GW choices

HI!  
so,

Why are scourges not jetpack infantry? they can sustain flight, I think?
Why are hellions not jetpack or elder jet bike?
Why are razor wings not vector dancers?
Why is the void mine not D?
and this isn't weird, but wouldn't it be cooler if the talos was a bit faster!
Why are ravagers so slow when in the fluff they can shoot and disappear before seen?
Why aren't raiders av11?

there are probably more odd things, but that should get us started.

Most likely because our codex was released quite early on when the direction of travel seemed to be limiting power-creep in codices, and then with the Necrons Codex that direction of travel was almost entirely reversed.

Post-Necrons codices seem to be relatively balanced against each other (with a few glaring omissions), but they overpower massively the earlier releases.

Yep we were released for 7th edition quite literally at the apex of a massive throttling of power levels and simplificaiton of the core game. Relative power levels were going to drop and things were going to settle in. Necrons get the decurion and due to the comp scene limitations at the time that unfairly advantaged the decurion people ate up the army and hinted to GW that Power boosts would sell well. Admech got the War Convocation in a WD and all 3 factions sold well. Space Marines, Dark Angels and Craftworld all took their turns next and received meta-detachments as well because at that point it's a customer desire trend that they fed.

Space wolves were rescued by the wulfen campaign due to being singularly the most popular faction or chapter. Orks, GK, DE, and Blood angels haven't really been treated in kind.

wormfromhell wrote:

HI!  
so,

Why are scourges not jetpack infantry? they can sustain flight, I think?

Jump infantry are often capable of sustained flight--that's not what distinguishes them from jetpack infantry. Jet units are capable of hovering, specifically mid-air hovering stable enough to allow them to shoot without suffering recoil. The flight of scourges is more natural, like a bird or bat, and precludes that kind of stability.

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Why are hellions not jetpack or elder jet bike?

Same reason: hellion skyboards are one of those 'always in motion' things, that lack the hovering capability.

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Why are razor wings not vector dancers?

Because Vector Dancer is limited to a handful of extremely agile aircraft. Even the Eldar vehicles don't always qualify. (The Hemlock isn't a Vector Dancer, either.)

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Why is the void mine not D?

At the time the codex came out, D weapons were largely restricted to Apocalypse. I wouldn't be horrendously surprised if it becomes D (or if we get a D weapon later on down the road).

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Why are ravagers so slow when in the fluff they can shoot and disappear before seen?

Many unit entries are hyperbolic. This is definitely one of those cases.

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Why aren't raiders av11?

Why would they be? It would be more expensive to armor them, slow them down, and more importantly, provide more protection to the crew, which isn't necessarily a preferable thing. To the Dark Eldar, having a certain number of your own men get killed or mutilated on the way in to an engagement is a good thing: it means that you get a little bit of the rush from the suffering and fear of your own men before you even get stuck in.

Alternately, to a race like the Eldar, with a higher degree of spatial reasoning and body-kinesthetic intelligence than the average human (or even highly skilled humans), as a defensive measure, a pilot's skill is preferable to extra armor, especially if that extra armor might impact a pilot's ability to maneuver.

wormfromhell wrote:

HI!  
so,

Why are scourges not jetpack infantry? they can sustain flight, I think?
Why are hellions not jetpack or elder jet bike?
Why are razor wings not vector dancers?
Why is the void mine not D?
and this isn't weird, but wouldn't it be cooler if the talks was a bit faster!
Why are ravagers so slow when in the fluff they can shoot and disappear before seen?
Why aren't raiders av11?

there are probably more odd things, but that should get us started.

I agree with all of these points except for AV11 on raiders and hellions and scourges should be FASTER than jetpacks. 18" base movement like swooping hawks maybe.

GW is just lazy, they don't give a crap about what the fluff says only the $$$.
We should have got an update by now but we probably don't sell that well so GW neglects us.

Well I'm certainly helping to turn that lack of selling around judging by the lightness of my wallet!

I'll agree with Painjunky on the specific points.

I've always thought on all of these 'what does our codex need' threads that Dark Eldar shouldn't get any bonuses to defensive capabilities. The defence of Dark Eldar should be not getting shot at in the first place. A base JSJ mechanic added to infantry (maybe not Covens), and a piece of wargear for vehicles allowing them to JSJ and maybe increase base movement while still shooting/disembarking. Maybe make that standard equipment for Venoms rather than Flickerfields.

Dark Eldar should be slippery b*stards, but melt to firepower when you catch them (if you can catch them).

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Well I'm certainly helping to turn that lack of selling around judging by the lightness of my wallet!

