Homebrew Codex: HQ optional?

Are we talking about realistic things we want to put on the tabletop?

Personally, even at 40 points I don't think it's balanced. Maybe at 50, assuming this 'kabal lord' will have access to the same upgrade list as the Archon.

Jimsolo wrote:

Are we talking about realistic things we want to put on the tabletop?  

Personally, even at 40 points I don't think it's balanced.  Maybe at 50, assuming this 'kabal lord' will have access to the same upgrade list as the Archon.

My plan was to have the "baseline" Archon stat in as:
WS 6 BS 6 S 3 T 3 W 3 I 6 A 3 LD 9 SV 5+.

Starting gear before upgrades would be:

Kabalite Armour
Splinter Pistol
CC weapon
Splinter Rifle
Plasma Grenades

You're saying that's a 50 point statline? Fair enough.
For comparison, adding in Haywire (5 points) and a Clone Field (20 points) brings that up to the price tag of an Autarch while being objectively worse, with worse armour and leadership for the same points (and CE pistols arguably being better than their DE equivalent).

Hence I was thinking 40-45 points base, since we don't need to be paying the same thing for worse than our CE cousins on even more stuff.

The upgraded version, costing an extra 20 points or so, would bring the statline up to the 7's everywhere that we all know and love.

At the stat line you listed, 40 seems reasonable. I thought you said an Autarch's stats (WS 7, BS 7 and LD 10).

Autarch is WS and BS 6. I like the idea, howvere I think I like the idea of leaving the archon with the same stat line and cost but still creating a God King Ancient Archon with even better stats for a pretty penny

Eh?

...

So he is. My bad. In which case, yeah, 50 pts seems more reasonable.

Autarchs also come with a 3+/4+ and let the Eldar player modify reserve rolls.

Anyway, even with WS7 I7, I think it would still only be worth 40pts. Mainly because those stats are the least useful. There's rarely any difference between WS7 and WS6. Likewise, there's negligible difference between I7 and I6. Moreover, WS7 will usually only make a difference against stuff like chapter masters, except that it won't make a difference because those are orders of magnitude better than Archons. Also, compare WS and I to S and T (both of which the Archon lacks). Exceeding your opponent by 2pts of strength makes a huge amount of difference (doubling the odds of wounding), whilst exceeding his WS by 2pts does nothing more than exceeding it by 1pt. Initiative is even worse - you can beat his initiative by 1pt or by 5pts - it makes no difference whatsoever.

Furthermore, WS7, BS7 and I7 mean bugger all if the model can't use them. And, so far we have a model with a BS7 splinter pistol (be afraid!) and a S3 CCW (be very afraid!). Even if you start upgrading him, you're not exactly getting amazing value. Let's say he's 40pts and you take a blaster, well you're paying 55pts for a single BS7 blaster shot. For the same points, you can get 5 kabalites with a BS4 blaster and 4 BS4 splinter rifles. Is the Archon really a better deal? Even if you think the BS7 blaster is worth sacrificing 4 splinter rifles for, you're still taking a big hit in survivability. The Archon only has 3 wounds (compared to their 5), and can lose all 3 to a single S6 shot.

Sorry, but 40pts actually seems entirely reasonable for his current statline. He starts with no weapons and basically no save. His best stats are the least relevant, whilst he lacks the most important ones (strength and toughness). He starts with no melee weapons and a pathetic pistol. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he does absolutely nothing to support his squad or the army in general. You're paying 40pts for a beatstick with no offence or defence to speak of. yes, you can upgrade him, but as above even with simple blaster he's far from being any kind of good deal. And, as soon as you try to tool him up for melee, he'll quickly double or even triple in cost (at least with our current wargear prices).

One thing I've consistently noticed while asking these questions is that DE players have been trained to accept massive points costs on mediocre models and equipment, to the point where bringing them anywhere near in line with other armies brings waves of people saying that it's cheap or broken.

We're glass cannons, but we've been crap at it for so long that people cry foul when our glass cannon units are able to live up to the cannon part.

I'll be honest, when we went from S3 to Poisoned 4+ I was initially crying foul. Now days, with our lack of firepower beyond spitting distance and being slower than several measurably more powerful and more durable armies, I find a gun that two editions ago was really cool to be in need of an overhaul.

In all honesty, with the change in the metagame from 5th to 7th we don't need an updated 'dex, we need a 'dex that's been rebuilt from the ground up.

Also, it's really sad that our best melee HQ, the Succubus, is so pathetic and hilariously overcosted. S4 isn't scaring anyone, even with AP2.

FuelDrop wrote:

One thing I've consistently noticed while asking these questions is that DE players have been trained to accept massive points costs on mediocre models and equipment, to the point where bringing them anywhere near in line with other armies brings waves of people saying that it's cheap or broken.

Yeah, I really have no idea what people think DE HQs are paying for. Especially when you compare them to the HQs of other armies. I mean, compare the pitiful support offered by a 70pt Haemonculus to the support offered by a 100pt Eldar Farseer.

