Phil Kelly at GD OZ, Future changes?

Oooh boy

I fully agree DE are a great book with fantastic internal balance and when terrain and dice are kind they can trade punches with the best.

Does not mean there is not some room for improvement and some of the bad stuff I find especially jarring as they stick out like a sore thumb from everything else.

If I could fix one and only one thing it would be glances , I think the prices and availability are fine IF Lances are improved. I have an article due to go up on my blog at some point, but my lances have been a consistent problem, every single game I struggle to get value from my lances, opponents running pure mech spam really highlight the weakness. Currently lances have stats and pricing from a bygone edition, they are over priced missile launchers.

Saw Thor posting something about TB's being OP, mine borederline suck, there's just nothing else....

Non Hemo HQ's are useless for what you pay , most competitive armies I have seen run the duke/baron and or a heamo , a single Homo is by far the most common and there is a good reason for it.

Lelith is put up as a great duelist, yet she is rubbish in 1-2-1 but blows through Geq , coz we needed to pay 175 points for more of that , very disappointing.

Drazzy is clearly not worth 230 points, another supposed character killer that only eats squads with no power wep, nah thanks.

I think Vects seize gimmick fails abysmally to do him justice.

Incubi, yeah the tormentors, where are they ?

Court of the Archon -fix it currently too weaksauce to bother with especially given the financial outlay for such a unit.

All the Heamo relic/things are crap and should be much better for one use only expensive mostly circumstantial things.

Dais of destruction - needs acess FF+NF and Aerial assault, would like acces to shock prow and tormentors too, really it should be fully pimped, lol

Fleyers need to...err, fly? (6th rumoured) having them operate like a tank ish feels weird.

Void Raven does it's fluff no justice. 2 lascannons and a weeny one shot template of fail ? Ap1 lances would be more fitting and the mine needs to be far more funky the current rules are lame it's effectively worthless...

Presumably agonisers aren't considered poisoned weapons because that could potentially make them ridiculously over powered - they're already a fantastic weapon, given to models with high weapon skill, they don't allow armour saves, often strike first with our outstanding initiative, and always wound on a 4+. If we roll Grave Lotus on combat drugs and get plus one strength, that would mean re-rolls to wound against MEQs too. That's game breakingly powerful.

Kheradruakh would be too powerful if he could assault on the turn he arrived - let's remember that he's not deep striking, he's just appearing out of the shadows, so will always go exactly where you want him, which is potentially in cover, with stealth, in range of his preferred enemy on his next turn, with a power weapon that potentially causes instant death. Oh, and he has a pain token already, giving him Feel No Pain AND Baleblast. Actually, I might convert me a Kheradruakh model...

Void Lances sound like they need to be AP 1, as they're only a bit better than the ubiquitous Dark Lance and only appear on one choice in the whole army, and the Void Mine should be a large blast that still only scatters D6. Make it more expensive, I don't care, the rules don't make it powerful enough. "Most feared" of the Voidraven's weapons doesn't imply that it'll be a small, one-shot blast template to me.

Lhamaeans, wow they're broken. Amusingly, GWs own release information about them in their weekly newsletter thing assumed that they were better than they were, stating that her Mistress of Poisons ability affected the whole squad. It should. I mean, does she not have enough poison to share?! Any composition for the Court would be nice - the ability to take a harem of ten poisonous concubines is appealing! The points cost would balance it out in competitive play too - tempting though it would be to take ten Sslyth, that's 350 points just on a retinue, probably approaching 500 with an Archon, making it a risky choice. Probably best to limit the number of Medusae still though, that many templates in a squad is horrible.

They better not change anything about the Razorwing. Strategy with Dark Eldar heavy support is all about balancing risk and reward, and the Razorwing with it's super duper anti-infantry nastiness but woeful armour embodies this perfectly. That "Hit them so hard they can't hit you back" battle philosophy is what makes Dark Eldar the force that they are. Oh, as well as picking on and ganging up against crummy squads that can't do anything back (evil cackle).

Why Drazhar has no invulnerable save is beyond me. Certainly in combat he should be able to dodge as well as Lelith. He's supposed to be able to cut down Incubi Hierarchs! And on the subject of Incubi, presumably the absence of Tormentors is an oversight that will be fixed. Please? Why put them in the fluff if they can't use them for anything? I can't remember how they worked in the old codex, but perhaps something along the lines of making them act like Phantasm Grenade Launchers? Or even Torment Grenade Launchers like on vehicles (effects not being wholly cumulative obviously - minus ten to leadership against a full squad of Incubi is too mad).

I love the idea of a mobile Haemonculus workhop style Raider with a Liquifier gun. The conversion fun for that would be great, maybe combining Talos bits with the Raider kit, and having some poor unfortunate on an operating table on the deck. Hell, I might do that anyway! In all seriousness, I used to play Orks, and the Skorcha was the most fun and consistently reliable vehicle in my army, with their appalling ballistic skill. I have a very clear mental picture of the Raider workshop on the battlefield now...

Problem with Decapitator is exactly like with Marbo - he is "one-shot missile". He drop, he shoot, he die.
Except Marbo is less than half of his price and have good shooting weapon. I honestly can't believe in "I can assault enemy next turn", nor "and then I'll win fight!".
No, I doubt that four-arm freak.
That's the problem with "lolrandom" T3 guys that land in enemy deployment in T-shirt instead of real armour.
He just need unit to live. It don't even had to have ability to assault - they get shooting weapon from Pain.
Also, it's a shame that "king of shadows" is worse than "some Ork". Snikrot can smuggle MA Warboss behind enemy line, he is nearly as awesome as "Tactical Genius".


