The new supremacy

jbwms713 wrote:

Step one.
Now.  New codices bring changes.  Power shifts, unit value and purpose changes... it happens.  What we need to focus on is not how unit A is effected, or how our favorite model or wargear will function, but rather how the army as a whole will work, and if necessary roles can be successfully filled.

Agreed. However since this is a realistic assessment, there are great possibilities that we might have to ally with Eldar to plug the holes. With that I will proceed.

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Vehicles -
The core concept is the same.  Relatively cheap (Raiders down, huzzah), fast as all get-out, flimsy.  All still true.  Flickerfields not being available to Raiders (I've heard that some vehicles can get them?) does not affect me personally much... I stopped taking them once Jink was a thing.  I do however realize that many other players still made extensive use, and don't blame them for it per se.  More of a personal choice.  If FF's are a must in your eyes, then extensive Venom use is in your future... but hey, it's not like Venoms are bad, and they don't seem to have been touched.

Personally I am the least affected by this as I tend to run all my things with the most minimalistic of upgrades, and most often those upgrades are offensive upgrades.

The fact that Salvo 4/6 means jack nothing on the Venom and now they can be taken as Fast attack options means that now some Eldar units like Banshees and Scorpions will now have something to bring them closer to their targets.

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Voidraven in my eyes is moot.  More expensive base cost, traded armor for a larger blast on the bomb.  Plus new weapon that makes it a great bomber, but takes away from the real draw of S9 lances.  I expect a lightly used option to continue to be lightly used, but maybe there will be some hidden gem mixed in there.  Shrug.  I'll not complain about a unit I never used anyway.

To be honest, I believe that this will be our go to Heavy Support with the nerfs to the Ravager. I have noticed that in 7th edition, the ravagers are already having difficulty doing their thing as most people will fire on them and force them to jink or if you put on the Flickerfield, take the 5+. So most of the time they will already be snap-firing their weapons.

The same can also be said about our dear Voidraven, but due to it being a Flyer, it will take a lot more shots to get the Raven, and with the Nightshield upgrade most of the time you can be surviving some ridiculous odds. Also once you have jinked you can definitely fly off the table to fire at full BS again.

That saying, I always see our aircrafts as large firecrackers; they come in with a bang and they die with a bang. Ravagers are the best lance-spammers in our army if all you need are lances. However with the Knights running around, sometimes all we need is that extra strength from the Void lances to kill the damn thing.

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Razor's to FA opens that up, and solves the "flyer vs ravager" conundrum.  Unfortunate that it's still a far better anti-troop option than anti-air, which we need, and if it also got a price bump then that's very annoying, but I don't think 15 points will break any lists (well, math may disagree, but we'll see).  Honestly not competing with Ravagers may be enough of a break to open this craft up.  At least if I go back to an anti-infantry build I'm not stealing pain token kills from my infantry units.

Fast Attack Razorwings are definitely a godsend, and it does open up more options with our heavy support.

I can definitely see those Dark Eldar army that are air force centric will be allying in an Autarch for that reserve manipulation to allow all the flyers, Ravens and Razorwings, to swarm in a turn and blasting everything left, right and center.

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Splinter racks working willy-nilly will open up some hilarious, if potentially not cost-effective options... but I'm hoping this doesn't come at a drastic price increase.  Our boats don't handle expensive upgrades well.
Aether Sails as a flat +6" to Flat Out I like.  Granted, I never used them, and I may continue that trend... but a known bonus you can count on.  Random distances give false hopes.

These options are for the brave souls that like to come up close. Personally I am always a fan of the splinter rack as they always did wonders for me.

As for the Aethersail, if you need a particular unit to be in a particular place, this is the upgrade for you. However I do not see myself using this upgrade.

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Tormentor Grenade Launchers... this is the one I'm most curious about.  If it fails to affect marines/fearless, I think too many armies will be immune to make it a worthwhile upgrade.  However I love the idea that they're bringing back Ld-based shenanigans, and if it's actually just a psy-scream effect, then that en masse is... scary.  I've read in some places that it specifically doesn't work vs Fearless/ATSKNF, and in others that's only specified for the Archangel of Pain.

This one works against blobs, which is perhaps one of our most troublesome type of units. I personally like it that we can actually stack enough of it to cause blobs to run off the table. IF you want to make Marine units run away, then there is something very odd going on as we have enough firepower to wipe them out of the table easily.

This can be combined with Telepathy discipline to cause even more headaches for these armies.

