Nephilim Pack!!

I’m sure you’ve all seen it, if you haven’t, goonhammer has a nice breakdown.

https://www.goonhammer.com/chapter-approved-war-zone-nephilim-the-goonhammer-review/

I’ve been going through it and with the cp point reduction plus traits and relics, from my understanding it looks like raiding forces is a bit dead in the water.
I know we don’t have point changes yet, but wyches are also pretty high cost compared to things like wracks so I’m thinking we’re stuck with coteries and RRR for builds.

Just wondering how y’all feel about the changes.
I know the secondaries got a little skewed, but not super influential for us except Engage.

I was also wondering if anyone has some insight how to build drazhar into a list(because he’s dope af) and RRR doesn’t really accommodate him.

I don't see how Raiding Forces are dead - if anything, having 3 Patrol Detachments for free is more.of a benefit than a problem, as it allows us to have more Fast Attack and Heavy Support units than we could in a single Battalion.

The main thing that hurts us is the revamped CPs and having to pay for the first WL Trait and Relic. As an army that generally relies on WL Traits and Relics to make our characters somewhat usable, this hurts us a lot, and most current lists will end up starting with 0-3 CP at most - and since most of our key stratagems are 2 CP, this puts us at a disadvantage strategically.

Even if you have just the one WL Trait and Relic, as I've been trying to do with my Black Templars recently, you're still starting at 4 CP, which is hardly ideal - granted, most people are in the same boat, but they haven't been hit with several dozen waves of nerfs over the past year and a half like Drukhari have.

The revised secondaries are about the only good thing we got from this pack - Take Them Alive is now able to score more, Beasts is no longer restricted to Cults (though they get a bonus for it) and Feat and Terror looks interesting. Herd the Prey got nerfed quite heavily, but I think we all sort of expected that to happen - it's pretty much been an auto-take since the codex was released.

Also worth noting a little change that wasn't mentioned in the preview article but is mentioned in the Goonhammer one. You can no longer deploy empty Transports - if you do, they are destroyed. This isn't a problem for me, as I've never included a Transport without a unit inside, but it means that the old Venom-spam lists are now officially dead.

“Dead” may have been too harsh.
But from what I see with the reliance on our characters, going RRR saves us a CP vs RF.
Coteries seems like a decent option too.
Raiding forces seemed really solid because I could hero hammer a bit, but idk about taking out HQs without their buffs.

I am quite on board with the tripple patrol. If anything, the RSR with the Alliance of Agonies looks less palatable (since Haemonculus WLTs are generally pretty garbage).

IMHO, the main winners of the new mission pack are CWE, Tsons, and Tau (depending on the point updates).

All 3 factions can still score 2 super easy secondaries without risking anything, while most factions can only score 1 easy secondary without risk (generally the new Banners).

If anything, I think we made out worse than the average. Mostly due to the massive hit Herd got, and due to the changes to Banners (we can no longer use our speed to stop the opponent from raising their Banners).

Combine these new secondaries with our lack of damage output, it appears that we are being pushed to go for a build centered around Engage, RND, Kill Stuff. Which means MSU combat units that need to take the mid board Turn 1, then explode outwards killing everything possible.

Of course the Point Cost Update (rumored for next week) could change this, but its looking like were still paying for our sins of early 9th edition. I really wish they had done this nerf to Herd during the last CA22 release, we may have avoided some of the harsher nerfs that hit us (I miss you AotF).

Thats my $0.02 anyway (and also from a Comp play point of view. Great update for Casual play)

I swear every new balance patch makes both DE and 40k in general even more dreary.

"Oh hey, Dark Eldar players, your newest book made your characters dull-as-dishwater sacks of meat who are wholly reliant on warlord traits and relics to be remotely interesting and remotely worth a damn on the table. But it's cool, right? I mean, why wouldn't you take warlord traits and relics on all of them?"

"Oh, hey again Dark Eldar players, we've got a supplement that's chock full of ways to spend CP - including a stock of extra warlord traits, relics and stratagems for Cult of Strife."

"Oh, hey yet again Dark Eldar players. Just by the by, we've now halved your starting CP and made it so you don't even get your first warlord trait and relic free anymore. That won't cause any conflicting design issues with your codex or supplements, right?"

Incidentally, thank goodness warlord traits and relics use a different system to all other wargear that makes it completely possible to price individual traits/items differently from one another. That has definitely helped balance a great deal and isn't one of the main causes for the latest pile of bandaids.

/rant


Putting aside my ire aside for a moment, I'm wondering what effect this change will have on the use of PT and CoS. One of the main perks of the former is the stratagem but with just 6 starting CP and no free warlord trait or relic, I'm wondering whether an army can really afford to spend 2CP to redeploy d3 units. Cult of Strife might not suffer quite as much (at least most of its stratagems aren't limited to eating your starting CP), but it's still a subfaction where the main bonus is stratagems - which might be less appealing if you're starting the game with far less CP. Even if you're gaining 1CP per turn, I'm wondering whether a more self-contained benefit like that of Cursed Blade might gain in popularity.