I'll agree with Painjunky on the specific points.

I've always thought on all of these 'what does our codex need' threads that Dark Eldar shouldn't get any bonuses to defensive capabilities. The defence of Dark Eldar should be not getting shot at in the first place. A base JSJ mechanic added to infantry (maybe not Covens), and a piece of wargear for vehicles allowing them to JSJ and maybe increase base movement while still shooting/disembarking. Maybe make that standard equipment for Venoms rather than Flickerfields.

Dark Eldar should be slippery b*stards, but melt to firepower when you catch them (if you can catch them).

A thousand times this. I get annoyed when people complain that our armour values are too low. It is supposed to be like that.

I get annoyed when my opponents have the gall to complain about my cover saves. While he plays marines.

Completely ignoring the av10 and almost universal 5+ armor.

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Dark Eldar should be slippery b*stards, but melt to firepower when you catch them (if you can catch them).

Well said mate.

as @Ynneadwraith says, our resilience must come from our speed. Im okay with almost any shape this takes (cover saves, invulnerable saves, range reduction, negative modifiers to hit, flat out after shooting...) Our problem is that as of now, the rules doesnt reflect this at all. We pay a lot of points for our speed when other factions (Craftworld Eldar are the bigger offenders) are even faster than us and get their speed almost for free on top of good armour values and saves.

There are two key concepts that need fleshing out in our next supplement/campaign/codex: Survivavility through speed and inflicting terror. Its mind boggling that a design team for the biggest wargame company in the world would completely ignore ruleswise 2 key characteristics that define a faction.

Totally agree with the above. In my homebrew codex I don't think I increased a single Toughness value or AV, although I did give Reavers a 4+ and the Archon got Ghostplate as standard. What I did do is give vastly increased means of getting decent cover saves and hugely increased our speed.

I think this topic has been adequately addressed by those above us. Plus we are supposed to be "40K on Hard mode".

fisheyes wrote:

I think this topic has been adequately addressed by those above us. Plus we are supposed to be "40K on Hard mode".

Warhammer 40k Dark Souls edition

BizarreShowbiz wrote:

Its mind boggling that a design team for the biggest wargame company in the world would completely ignore ruleswise 2 key characteristics that define a faction.

To be fair, the CEO of the company at the time that our codex was released operated under the following assumption: "Rules don't matter. 90% of the people in this hobby only care about the models. We're a model company, not a game company.(Despite having game in our name)"

We were basically the last codex made under the mantra of the old guard, before a paradigm shift took place. This is basically the only thing that gives me hope, at the moment. If DE get completely screwed on the next release, I'll probably sell all my DE models. I can't sit on 2 thousand dollars worth of models for ANOTHER 3-4 years with them being worthless to me.

BizarreShowbiz wrote:

Ynneadwraith wrote:

Well I'm certainly helping to turn that lack of selling around judging by the lightness of my wallet!

I'll agree with Painjunky on the specific points.

I've always thought on all of these 'what does our codex need' threads that Dark Eldar shouldn't get any bonuses to defensive capabilities. The defence of Dark Eldar should be not getting shot at in the first place. A base JSJ mechanic added to infantry (maybe not Covens), and a piece of wargear for vehicles allowing them to JSJ and maybe increase base movement while still shooting/disembarking. Maybe make that standard equipment for Venoms rather than Flickerfields.

Dark Eldar should be slippery b*stards, but melt to firepower when you catch them (if you can catch them).

A thousand times this. I get annoyed when people complain that our armour values are too low. It is supposed to be like that.

times 1000 again. My friend always says "why is your stuff so weak and bad" to be honest I don't think they should buff our units, except maybe a bit for speed, but instead make them cheaper, like a swarm or antigrav craft pouring out of the web way.

I miss evasion tools, like old Night Shields or old Clone Fields.

I like the invulnerable saves that wyches get to represent dodging/evasion. That makes sense to me. AP doesn't matter if it didn't hit you to begin with, so invuln saves are the best representation of speed and evasion without creating a new mechanic.

Absolutely. There simply isn't any reason other than distinction that it doesn't work for the entire assault phase.

wormfromhell wrote:

Why are ravagers so slow when in the fluff they can shoot and disappear before seen?

Back in 3rd edition Craftworld Eldar could get a 'crystal targeting matrix' that let them shoot in the middle of movement and scoot behind cover. They also had heavy 3 starcannons so it made marines sad and the next Eldar codex nerf'd it to hell and GW has since been super cautious about letting heavy vehicles jump-shoot-jump.

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Why aren't raiders av11?