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Archons and their playthings:
Now here's an interesting one.  Please note that I used the Huskblade.  A lot.  All the time, actually.  So this is said from someone who made extensive use of an AP2 insta-death weapon.

I really don't think it matters that much.

Realistically, there are relatively few units running around with a 2+ save.  Of those, there are less that we really would have wanted the Archon in combat with, for reasons that we already know, have been hashed, etc etc.
The question is, what will the new weapons be useful for?

First, the Huskblade is a cheaper, if more specialized (by far) big-game hunter.  While you can go for broke aiming to force a failed save vs death, or stick to big-but-3+'d targets... frankly I'll probably go back to the Agonizer.  See below.
The Aggy gaining poison is potentially huge.  If (and a big if) the Llahmean maintains her 2+ poison-sharing, then we just gained easy access to a wounds-on-2+, AP3 weapon.  That is not a bad thing by any stretch.  Even if this is not an option, becoming proper-poison means that enhancing your strength will have serious benefits.
A segue to the Soul Trap.  Another trinket I used every time my Archon came out to play.  The idea of a S6 monster was just too wonderful to pass up.  But if I'm honest, it very rarely came into play in a timely fashion.  Requiring an IC/MC was often difficult to set up, and there were few games indeed that I really got to rampage in a fashion that I thought fitting (although I do have a nice list of souls that I've trapped over the years, and need to add a Riptide to that list from a tournament the other day...).
Triggering off of any challenge makes for far more targets on the board.  Yes, the enemy can refuse your initial challenges, and if this alone makes the 'trap not worth taking, then we won't take it.  Denying isn't *always* the best course, and I think the proliferation of targets is definitely a boon. The bonus is less, but easier to get, and even just S4 with Furious Charge means a re-roll vs Marines.

More importantly, I think the Archon is stepping into the role of reliable lawn mower.  Ignore challenges and soul trap potential - just look at what he'll do to a squad of Marines.  A Djinn Blade is all of the current bonuses, with no chance of insta-death.  If it simply grants bonus attacks (as in, you can use a different weapon's rules), then we're looking at 8 attacks on the charge (without factoring Drugs or Rage).  That's... not a small number.  No promises it'll work that way, as the 'what things do' are vague.

I never though of my Archon as a challenger, but more of a tanker. The Shadowfield is there to hold down and tank hits from nasty ICs that my squad will not be fond of, while the rest of my squad will go about slaughtering the rest of the other squad. The Djinn Blade's price increased for a reason and if one is willing to take the risk, combining the Djinn blade and the Soul-trap will be a retarded combination.  

Of course we must not discard the fact that with the new Webway portal and how the new Shadowfield works, the Archon is perhaps the toughest of the Dark Eldar ICs to be a webway portal carrier. Attach him to a squad of Wraithguards and teleport down to see many things like Centurions, Thunderwolves and even Knights go down faster than a 1-dollar hooker. He is THE main guy to solve things we could not possibly touch before. And with the general rules stating that the toughness of the majority of the unit will be taken, we have a T6 2++ archon tanking hits to make things easier for our dear friends or they will tank for him for shots that would rip apart a normal Dark Eldar.

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Succubus?  same thing on the Glaive.  Again, I'm not sure where two-handed becomes Unwieldy (and sadly can't access my book right now).. and this is me just being ignorant of possible rules I should know.  But it's kind of the same story.  AP3 honestly is fine in 90% of situations, and in the 10% that you simply must have AP2 to be effective, you have that option.  Perhaps we will see the Succubus rise as our challenge character?  Well.  You'd have to survive to strike, which may be laughable... we tend to be squishy without a shadowfield.  

So, no... "having the option at a cost" is not as good as just being better (read: ap2 all the time).  But having that option could very well be enough.  The majority of the time we were already better shooting these hard units into oblivion, where our poison ignores their high toughness, or our lances ignore their amazing armor (or dissies, which may see more play as AP2 is more wanted).
The real question is "can we deal with 2+ saves", and I think the answer is yes... it may just come from shooting almost exclusively.  But seriously.  Would we rather have it only come from combat?  This edition hates combat almost to the point of futility.

I would honestly like to know if she could take the soul-trap. If she could, you will see her running around with that glaive of hers slaughtering things and become essentially a monster for an affordable price.

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Other Arcane Wargear.... er... Relics.
So the Archangel not being useful vs half of things is pretty silly.  But a piece of Wargear we took once for a laugh still being that piece of wargear we take once for a laugh is hardly a downside.