On the note of our warlord requiring co to be good.
Does anyone think that characters like lelith or Uriel will see more play , since their stats are essentially free?

Also, I know we have vect to deny cp, but do we have any other strategems that can generate cp for us or cut off some for our opponent?

Niurvindol wrote:

On the note of our warlord requiring co to be good.
Does anyone think that characters like lelith or Uriel will see more play , since their stats are essentially free?

I think if any character is going to see more use it will be Drazhar, as he's the only character that actually accomplishes stuff without support and/or relics/WLTs.

Urien is fairly durable . . . and that's about it. His weapons are absolute tripe, even by the abysmal standards set by other DE characters. All he really brings over a Master Haemonculus is his +1S aura. However, Wracks don't care because they exclusively use Poison weapons, Talos and Cronos can't benefit anymore, and Grotesques going from S6 to S7 isn't all that useful. Plus I don't think anyone is using PoF at the moment.

Lelith at least belongs to a more popular subfaction so maybe. The issue is that she has, if anything, the same problems as a base succubus (i.e. a weaksauce melee profile), but with no ability to improve it with relics. In essence, I don't think bringing her really solves all that much.

Niurvindol wrote:

Also, I know we have vect to deny cp, but do we have any other strategems that can generate cp for us or cut off some for our opponent?

Not a stratagem but BH Archons can potentially generate CP with a warlord trait. That's the only method I'm aware of.

I belive the AoR: Coterie has a (or a couple) CP generating tricks

I already tested the Coterie with nephilim. It is horrible... it needs SO many Cp both in game AND pregame....it's really really hard for it.

Standard Drukhari anyway are in a pretty nice spot right now. Patrols are a BUFF for us, more than a nerf.

PS: Consider CP farm are good only when don't relies on CP spent. Psy and actions are great. Rolling on spent CPs are....well, less great. Because it's obvious.

PPS: NEVER start with 0 CP. I tried, it's awful. The interruption on melee for 2CPs feels more like a game mechanic than a simple stratagem. Being unable to do that feels really bad, seriously. You should be able to have always 2 CPs on the oppo turn.


Anyway I played against Craftworld and jeez, it seems even broken. He was always with 3-4 CPs while I was between 0 and 1. Feels really bad, it's like playing with two different rulesets.

Cerve wrote:

I already tested the Coterie with nephilim. It is horrible... it needs SO many Cp both in game AND pregame....it's really really hard for it.

Yeah, releasing a supplement based around heavy CP usage just a few weeks before a rule change that hammers available CP just feels like a kick in the teeth.

Cerve wrote:

PPS: NEVER start with 0 CP. I tried, it's awful. The interruption on melee for 2CPs feels more like a game mechanic than a simple stratagem. Being unable to do that feels really bad, seriously. You should be able to have always 2 CPs on the oppo turn.

Ah, that's useful advice.

I'd been wondering if you could actually get away with spending all your starting CP on pre-game stuff but it seems not.

Cerve wrote:

Anyway I played against Craftworld and jeez, it seems even broken. He was always with 3-4 CPs while I was between 0 and 1. Feels really bad, it's like playing with two different rulesets.

Well, I imagine it helps that CWE relics and warlord traits are pretty much optional-extras. Farseers don't need them to cast their powers and Autarchs don't need them to get worthwhile weapons.

But yeah, if CP is going to be heavily restricted then perhaps characters clearly intended to make heavy use of such could do with a redesign?

(Not just ours, I've also heard similar complaints from, for example, Ork players about the number of pre-game CP they need to make their army/characters functional.)

Good thing that CoS is also one of the best Cult abilties, even without Stratagem access. Always Fight First really helps with the "I dont have 2 CP to interrupt" problem, and +1" to Charges is never a bad thing.

IMO these changes are really forcing us to go MSU and kill the opponents stuff to score our points. The question becomes: Can We Kill Stuff?

With the current point costs of standard meta "durable" units, the answer is NO. But maybe the point adjustments will make durable things cost more? Or our killy stuff cost less? Highly unlikely, but an Archon can dream...

I think that 8 or 9 CP would have been more reasonable. In any case, it's very possible that this will go away when the next GT pack comes out.

In any case, we won't have a complete picture of how Nephilim plays out until both the points updates and the new balance dataslate come out.

fisheyes wrote:

Good thing that CoS is also one of the best Cult abilties, even without Stratagem access. Always Fight First really helps with the "I dont have 2 CP to interrupt" problem, and +1" to Charges is never a bad thing.

IMO these changes are really forcing us to go MSU and kill the opponents stuff to score our points. The question becomes: Can We Kill Stuff?

With the current point costs of standard meta "durable" units, the answer is NO. But maybe the point adjustments will make durable things cost more? Or our killy stuff cost less? Highly unlikely, but an Archon can dream...

We can kill a lot of stuff, and ignore everything that we can't kill. We have enough killing potential for an army fast enough to play on primary and secondaries, let's put in this way.

"Durable" units wants you to think about them, it's their game. Avoiding them is the best way to fight them.

