Webway portal rule change

I've been thinking and I may have found a way to help Dark Eldar out with an improved and fluffy rule for Webway Portals. When I think of Webway Portal deep strikes, I do not think of them happening from the sky, but rather, anywhere. A portal literally opens up at any height and the troops/skimmer can come through.

What I propose, is that Dark Eldar remove the option for the item Webway Portal, but instead make a unit upgrade with a cost to give it Webway Portal. Only available if they upgraded a unit champion, or if an HQ or a vehicle. The Dark Eldar are supposed to be masters of the Webway, this could reflect that. Also, since they can open the portals practically anywhere, Dark Eldar that arrive via Webway Portal would not be subjected to Interceptor, or whatever the rule is that allow Tau the ability to shoot at deep striking units.

The point is, that Dark Eldar can opens these portals and exit anywhere. This gives them a better way of arrive on the battlefield where they want. You can still do the regular 2d6 for deviation, or since it is an upgrade, change it to 1d6 to show how the Webway is that much more accurate. This gives a buff to the DE that desperately need one. I do not think it is overpowered either. i always hear that champion upgrades are not worth it for the DE. This would be a good reason to take those upgrades.

It could even be improved to help wyches by allowing charges in the combat phase, if the deep strike did not deviate at all.

This would not be a cheap upgrade, maybe keep it at the 35pts it is now or lower due to it not having "Do not scatter" anymore, but one that could be very welcome to the DE playstyle of being able to attack from anywhere. It also helps the DE feel more unique.

Yeah, I agree.
I've had the idea of a 1d6 scatter for our units for a long time as well. Deepstriking has become way too common and many armies already have much better deepstriking abilities than the Dark Eldar have now.

But considering about all the cheese that goes around lately I think it wouldn't even be overpowered if units that already can deep strike (like Raiders) have a 1d6 by default (or 5 pts max).

And while we are at it, add DS as an option to our monstrous creatures as well. I wouldn't even call that wishlisting but rather "justifiable changes respecting meta and fluff alike". That also includes charging out transports the turn they arrive.

However, even with all that I wouldn't say that "fixes" our army. It does help us at getting better where we are already great at and it might even give our melee units a nice boost (which, you know would only result in grots becoming better while the rest still gets ignored).

But that doesn't fix any of the main issues we have.
Killing gargantuan creatures? Dealing reliably with high armor saves? Dealing with high AV values?

Unless our army starts mounting spikes on the underneath of Raiders, Venoms and Ravagers that can crush tanks or kill GC when they descend from the skies I really don't see that making us a lot better  in a competitive way.


I think first and foremost the problem in our dex are our lackluster weapons and weapon choices. Good weapons like Heat Lances or Blasters (I'm saying good, not great) are way to restricted and too expensive.
Other weapons like DLs on Scourges or Disintegrators in general are really great and I'd love fielding them more, but it just doesn't make sense taking them for various reasons.
And finally, many weapons are simply bad. The DL is nice, but lost its punch through the ages, Void Lances are too expensive and the Void Mine should be D for sure.

In fact, there are hardly any weapons besides Splinter weapons that are worth it, resulting in the Venom and Lance spam we know.

See: Eldar Corsairs (Second Edition)

See also:  Multiphase Key Generator

See also:  Skyburner Coterie

stilgar27 wrote:

See: Eldar Corsairs (Second Edition)

See also:  Multiphase Key Generator

See also:  Skyburner Coterie

I thought of the Multiphase key generator when reading this too lol.

I dont know if deepstrike can be our thing anymore.  I cant think of a way we will be able to do better than anyone.  Not scattering really isnt a big deal.  Drop pods barely scatter (my last opponent used terrain to make sure his didnt scatter, I dont know if that was completely legal though, he said it stopped as soon as it hit terrain and lands.)  There are chapter tactics that allow assault on Deepstrike as well I think (not confirmed).

With the new psychic powers I am going to go ahead and say that the webway portal should be army wide no scatter deep strike as well as army wide hit and run (slip back into the webway and go into auto reserves for next turn). Make it something the seargent adds like you said so there is still some kind of tax.

Then we need more Fluffy MSU hit and run like units.

We need SOMETHING lol.

I have been wondering for a while, for a race that it is literally our job to abduct slaves and run lightning fast raids.... we sure are slow and cant abduct people.

Would be cool if raiders could abduct people for empty spots and run them off the table edge while returning back to ongoing reserves empty once more!

I just hope they make it really good, even if theres a draw back like d6 per unit 1's get sucked into the webway and stuck there for one whole turn.

Interesting idea, but treading on the toes of Corsairs a bit too much, without really giving Dark Eldar what they really need - a reason to deep strike in the first place.

Deep strike isn't what it used to be. It used to simply be about getting a unit to a place without being attacked on the way, but with so many changes, there's so much more to Deep strike:

Deepstrike & Power Creep:

I believe that adding it as a unit/transport upgrade doesn't really improve it in most instances, because it's biggest strength is putting it on someone who is riding with Wraithguard or Fire Dragon allies, as half our units have huge movement speeds or innate deep strike already.