Special ghostplate could be really cool.  If not too expensive, the -2 Ld bubble could do really nasty things.
Poison Pistol that regains wounds?  Dependent on cost, but I think this could be a staple piece of kit.  Even vs marines, you basically have gear that says "on a 5+ in the shooting phase, you kill a dude and gain a wound".  Again, completely dependent on cost.
Helm thing - awesome effect.  A really, really awesome effect, that has a legitimate use vs Psykers.  Another thing that will be a very cool addition if the price is right.
I feel like I'm forgetting one.  Oh well.

The Animus Vitae. That gear would be essential if you need to move the PfP clock quicker. I personally would wonder how best to trigger it due to the short range of the weapon.

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Price decreases in a lot of places.  Cheaper bodies really do add up, and may just be enough to start including some of that more fun arcane gear.

I think we can spam even more vehicles than before.....which is a good thing I guess.

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Talos... yeah.  Sorry guys.  I was never much of a coven user.  I guess a lot of the hate got thrown that way.  S3 liquifiers is lame.  Talos going to 3 attacks generally is lame.  Going 1-3 is only good, but it doesn't help if the unit isn't worth taking.  Maybe being able to mix a Cronos into a unit to buff with Spirit Probe, etc, will make the unit as a whole worth doing... hard to tell at this point.

I think they work better in a Coven army. Different playstyle for sure.

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No haywire on Wyches?  Another thing I didn't touch much, but many did.  I am told by a friend that he saw a rumor about Bloodbrides having them, which would basically allow the same tactic (just from elites), but I can't verify that personally.  
Perhaps Scourges will have 4 weapons per squad regardless of size (saw a hint in that direction somewhere) so haywire scourges may replace that.  It's a tough thing to replace, I'm ready and willing to admit.

I will admit that I used Haywire Wyches to great effect in a tournament and they brought me to the top table for a tournament back in my country. However at the same time, they can be quite a hit and miss, as the vehicle that carries them might blow up and kill all of them before they could do anything. In addition, due to their specialized role as tankbusters, sometimes you get armies that it is utterly useless against.

Scourges with Haywire Blasters is a good unit, no doubt about that. It is just that you need to use a combination of units to make the scourges kill things reliably. Wyches with Haywire can destroy all vehicles by themselves without any support, freeing up units to kill things that matter.

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Power from Pain - I rather like this system.  I also like that they kept Heamy's as a good support option on this front.  I'm eager to see how it plays out, and I'm glad we get FnP early on still.

Personally I think this mechanic is what we need to get a late-game play. Most of the time, we are too geared for the 3-turn kill, and by the time we moved to the 4th turn, we either will be slaughtering too much or being slaughtered too much. This mechanic keeps things more balanced for us.

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Combat Drugs - basically the same.  Most still give an appreciable combat-boost (WS,S,A, and even T).  Init is good for rundowns, but we mostly out-init other armies, and Ld will ... well... it's the one you grimace at until it keeps your unit from falling back in that one combat you really wanted to hold.

Drugs are interesting, but so far I need to see how it works with the other units like Reavers and Hellions to actually have a good understanding of how the new drug rule affects Dark Eldar.

Sadly enough, the Archon no longer get the option to take drugs from what the rumours are saying. Or else the Archon will be quite a nasty ass.

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Yeah, that was huge.  Sorry, kids.  I tried to be fairly comprehensive... I know factually that I left some things out, but that's because I'm tired and there's a lot there already, and I can't remember everything.
In the end... Personally, I have a relatively decent outlook on this book.  I know we've lost some things, but I do think that the army still has the tools it needs.  And hey, didn't someone say our Lances got cheaper?  I'm hoping that passes to Blasters, too, but who knows.

Personally I believed that the Dark Eldar got what they wished for when it comes to solving a set of general problems, but in returned for this bargain we sold the souls of some of our existing units to get a new set of  general problems. Some things are unavoidable such as the nerfing of Beastar and the removal of special characters without models (Though Vect comes as an odd surprise, but wlll have to reserve judgment until I read the fluff to see why he is not i the codex).

Generally our core mechanic still remains the same; hit hard and run even harder. However the units in which we use to get that effect are new players in the field, and as Mushkilla said before, this will be a new puzzle for us to figure out.


My prediction so far is that we will see our army being more of a layered attacking force, as we will be deepstriking, infiltrating, and moving really fast to crush things down rather than our rather straightforward chivalrous play that we had (when I said chivalrous I am talking about deploying everything on the table and rushing the opponent). And more than ever before, our timing must be impeccable to get the most damage at the right moment at the right tempo.