Cerve wrote:

.

Standard Drukhari anyway are in a pretty nice spot right now. Patrols are a BUFF for us, more than a nerf.

Just for clarification, how is patrols a buff?
I get that RSR essentially saves us a cp if we want to kit out 3 lords, but patrols, I guess we get some extra troop slots, but that’s about it.
Maybe I’m underestimating our troops a bit

Oh! Also, I just realized we can take a Corsair. Kids attend with the Way Seeker and use him as a back objective cp generating machine.
Might be worthwhile with the lack of cp

Niurvindol wrote:

Cerve wrote:

.

Standard Drukhari anyway are in a pretty nice spot right now. Patrols are a BUFF for us, more than a nerf.  

Just for clarification, how is patrols a buff?
I get that RSR essentially saves us a cp if we want to kit out 3 lords, but patrols, I guess we get some extra troop slots, but that’s about it.
Maybe I’m underestimating our troops a bit

Because right now you want to run a single detatchment, for the CP costs. Which means having few slots avaible.

We can field 1-6 HQ, 1-9 Troops, 0-6 Elites, 0-6 Fast Attacks, 0-6 Heavy Supports.
This is a straght foward buff.

We got just used to field full kitted HQs. But with Nephilim there's really nothing wrong on picking a single Haemonculus just for healing+aura buffs, or a single Archon just with Labirinthine Cunning and no Relics.

Niurvindol wrote:

Oh! Also, I just realized we can take a Corsair. Kids attend with the Way Seeker and use him as a back objective cp generating machine.
Might be worthwhile with the lack of cp

What's the mechanic of the way seer to generate CP?

CptMetal wrote:

Niurvindol wrote:

Oh! Also, I just realized we can take a Corsair. Kids attend with the Way Seeker and use him as a back objective cp generating machine.
Might be worthwhile with the lack of cp

What's the mechanic of the way seer to generate CP?

YOu give the Way Seeker Fateful Divergence psychic power. It only needs a 6 to go off. The major tradeoff here is you cannot take Abhor the Witch against armies like GK and TSons because you have included a psyker. Now this restriction may go away, but doubtful. We will be able to see tomorrow.

On the bright side...
Wyches are down 1 point to 11
Dark Scythes on the Voidraven are down 5 points to 5
The Tantalus is down 30 points to 250

We had no point increases. So some improvement, nothing major. The Wyches change in nice since our two secondaries that would involve them are better and worth taking in some matchups.

We will see what the balance dataslate brings tomorrow. Maybe some un-nerfs, but again, doubtful.

Im looking forward to comparing CWE Hail of Doom to our Dark Technomancer tomorrow.

The reduction of 1 PPM for wyches seems pretty lackluster. I would gladly pay the 1 point to get back our Herd the Prey

I was hoping for at least a 2ppm decrease on wyches. I'm amazed that harlequin troupes did not get any points adjustment. They seem like a ridiculous steal at 13ppm.

I'm wondering if anything relevant will be in the upcoming balance tataslate. It is probably unlikely, but I am hoping that GW realized that Armor of Contempt was lazy rules writing, and that they've replaced it with something particular to each affected codex. The blanket rule might be a problem when the CSM dex drops, as I suspect that having AoC on top of everything else may make CSM ridiculously overpowered (especially since I have seen a rumor that Chaos Landraiders are T9 now - and it is expected that this adjustment will be made to the imperials as well).

I'm happy about Wyches at 11 ppm (I don't think they should come back at 10 ppm).

But it's so silly that Wracks remain at 8ppm....they really want DE players playing Wracks only.

fisheyes wrote:

Im looking forward to comparing CWE Hail of Doom to our Dark Technomancer tomorrow.

The reduction of 1 PPM for wyches seems pretty lackluster. I would gladly pay the 1 point to get back our Herd the Prey

Get it back? Is it gone somewhere??

Zenotaph wrote:

fisheyes wrote:

Im looking forward to comparing CWE Hail of Doom to our Dark Technomancer tomorrow.

The reduction of 1 PPM for wyches seems pretty lackluster. I would gladly pay the 1 point to get back our Herd the Prey

Get it back? Is it gone somewhere??

Herd the Prey got nerfed in Nephilim - it's now only worth 1 VP per quarter, but you can score it from round 1.

Ya, Herd is basically dead now. Before you maxed it by holding half the board all game, now you have to control 3 table quarters all game to max (if you do this, you already win).

Necrons version is the same, but they get an extra VP every turn they hold their DZ. So they will generally max it unless you keep them to 1 table quarter all game.

I got to play at a 3 round RTT yesterday, and I got to say our knife-ears are hurting pretty bad. Goodstuff builds will not work with the new mission pack, our damage output is just too low. Im thinking we will need to go back to some sort of Talos/Grotesque style build, but I cant figure it out.

Kinda sucks for us, but I see why GW hit is so hard. We were just too good for too long, and the player base is tired of seeing us do well. Maybe in a few months some of our nerfs will get rolled back, hopefully it wont take a year like AdMech XD