith question - outside of HQs, what would be an example of a Fun But Weak drukhari army list right now?

In terms of an entire army? I'm not really sure.

I mean, one of the issues I have with DE is less to do with power level (much as it depresses me to see our HQs kicked while they're down) and more to do with how bare-bones the army feels and how difficult it is to create any sort of themed army beyond the bog-standard Cult/Kabal/Coven.

Let me give you an example. Let's say I want to play CSM but with an emphasis on Jump infantry. Well, I have: Chaos Lord and Chaos Sorcerer (both can take Jump Packs), Daemon Prince (if I include his Wings as being basically the same thing), Raptors, and Warp Talons. Not enough for a complete list but I've got 3 HQs and two different units to build around.

If I want a Terminator-themed army, I've once again got Lords and Sorcerers (both can also take Terminator armour), Terminators, arguably Obliterators and Mutilators. Again, not a massive list but it gives me 2 HQs and 3 different units to work with.

Let me give you another example. Let's say I want to make a Necron Dstroyer list. I've got Lokhust Lords, Skorpekh Lords, Hexmark Destroyers, Skorpekh Destroyers, Ophydian Destroyers, Lokhust Destroyers, Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (plus 'neutral' HQs like Chronomancers and Technomancers that can also support them). Lack of troops aside, this is actually a pretty solid base to support an army.

However, with Dark Eldar, it's very hard to do this for anything other than the basic Kabal, Coven, Cult themes. Let's say I want a Mandrake theme (which I actually do), my options are Mandrakes . . . and that's it. So I have one unit that can't benefit from any of the army bonuses, which has no options and no HQ support. Hell, an HQ needs to take a specific artefact gun just to match the Mandrakes in range. And if you want an HQ capable of buffing them, that will require another artefact from an entirely different Kabal, which must be used in a RSR detachment.

What about a Scourge theme? Once again, you have Scourges and then nothing else. We've got no melee Scourges and no Scourge HQs (not only do our HQs lack options for wings, they also lack options for Scourge-weapons, as even Blasters have been removed). I guess you could maybe count Hellions at a real push, but you've still got no HQ support as Succubi can buff Hellions but have no way to keep up with them.

Thus, short of just picking the worst units in the codex and spamming them, I find it very difficult to build a 'fun but weak' DE list because there's so little to build around if I want to diverge from the standard DE lists.

Thus, the reason I bring up HQ builds so much is because it's about the only thing I can still do with regard to theme.

I’m an engineer by trade.  When someone presents a problem I try to suggest solutions.  I understand how emotionally satisfying it can be to complain about things that are less than how we would ideally like them to be.  If you’re upset about rules and characters that don’t exist, then maybe your thematic CSM or Necron armies would be more fulfilling and fun to play for now. Your feelings and perceptions about flaws in the codex are certainly valid but at the same time they don’t invalidate how those of us who actually enjoy playing Drukhari feel either.   I dunno, man, I guess if our codex is making you this unhappy, explore other armies that will allow you to enjoy the hobby the way you want to.  I mean, this is supposed to be fun, right?

mostly agree with everything you said Soulless Samurai but

Soulless Samurai wrote:

- Beasts (which you already alluded to). They're in a weird place in that they're Blades for Hire but (because of the Beastmaster) are nevertheless locked to Cult armies. Except that they still don't benefit from any of the Cult bonuses. There's also a strange aspect wherein Beastmasters are characters but ones that are largely forgotten by the codex (they can't be warlords and almost all the artefacts are linked to Archons, Succubi or Haemonculi).

If my understanding is correct, you don't have to (and absolutely shouldn't) take beastmasters and beast in a cult detachment. You can take them in any detachment, and all you'll lose is the obsession, and only on the beastmaster, since beasts don't get obsessions anyway. Unless I'm missing something.

Cult already have their best units as fast attack, and kabal and coven have none. So you should take beasts in your kabal/coven detachments.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

sweetbacon wrote:

The Archon increased by 5 points.  If that’s enough to make your suboptimal Archon unplayable then submit your list and we would all be happy to give you input on where to find those 5 extra points.

Sigh. It seems I really can't say anything without someone responding to an argument I never made.

I didn't say the Archon was unplayable with +5pts. However, when you have a model that already feels about 30pts overcosted for what it brings to the table, seeing it go up in points is pretty bloody disheartening.

I'm sure I can find 5pts to drop (though I feel obliged to point out that, given the rest of the balance patch, I need to find a hell of a lot more than that 5pts), the bigger question is if it's worth bothering with at all. Especially since Trueborn got more expensive as well. Or if I do bother, I guess I should just take the Djin Blade + Hatred Archon, because the cost certainly assumes that that's the only build I'll ever use.

sweetbacon wrote:

As for the Succubus if you just want her Agonizer and Glaive to be D2, prepare to be overwhelmed with joy because you’re actually allowed to equip your beloved basic Succubus with the Dark Lotus Toxin and, voila, her weapons are now D2.