FuelDrop wrote:

We're glass cannons, but we've been crap at it for so long that people cry foul when our glass cannon units are able to live up to the cannon part.

I'll be honest, when we went from S3 to Poisoned 4+ I was initially crying foul. Now days, with our lack of firepower beyond spitting distance and being slower than several measurably more powerful and more durable armies, I find a gun that two editions ago was really cool to be in need of an overhaul.

In all honesty, with the change in the metagame from 5th to 7th we don't need an updated 'dex, we need a 'dex that's been rebuilt from the ground up.

I think you're right. Other races have been gaining tremendous amounts of firepower, durability and speed, whilst we've gained virtually nothing. We're still using Dark Lances and Poison, whilst SM and Eldar are touting Grav and D-weapons. Then there's stuff like our S3 APd6 liquifier gun getting a double nerf, whilst Eldar get D-weapon flamers. Not to mention all the free special rules that have been handed out - like Fire Dragons getting +1 to the damage table with their meltas, whilst our Blasterborn struggle to even penetrate AV12 (let alone explode it). We get Jink saves, Dark Angels get rerollable Jink saves on all units (including the unit that improves Jink saves), and can Jink on the first turn with no penalties. Everything we pay for, other races get handed on a silver platter at no cost.

One of my friends joked recently that Dark Eldar don't even get their special rules until the end of the game.

FuelDrop wrote:

Also, it's really sad that our best melee HQ, the Succubus, is so pathetic and hilariously overcosted. S4 isn't scaring anyone, even with AP2.

Indeed. But, it's not just that S4 AP2 is bad - it's that it's on a T3 model who'll usually die to a single blow. So, she basically gets one chance to kill her enemy before he kills her... and she hits at S4 AP2.

You know, on a different forum, I actually suggested that Archons should have access to an AP2 Fleshbane weapon that forces successful invulnerable saves to be rerolled. You know, so that they might actually qualify for the 'cannon' aspect of 'glass cannon'. I'm sure you can imagine the degree of bile and L2P that this generated from the other posters - who just said I wanted an 'I win button'. One of them said that this would be way OP because it would kill a chapter master in one round. So, I did the math for a charging Archon with this weapon against the standard Chapter Master with Storm Shield. The Archon averaged barely 2 wounds (1.87 IIRC). And, that was assuming the CM didn't have FNP or anything.

I guess I just find it amusing that even with this 'I win button' weapon, an Archon struggles to take even 2 wounds off a chapter master. And, of course, that weapon is far above what we're ever likely to see.

Pavlov would be proud.

Agree the codex needs rewriting. There's little to no synergy between units, there are two units in the dex that are flat out useless and one that is way overpriced for what it can do. The HQ's fall way short of the HQ's of other factions and the few good strategies you can employ with the DE are considerably improved by taking Eldar or Harlequin allies (to the point where they're hardly competitive without those allies). The only pure DE strat that seems even remotely competitive is MSU and skimmer spam - hardly exciting for the armchair generals who like to formulate battle plans. Darklight has remained the same since 3rd edition when it was pretty good, but in the new meta is substandard when that's all you have for anti-tank. I think the poison that the DE shoots out is still pretty good but I have to look at the Craftworlders and the fact their basic guys are getting AP2. With all their other tricks (D weapons, mass S6 and plenty of their own Brightlight and plasma) the fact their basic grunts can hurt TEQ's is pretty good. Their basic troop gun is probabaly better than splinter against anything but T5+ which is the majority of units from the majority of armies.

DE have lost their unique speed advantage, they've lost their unique mechanized makeup (in 3rd edition the DE were the pretty much the only fully mech army outside of fluffy IG armoured companies) and they've lost their unique anti-tank capability. They've lost every advantage and unique thing they ever had to pretty much every other faction out there. The only things they've ever picked up is poison and more recently the Freakshow stuff. But poison only does so when vehicles dominate the game and the Freakshow only really works if you take allied Eldar psykers.

So yeah the DE codex needs rebuilding. It's not aweful, but only if you really know what you're doing. I've seen/read about players winning against he odds with DE, doing pretty well with the codex but I'm fairly sure those are examples of really good players just being really good. Given a Craftworld army instead they'd probably be much much better. It shouldn't take exceptional skill to get anything good out of the codex. I don't think it should be easy either but when it appears incredibly easy to win with certain codex's/formations and incredibly easy to put together cheese lists that can't be touched it's kind of a joke that the DE codex is so hard and inflexible to work with. Anybody with skill can win with any army but when a player with skill finds it practically impossible to compete with a bad player using a cheese list then something is wrong.

Every codex should have some answer to at least most of the problems they can come up against on the table. They shouldn't all be capable of countering everything but you should be able to counter most things if you build for it. As it stands the DE codex has some glaring deficiencies against some of the more popular lists/codexs/formations. Pretty much the only thing it counters well are Orks and Tyranids. But practically everything else counters the DE pretty hard.

Codex is broken and does indeed need a rebuild. It's bizare because the DE model range is probably the best in GW's catalogue. If the codex was stronger they'd probably shift a lot more units as people would want to play them!