I think it would be pretty cool if it was available on all characters and independent characters for 10 or 15 pts as an upgrade that benefits existing deep strike options such as Scourges, or being in a Raider/Venom (which all of our infantry units already are by default as we're playing DE) :

Webway Portal - "You choose turn 1, 2 or 3 as you select warlord traits, and the unit automatically enter on that turn from Deep Strike Reserves, and get to re roll their scatter."

The Strange Dark One wrote:

But that doesn't fix any of the main issues we have.

Yeah, exactly. Deep strike is one thing, but giving me a reason to deep strike with my units because they're actually good at their job, is quite another.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Killing gargantuan creatures?

All Dark Eldar would need is an update to our army wide splinter weaponry from Poison (4+) to Fleshbane (4+).

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Dealing reliably with high armor saves?

Yeah, this is tough. Disintegrators are supposed to fill this niche and they simply don't. Usually firing lots of poison is the only option and it's not very good either.

Simply making Disintegrators better/more available would probably solve this issue we have. I'd make their profile 36" Salvo 2/4 St5 Ap2, Shred, allow Kabalites to buy them, and call it a day.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Dealing with high AV values

Well, both the Lance and Haywire special rules are good against vehicles regardless of their AV values, and DE & CWE have a decent number of platforms for these weapons. So I think we're better off than most armies in this regard; we can take on Armour 14/15 Land Raiders & Knights as easily as we can take on Chimeras.

We could do with a buff for generic, mid AV vehicle hunting though - a wall of Chimeras is incredibly tough to deal with as Dark Eldar compared to other armies.

Just food for thought. I think that adding extra rules to a WWP is nice, but really makes it overly complex, when all we really need is a guarantee that we'll get our unit to deep strike on time, and a bit more accurately.

Oh yeah, we need all that. It would be nice from a fluff standpoint if wwps got changed too because its just not special and its like "our thing"... Its very meh.

What if they just added 'Webway Portal' as a purchasable upgrade that an Archon, Succubus or Haemonculus can buy for their ENTIRE detachment, rather than a per unit basis. Something along the lines of:

Webway Portals for everyone:

I like the idea that a unit can deep Strike if it consists solely of models with the WWP special rule.

I'd say that some have a modifier in it like saying WWP 5 what means that you scatter normally minus 5 inches.

And you can use the best modifier in a unit to represent the model as being a guide for the Web way.

hydranixx wrote:

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Dealing with high AV values

Well, both the Lance and Haywire special rules are good against vehicles regardless of their AV values, and DE & CWE have a decent number of platforms for these weapons. So I think we're better off than most armies in this regard; we can take on Armour 14/15 Land Raiders & Knights as easily as we can take on Chimeras.

We could do with a buff for generic, mid AV vehicle hunting though - a wall of Chimeras is incredibly tough to deal with as Dark Eldar compared to other armies.

Just food for thought. I think that adding extra rules to a WWP is nice, but really makes it overly complex, when all we really need is a guarantee that we'll get our unit to deep strike on time, and a bit more accurately.

My bad, I was actually referring to low AV values. I guess I wasn't thinking for a moment.
I agree with the rest, especially with the higher availability of Disintegrator Cannons. Imo, similar to Blasters we should have access to Assault 2 Disintegrator Carbines.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

we should have access to Assault 2 Disintegrator Carbines.

Marines get one now, although it's rapid fire.  And since marines have to be better at everything - it has instant death and can also function as a boltgun whenever needed.  It's got some down sides though in that it gets hot (not too big of a deal in 3+ armor) and is only range 18".  There is a disintegrator pistol too - and both are free to one space marine on the table because... reasons.

As seen here

Honestly, keeping the webway portal the way it is but making it a bit cheaper(~20), and an option for every DE character to take would be fine.

As for all the other suggestions, to be honest, DE were given something to the effect of 50 individual nerfs in our latest codex. We need a complete codex rewrite. Right now, DE don't have anything that really make them unique. They have nothing they do that someone else doesn't do better. This needs to change with a complete do-over and rebalancing.

Every time they make a positive change to DE, they need to ask themselves: Is this enough to counteract not having access to psykers, or any army-wide unique faction special rule(shadow of the warp, reanimation protocols, etc).

We just don't have a niche right now. Power from pain is mostly a liability right now rather than a benefit because we don't have enough ability to manipulate it(like pain token swapping), and it doesn't really get decent until turns 3-4. Till then, we're basically THE most fragile army without much effective offensive firepower. All glass without a cannon.

With the party sized cheese platter that 40k has now become i don't think it is in any way unreasonable or OP for the entire DE army to arrive automatically, anywhere on the table (no scatter) at the beginning of any turn you like. For 0 points, and be able to charge too.

Its fluffy and would would mean we MIGHT get to compete at a tournament... maybe, if we roll really well.

Give us a warp beast (obviously very weak but can assault 3d6) that has the special rule

One warp beast may purchase a webway portal for the following special rule:

"when stuck in combat, at the end of the assault phase drag everyone involved in combat with the warp beast into the warp. Each model is removed as a casualty as if you killed them, gain victory points as normal"

we still wouldnt be OP, but man would we keep the deathstar meta in check.