As for Incubi - Tormentors were fun and fluffy... but do we need pistols on them? We wouldn't get any attack (2 hand butcher knife prevent that). Also, Fleet.
Now, if they would have cool abilities (like "they make additional S4 I10 attack" or "they have assault grenades") they would be actually useful.
I guess we need to take that they are "horned devils with swords" rather than "bad scorpions" and be grateful.

Local_Ork wrote:

As for Incubi - Tormentors were fun and fluffy... but do we need pistols on them? We wouldn't get any attack (2 hand butcher knife prevent that).

That's actually exactly what they used to do. They were pistols you didn't need a hand to hold so you could get an extra attack with your Punisher.

I would still rather grenades than an extra attack...

Their extra attack is in their profile now. I haven't seen tormentors gone, just put into their profile. As for grenades yah... I don't know what they were thinking. Especially with death cult coming out right after them and do the same for cheaper... And better... *smh*

Shadows Revenge wrote:

Their extra attack is in their profile now. I haven't seen tormentors gone, just put into their profile. As for grenades yah... I don't know what they were thinking. Especially with death cult coming out right after them and do the same for cheaper... And better... *smh*

And have a Inv Save.

Yeah... I don't quite see need for Tormentors for that reason.

Grenades/Inv - yes. This is exactly why I often compare them to MegaNobz, except they don't suck so bad

yeah , I don't get how wannabe Assassins are remotely a patch on Incubi let alone better in every way and cheaper, ridiculous...

And I would be happy with Tormentors=assault grenades , I think a sudden wave of agony = frag grenade-like ?

Next thing - there should be some sort of Haywire missile for planes. Like "S5 AP4 ,Haywire ,Pinning, Big Blast" (that's actually stats of Reaper blast)? That would make Diss/SC jets pretty nice. First AT, netx turn AI. Ohhh... that's why I give my Nobz Kombi Rokkits instead of Kombi Skorchers (despite beeing HEAVY combi flamers).

And Void Lances. IMHO AP1 don't quite fit due to fluff BUT maybe S10 would be more useful?
It's a little shame that You need to pay nearly 40 points for upgrading 2 shots with +1S (ok, maybe not 40 since You also get Void Mine and +1 to armour)

Wow, a blurb about making some changes to two or so units and we have the entire codex re-written.

Decapitator - maybe one or two items like makes 0-1 mandrake units a troop choice and make his bale blast like a horrorfex (something like for every unsaved wound subtract 1 from their leadership). If his target is "pinned" then he can assault without penalty. This might make mandrakes a little more enticing especially if mandrakes bale blast has a similar rule.

Dias - you guys know better than me but the shock prow idea kinda makes me laugh, it would give a whole new meaning to it, "yah, it destroys what it runs into - the dias of destruction, get it?". Maybe it needs the voidraven bomb too.

I have to agree with the whole Horrorfex thing though - it is badly needed as the un-modified leadership check is just not effective enough to be useful. Maybe put a cap on it up to -3 or something - this would allow the non-plasma units a chance without making it absolute.

I will stop here though, I see now how infectious re-writing rules can be - there has to be a give-and-take and I am seeing a lot more "giving" than "taking".

I know way how to fix Mandrakes and Kheradrukh and make them from utterly pointless to overcosted situational usefull.

Errata Kheradrukh

Unit Type - Independant Character.
Can only join units of Mandrakes, if he joins them looses his special deplyment rule and gain Infiltrate instead.

Problem solved , we have decent shooting infiltrating unit , overcosted, elite slot eating no threat to mech.
If he joins them he can at least give them pain token and give powerweapon to suppsedly melee squad.

One thing I think should be done is that Klaives should be "a variety of bladed weapons that do X and Y" rather then just big swords - that way we can field the older Incubi if we wanted.

I'd like Archons being able to ride on Venoms if they're not part of a Court.

I have no issues with Mandrakes being so crap as I'm not too concerned about using infiltrators in an army that can cover so much ground in so little time anyway.

Certainly wouldn't want to change too much. In my personal opinion we have one of the coolest codexes out there. There are just some glaring errors that stick out like a thumb to me. And they are so easy fixable (most has already been said really).

- What Azdrubael said should be the 1st thing done:"Errata Kheradrukh Unit Type - Independant Character. Can only join units of Mandrakes, if he joins them looses his special deplyment rule and gain Infiltrate instead." And voila, he's fixed.

- Nightfiend should have acces to an upgrade. He only needs an agoniser or a scissor hand and he's fixed.

- Incubi do not need the penisgun on their head again... But why they didn't get plasma nades (or do not even have acces to them) is beyond me. Give them 5++ or 6++ save. Increase costs. Voila...

- Like Nomic said the court should be 0-x. Tada... solved.

- Dais should have acces to options like a Raider/Ravager. Solved...

- I'm not sure if Heamy's should be given fleet. I find it annoying right now that they slow down my Wyches, but perhaps it's too powerfull?

- Would be cool if Hellions had acces to Haywire nades. But again... Maybe that is too much.

That's it really... The rest is awesome!

Trying to find things that are too powerfull in the dex... Can't find anything right now. Perhaps the Razorwing? Can DS and drop 4 pieplates. That's pretty awesome.