OH WOW! REALLY? Thank you so much. I definitely never noticed until now that the Succubus had artefacts that could get her a D2 Glaive. There's just no possible way I might want to use my relic on anything other than giving the melee character a melee weapon actually worth a damn. Nope. No siree.

But just as a thought experiment, let's say I want give my Succubus Parasite's Kiss. What, then, are my options for getting a D2 melee weapon on my melee character? I'm sure there must be dozens that I've overlooked.

mynamelegend wrote:

So, Soulless, I've got a question.
We know your view on HQs by now, that's well documented.
But what other units do you feel fit under "fun but suboptimal" in the codex right now?

I'll split that question into two if I may. In terms of units I think are suboptimal:

- Kabalites. While Wyches and Wracks both got AP-1 on their basic attacks, Kabalites got, er, +1A. And with Blasters and Blast Pistols not getting the improved profile of Dark Lances, it seems they're really lacking in punch (especially against troops that have had their durability doubled). Trueborn *might* be an exception, though with them going up in points plus the Archon tax plus the Master tax I'm wondering whether they're still worth it.  

- Bloodbrides. I already thought they were the weakest of the three Elite-troops, and with the price increase I'm honestly struggling to see the point of them.

- Beasts (which you already alluded to). They're in a weird place in that they're Blades for Hire but (because of the Beastmaster) are nevertheless locked to Cult armies. Except that they still don't benefit from any of the Cult bonuses. There's also a strange aspect wherein Beastmasters are characters but ones that are largely forgotten by the codex (they can't be warlords and almost all the artefacts are linked to Archons, Succubi or Haemonculi).

- Most of the Archon's Court (except Sslyth and possibly Ur-Ghuls). For Lahameans, losing the Mortal Wounds on wound rolls of 4+ was a pretty big blow for a unit that still only has 2 attacks with no AP. Their support ability is also very strange as it only works for units that are dismounted. Lastly, it has weird, anti-synergy with Poison Tongue (which you'd expect to be the faction that would use them most). Firstly, because PT gives 0 benefit to them, as their weapons are already Poison 2+. But secondly because their ability overrides the wound roll, thus making PT's +1 to wound less relevant. Medusae don't really bring anything that isn't available on troops.

- Mandrakes are great for objectives but are in a bit of a sad place if you want to use them for anything else.

- Scourges are a mobile unit carrying weapons that penalise them for moving.  

- Venoms are very expensive for what they bring to the table.

- Both the fliers are pretty meh, especially compared with the alternatives.

As to the fun aspect, that's obviously subjective (e.g. I've never cared for fliers so, on a purely personal level, I don't really care if ours are efficient or not) so some of the above bother me more than others. I certainly miss taking piles of Warriors in Venoms/Raiders and feeling like they were a worthwhile investment. But then I also miss Trueborn being an actual unit, which could be effective in small units - rather than basically being locked as a single, 10-man squad.

I also really miss Lhamaeans. I loved my PT Lhamaean death-squad in 8th. With rerolls to hit from an Archon and rerolls to wound from PT, they actually did surprisingly well. Now they're just pointless.

I like the idea of Beasts and think they'd make a cool theme but they seem perpetually under-developed, so I've never been inclined to invest in them (or, more likely, in alternative models that are more reasonably priced   ). Lastly, as someone who owns a lot of Venoms, it's certainly depressing when the army-building advice is frequently 'Nah, buy more Raiders instead.'

Note: Before I'm misquoted again, I'm not claiming that any of the above are unplayable (with the possible exception of Lhamaeans   ) - merely that they seem overcosted and/or poorly designed. It might not be too bad if you're just including one unit but if, for example, you're trying to play a PT list with a lot of Venoms, the cost will start to rack up pretty quickly.

mynamelegend wrote:

So as a genuine good-faith question - outside of HQs, what would be an example of a Fun But Weak drukhari army list right now?

In terms of an entire army? I'm not really sure.

I mean, one of the issues I have with DE is less to do with power level (much as it depresses me to see our HQs kicked while they're down) and more to do with how bare-bones the army feels and how difficult it is to create any sort of themed army beyond the bog-standard Cult/Kabal/Coven.

Let me give you an example. Let's say I want to play CSM but with an emphasis on Jump infantry. Well, I have: Chaos Lord and Chaos Sorcerer (both can take Jump Packs), Daemon Prince (if I include his Wings as being basically the same thing), Raptors, and Warp Talons. Not enough for a complete list but I've got 3 HQs and two different units to build around.