I do think a 11/10/10 statline for raiders would be fitting for how the models look, they're even designed to resemble greek ships used for frontal ramming and take upgrades to encourage crashing head on into the foe. Yeah DE are suppose to be about speed but don't be comparing them to the metal boxes of the imperium, compare them to the better armored better armed and EQUALLY fast Wave Serpent. Now that all bikes turbo boost the reaver is no faster than a craftworld or corsair jetbike with a better armor save. The only DE vehicle I can say really has an edge over craftworlders is the venom, but that's because it has an invulnerable save granting flickerfield so it's actually of equal speed but tougher.

Keep in mind the signature army wide ability for pirate soul eater Eldar is to get so hyped they shrug off heavy bolter rounds, and if you feel like it you can field an entire army of multiwound monsters with t5 average so durability isn't anathema to the DE image.

Similar accusations have been leveled at 'fast frail Craftworld Eldar' having t8 monsters breaking dreadnoughts over their knee, Falcons eating 5 turns of lascannons that would reduce Leman Russ's to scrap (3e holofield RIP), or Karandras teaching his pupils "You know what helps with sneaking? SLABS OF ARMOR ON MY MANLY PECS AND SHOULDERS" while those poor clumsy space marines have to take their pauldrons off to infiltrate properly while hiding from heavy bolters.

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there are probably more odd things, but that should get us started.

Ah yes there's also...

* Tormentor helms, dey do nutthing! Just make them let incubi charge into cover!

* Wych weapons are underwhelming, just give them rending and call it a day!

* What's with all the weird "this is worse than a venom blade or agonizer" wargear?

I'm gonna go write my 'stream of consciousness DE codex based on my poor grasp of the rules, so it'll be as authentically balanced as actual GW product' fandex now, thanks for the inspiration wormfromhell

Our codex isn't bad as such, a lot of things can be fixed with minor changes. Wyches allowed to use their invul save against shooting and overwatch, scourges become jetpack or flying, hellions getting to run, shoot and charge, raiders allowing embarked units to fire at full BS if it moves 12", ravagers getting their old airiel assault rule back, splinter weapons becoming st3 so we at least get rerolls to wound against t3, Incubi actually getting assault grenades.

There is a lot of small changes that would make the army better.

But there is also the fact that some armies just have it better at the minute, GW trying to make it child friendly with the possible removal of slaneesh etc. The new boxed game is probably a wY for GW to test the waters around DE, see if there is a high demand that they will focus on DE for a while.

Archon Vitcus wrote:

Our codex isn't bad as such

He says, before going on to list a whole ream of things that are bad  

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The new boxed game is probably a wY for GW to test the waters around DE, see if there is a high demand that they will focus on DE for a while.

The problem with that is that I don't actually know anybody who has bought any of the boxed games because of the game. They buy it because it's quite simply the cheapest way to get the models in the box. Even if you only want half of them, you can sell the other half on ebay and pretty much pay for the whole game. That isn't going to work too well with a game that focuses only on one faction and where half the models in the box are better used as paperweights (which they're terrible at as they're made of plastic). I will literally only consider buying the game if it costs the same as or less than a unit of Reavers!

The inevitable follow-on from that is that GW will see that DE sells badly and not bother doing anything about them as it's not worth the effort.

Why are scourges not jetpack infantry? they can sustain flight, I think?
I think Jetpack represents those things with mutliple thrusters and highly advanced manuevering systems, whereas Jumppack is more reflective of those things which can sustain flight as Scourge can.

Why are hellions not jetpack or elder jet bike?
Jetpack as above, though that would be cool. THey're not Eldar Jetbike because we already have Reaver Jetbikes.

Why are razor wings not vector dancers?
Now THAT is a good point.

Why is the void mine not D?
Because when our Codex was written, having lots of D wasn;t a common thing.

and this isn't weird, but wouldn't it be cooler if the talos was a bit faster!
Talos are lumbering monsters. Being any faster would make them a bit OP.

Why are ravagers so slow when in the fluff they can shoot and disappear before seen?
They're NOT slow. They're quite fast vehicles. Its just hard to shoot things from vehicle moving that fast.

Why aren't raiders av11?
Because something HAS to be av10, and if Raiders were 11, Ravagers wouldn;t be so special.

Ravagers are special?

Well, maybe "special" wasn't the right word to use. Perhaps sPeciAl was the correct term.
By which I mean, "different".

Hey I said the code wasn't bad, not that certain units weren't bad lol

As said though those units can be bettered by simple changes, heck even allowing access to the apocalypse formations would be nice.