FAQ is up

Patayou wrote:

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.

Basically, I've been slotting my beastmaster + 3 clawed fiends into kabal/coven detachments when I have some leftover points. Also, I'm toying with the idea of giving the beastmaster the animus vitae for good threat range on a first turn throw to give the rest of the army advance+charge on turn 1.

Cerve wrote:

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.

While that may be true in an absolute sense, they could certainly take steps towards it. His point about appropriately costing HQs with relics/WL traits all being free and wildly different levels of power is 100% accurate.


If HQs had a slight discount, but each WL trait and relic had a points value, it could be a more balanced game. There isn't really a coherent argument to the contrary. Would it be perfectly balanced if they did that? Of course not, perfect balance is a pipe dream no matter who's at the helm, and this is a GW we're talking about.


The absurdity of the beasts is another perfect example. In 8th, if you took a beastmaster, you got free beasts. Now if you take beasts, you get a free beastmaster. The fact that putting a cult unit in either kabal or coven as objectively the best thing to do, there is an obvious area of opportunity. 
 
They're not gonna be perfect, but they could arrange things in a way that they could fix problems without accidentally nerfing things that don't need it.

Getting back on topic, I did manage to squeeze in a match against a very good Sisters opponent.

He ran mostly Bloody Rose with 3x5 Repentia and Zepherem. Damn can those girls punch hard. He ended up winning the match by a lot, mostly by out trading my Incubi/Cult units.

Some things I noticed about post-FAQ DE:

-Master Succubus for 95 points still kicks ass. More than made her points back by the end of the game. Having the utility to turn off OW and go thru models with CoS is still bonkers good

-Incubi at 90 points still punch incredibly hard.

-Hellions appear to be undercosted still. Their D2 weapons and Fly Infantry keywords are amazing (and are much more efficient than 10 Wyches in a Raider).

-Draz is still probably under costed

Over all I think we got a good point adjustment. Army is still very strong, but other top factions have a little more "gas in the tank" when playing against us

soulless samurai wrote:

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.

While I understand this to a certain degree, it doesn't really make sense for scourges or mandrakes to be HQ. Mandrakes are weird shadow creatures, who no one, including archons really understand. Scourges are modified kabalites with wings. I could see having the option of running an archon with wings, or a succubus on a skyboard - those both make sense. But entire armies of scourges or mandrakes don't.

Personally I don't see my lists changing all that much. I dropped a raider and my trueborn in favor of MSU kabalites in venoms, but gained a ravager. That's pretty much it.

For archons, I know the HE/Djin Blade is the main melee blender, but I don't really see archons excelling in that role. We already have succubi and drazhar for that. A build I have been using with a lot of success is Ancient Evil and Animus Vitae. The ability to make a unit fight last, every battle round, without needing to role is extremely valuable. And the animus vitae can be really nice. Either you can get all your units first turn advance and charge, or you can get second turn WS2+. There are other options too, like 3rd turn 5++ but I think first or second turn usage is probably most valuable.

fisheyes wrote:

-Master Succubus for 95 points still kicks ass. More than made her points back by the end of the game. Having the utility to turn off OW and go thru models with CoS is still bonkers good

Random question - do you take the Succubus' Master Ability to unlock Bloodbrides or just for it's effect for the Succubus herself?

In fact, either way I'm curious as to how useful you find the ability itself.

duckduckgoose wrote:

While I understand this to a certain degree, it doesn't really make sense for scourges or mandrakes to be HQ. Mandrakes are weird shadow creatures, who no one, including archons really understand. Scourges are modified kabalites with wings.

I fail to see why Mandrakes can't be HQs. Especially since we literally had a Mandrake HQ in prior editions.

There's also the point that a Mandrake HQ could serve one of the (many) niches not filled by our current lineup. Let's be honest - our current HQs aren't exactly a bastion of variety. We've got a footslogging melee HQ, another footslogging melee HQ and (just to mix things up) yet another footslogging melee HQ. These are rounded off with a footslogging melee special character, another footslogging melee special character, and a footslogging character who stands near melee units and buffs them while not doing a whole lot of anything himself.

As for Scourges, I'll grant that they're less likely to be leading an army than the usual candidates, but surely it's not out of the question? Another prior HQ was a Hellion who'd risen up the ranks. Even if it was just a 'mini-HQ' (like the Tau Fireblade), it would still be something and would help add some much-needed variety to our lineup.

duckduckgoose wrote:

I could see having the option of running an archon with wings, or a succubus on a skyboard - those both make sense. But entire armies of scourges or mandrakes don't.

Two things:

1) I would certainly accept a winged-Archon in lieu of a Scourge HQ if he was able to buff Scourges and be a little more Scourge-y (e.g. being able to take something more impressive than a Splinter Pistol).

Hell, even with Mandrakes I'd be willing to settle for an Archon if he could buff them and could get stuff to make him feel more Mandrake-y. I still maintain a Mandrake HQ would be a worthwhile addition, especially since we're currently down to just 3 generic HQs, but an Archon stand-in would be better than nothing.

2) I didn't ask for a whole army of Mandrakes or Scourges (I agree that would be silly). What I said was that it would be nice if these were expanded, even a little. Basically something you could build around a little more, as opposed to each being entirely confined to a single unit with no HQ support of any kind.

duckduckgoose wrote:

soulless samurai wrote:

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.

While I understand this to a certain degree, it doesn't really make sense for scourges or mandrakes to be HQ. Mandrakes are weird shadow creatures, who no one, including archons really understand. Scourges are modified kabalites with wings. I could see having the option of running an archon with wings, or a succubus on a skyboard - those both make sense. But entire armies of scourges or mandrakes don't.