If I want a Terminator-themed army, I've once again got Lords and Sorcerers (both can also take Terminator armour), Terminators, arguably Obliterators and Mutilators. Again, not a massive list but it gives me 2 HQs and 3 different units to work with.

Let me give you another example. Let's say I want to make a Necron Dstroyer list. I've got Lokhust Lords, Skorpekh Lords, Hexmark Destroyers, Skorpekh Destroyers, Ophydian Destroyers, Lokhust Destroyers, Lokhust Heavy Destroyers (plus 'neutral' HQs like Chronomancers and Technomancers that can also support them). Lack of troops aside, this is actually a pretty solid base to support an army.

However, with Dark Eldar, it's very hard to do this for anything other than the basic Kabal, Coven, Cult themes. Let's say I want a Mandrake theme (which I actually do), my options are Mandrakes . . . and that's it. So I have one unit that can't benefit from any of the army bonuses, which has no options and no HQ support. Hell, an HQ needs to take a specific artefact gun just to match the Mandrakes in range. And if you want an HQ capable of buffing them, that will require another artefact from an entirely different Kabal, which must be used in a RSR detachment.

What about a Scourge theme? Once again, you have Scourges and then nothing else. We've got no melee Scourges and no Scourge HQs (not only do our HQs lack options for wings, they also lack options for Scourge-weapons, as even Blasters have been removed). I guess you could maybe count Hellions at a real push, but you've still got no HQ support as Succubi can buff Hellions but have no way to keep up with them.

Thus, short of just picking the worst units in the codex and spamming them, I find it very difficult to build a 'fun but weak' DE list because there's so little to build around if I want to diverge from the standard DE lists.  

Thus, the reason I bring up HQ builds so much is because it's about the only thing I can still do with regard to theme.

But...this is a roleplay mindset. You want a game that allows you everything

It doesn't and it shouldn't exists, as a wargame miniature game, for obvious balanced issues.

You're talking about something that simply cannot be.

sweetbacon wrote:

I’m an engineer by trade.  When someone presents a problem I try to suggest solutions.  I understand how emotionally satisfying it can be to complain about things that are less than how we would ideally like them to be.  If you’re upset about rules and characters that don’t exist, then maybe your thematic CSM or Necron armies would be more fulfilling and fun to play for now.

You're not wrong but can you blame me for being sad about that?

In terms of models and fluff, DE are my favourite faction. I even started a whole conversion project for them. However, I also like actually playing my converted characters and such on the table, so it's hard to retain enthusiasm when I look at how dismal my options are in that regard.

sweetbacon wrote:

Your feelings and perceptions about flaws in the codex are certainly valid but at the same time they don’t invalidate how those of us who actually enjoy playing Drukhari feel either.

I don't believe I've ever claimed that because DE isn't currently fun for me then no one else can have fun with them either?

Hell, I'm pretty sure I've repeatedly said that this is entirely my own opinion and that I'm likely in a minority.

sweetbacon wrote:

I mean, this is supposed to be fun, right?

Absolutely. Hence why I'm sad that every DE codex seems to remove more and more of what I once enjoyed.

Patayou wrote:

mostly agree with everything you said Soulless Samurai but

Soulless Samurai wrote:

- Beasts (which you already alluded to). They're in a weird place in that they're Blades for Hire but (because of the Beastmaster) are nevertheless locked to Cult armies. Except that they still don't benefit from any of the Cult bonuses. There's also a strange aspect wherein Beastmasters are characters but ones that are largely forgotten by the codex (they can't be warlords and almost all the artefacts are linked to Archons, Succubi or Haemonculi).

If my understanding is correct, you don't have to (and absolutely shouldn't) take beastmasters and beast in a cult detachment. You can take them in any detachment, and all you'll lose is the obsession, and only on the beastmaster, since beasts don't get obsessions anyway. Unless I'm missing something.

Cult already have their best units as fast attack, and kabal and coven have none. So you should take beasts in your kabal/coven detachments.

Oh yes, good point. I forgot that you can just include Beastmasters in any detachment now.

Cerve wrote:

But...this is a roleplay mindset. You want a game that allows you everything

No, I literally just want a faction that has similar options to other factions. Unless you're also saying that Jump Pack and Terminator HQs shouldn't exist? Or that no HQ in the game should be able to access decent weapons outside of artefacts?

Cerve wrote:

You're talking about something that simply cannot be.

Why not? Why is it expected that DE melee weapons are just garbage by default? Why is it set in stone that DE are only allowed to lose models and never to gain them? Why is it fine for other factions to literally double in numbers, but not for DE to get even a couple of new HQs? Why is it unreasonable for DE to even have a similar number of wargear/artefacts/WLT/Master options to other factions?

If you want to say it's unlikely to ever happen, fine. But I don't get the mindset that DE having anything but the absolute minimum number of units and wargear options will somehow completely break the game.