Personally I don't see my lists changing all that much. I dropped a raider and my trueborn in favor of MSU kabalites in venoms, but gained a ravager. That's pretty much it.

For archons, I know the HE/Djin Blade is the main melee blender, but I don't really see archons excelling in that role. We already have succubi and drazhar for that. A build I have been using with a lot of success is Ancient Evil and Animus Vitae. The ability to make a unit fight last, every battle round, without needing to role is extremely valuable. And the animus vitae can be really nice. Either you can get all your units first turn advance and charge, or you can get second turn WS2+. There are other options too, like 3rd turn 5++ but I think first or second turn usage is probably most valuable.

I think that an Archon with wings or a skyboard makes no sense, and I'm perfectly fine with him not being able to fly. However, when you say a Mandrake HQ makes no sense, I immediately miss 5th edition again.
We used to have a Mandrake HQ, (Kheradruakh, the Decapitator), but he got removed after 5th edition.
We used to have a Skyboard HQ, (Baron Sathonyx), but he got removed after 5th edition.
Fact is, we had more options, other than letting our Succubus footslog after our Hellions waving pompoms while yelling cheers they can't hear because she can't keep up. And I think it's justified to feel sad about lacking those options now. Especially if other armies do have those options.
Although I have to say that my biggest problem with HQ's was that they didn't fit in our transports with the troops, but 9th edition FINALLY fixed that.

Gelmir wrote:

I think that an Archon with wings or a skyboard makes no sense

It would look cool, though.

Gelmir wrote:

However, when you say a Mandrake HQ makes no sense, I immediately miss 5th edition again.
We used to have a Mandrake HQ, (Kheradruakh, the Decapitator), but he got removed after 5th edition.
We used to have a Skyboard HQ, (Baron Sathonyx), but he got removed after 5th edition.
Fact is, we had more options, other than letting our Succubus footslog after our Hellions waving pompoms while yelling cheers they can't hear because she can't keep up. And I think it's justified to feel sad about lacking those options now. Especially if other armies do have those options.

It's certainly a little depressing to see armies with far more units than ours get even more brand new units, while we continue to get overlooked.

I know Marines are the poster-boys but when they're sporting twenty marginally different Primaris Lieutenants and we're still stuck with just 6 HQs in total (which lose more equipment with every codex), it's more than a little irksome. Same with Necrons getting a ton of new models. I say this as a Necron player - with the possible exception of Crypteks, Necrons absolutely did not need the pile of new models they got.

Gelmir wrote:

Although I have to say that my biggest problem with HQ's was that they didn't fit in our transports with the troops, but 9th edition FINALLY fixed that.

Oh yeah, that was definitely a welcome improvement.

Certainly better than in 8th, where I'd always end up with a Venom full of surplus HQs.

@Soulless Samurai , I am using the Master Succubus just for the run away ability. No Bloodbrides joining me on my raids to realspace

Ive found that there are many units that would kill a Succubus on the punch-back. Bad luck does happen too, where you should have killed a unit or at least whittled it down to negligible strength. The extra movement also helps where you are able to fall back and possibly get outside of counter-charge range.

It takes some practice to position durable units to hide behind (generally a convienient Raider or Wrack squad), but the tactic has "clicked" for me, and makes the Succubus a really tricky unit to handle.

However, the current META seems to have a lot of vehicles, and the Succubus (tryptich whip and Precision blows) is pretty bad into them. So YMMV

fisheyes wrote:

@Soulless Samurai , I am using the Master Succubus just for the run away ability. No Bloodbrides joining me on my raids to realspace

Ive found that there are many units that would kill a Succubus on the punch-back. Bad luck does happen too, where you should have killed a unit or at least whittled it down to negligible strength. The extra movement also helps where you are able to fall back and possibly get outside of counter-charge range.

It takes some practice to position durable units to hide behind (generally a convienient Raider or Wrack squad), but the tactic has "clicked" for me, and makes the Succubus a really tricky unit to handle.

Ah, I see.

I haven't had much chance to practise using it so I was trying to work out what exactly you'd do with it (since retreating would open you up to being shot as well as charged). But I think I get the idea. Thank you.

Oh, one other thing, can you use the Succubus' ability to get into melee with a different unit than the one you charged? (Not sure it would be a good idea most of the time, just something that occurred to me).

Either way, I do think the Succubus has by far the most interesting Master ability.

fisheyes wrote:

However, the current META seems to have a lot of vehicles, and the Succubus (tryptich whip and Precision blows) is pretty bad into them. So YMMV

In fairness, vehicles have long been the bane of DE HQs.

That said, it is a little concerning that all three Succubus builds I'd been considering (at least before the drastic price hike) will be ineffective against vehicles.

In any case, with the vehicle meta in mind, do you think it might be worth leaning more into Glaive builds? Or is the Triptych-Precision Succubus just too good to pass up?

I'd keep the Triptych-Precision and rely on models that can actually fight vehicles to fight vehicles.

Oh yes, bouncing off your target unit into a secondary unit to tie it up is an amazing strategy. They get to punch you, but with 5W and a 4++ you should generally be OK (something to plan out before hand).

Unfortunately the Glave build requires you to not take Cult of Strife, and I really rely on the CoS for the rest of my list.

A pack of 170 point Hellions with +1A drug become absolute bonkers strong when you get access to: +1" to Charge (which stacks with +1" movement from Deadly Rivals),
Always Fight First (to give you a free "interrupt" if you get charged),
Reroll all wounds for 2CP (turns these guys into anti-tank punchers)
Ignore Overwatch for 1CP
4++ after killing a unit in CC for 1CP

Hellions are my most expensive unit post-balance (I am not taking Thicc City, although its VERY strong into the Meta right now), and CoS is what makes them amazing IMHO