Do we have an ETA?

That's overt hyperbole. We see that option most often because it's LCD. deepstriking S6 can hurt most vehicles and most factions have awful initiatives. In baronial court heavy metas, or if the trump wall hadn't been fixed in the FAQ you'd be seeing fire dragons or swooping hawks. I disagree with your assertion in the first place because there multiple ways to skin a space marine that may be equally viable in the first place but see limited use due to outside influences that you don't consider.

HWB Scourges, Fire dragons, and Swooping hawks all require different support and which will see play has as much to do with what the things that support them well are strong against as the degree to which one needs anti-vehicle.

You said it yourself, it's the lowest common denominator. People run what wins because they like winning, let's be fair. I mean you can slice it any way you want but the top tables of every tournament run in the past year support my observation, that's what people are going to run. Some people might try the Wraith Bomb again but most DE units won't be given so much as a sideways glance.

That has nothing to do with an overfaction though, and everything to do with the fact that GW crushed our codex with over 30 direct nerfs this edition, when in our previous codex we ALREADY weren't considered top tier.

We need a new codex. We know that(and hopefully so does GW.) But that doesn't mean the system that GW has been serving up is bad. It just means what it means: We need a new codex. Period. We can't judge anything outside our codex while using our codex as a basis of judgement. Our base codex is the worst in 40k at the moment.

Its not like people can't, and aren't, taking the best stuff from codexes with very little, if any tax.

I'm not saying they aren't, I'm saying there's at least a semblance of difference between the factions right now, which I like. This is GW basically saying "f*** it bring what you want" AoS style. Which is great if you like your Kabalites mixed in with Craftworlders carte blanche, and bad if you like older editions where you brought your army and that was it. Like I do.

You can't bring whatever you want in age of sigmar.I've tried to play AoS like I play 40k and I straight up can't because of mainline troops requirements. WE did F- it bring what you want first.

So then please illuminate me on how being moved into an overfaction will not diminish the uniqueness of the Dark Eldar faction, because that's the forest I'm getting at that you're missing for the trees.

Because your missing the fact that in "Grand Alliance Order" Each of the Old Dark Elf/High Elf/Wood Elf factions is subdivided into each of it's constituent parts. Piratical Male Dark elves are an entirely different faction from the female daughters of medusa or whatever the ladies used to be basically wyches are. The future isn't superfriends or bust. It's: Covens, Kabals, Cults, Aspect shrines, militia, clowns etc. each being their OWN faction that have rules that interact with each other on this new faction level, on the equivalent of the old faction level, and on the current battlebrothers level all in the equivalent of a single CAD.

You just want a wych cult? great here are some bonus rules for that sort of thing. You want a good old fashioned raid? great here are rules for using faction wych cult and faction kabal units together. etc. etc.

Every faction gets busted into smaller lower level factions, like AoS, I get that. I'm accounting for that. And those can be brought in a single CAD with each other, which I already said was going to happen. However, like I also already said, people are going to bring the lowest common denominator for the overfaction formation for every slot, which because of the strength of the Craftworld codex, is going to be Craftworld Eldar almost exclusively. Like a Fantasy player I know said, "I don't have a Skaven army anymore, because my Skaven are just a 4+ troop, the same as literally any other 4+ troop."

This change is basically just further removing restrictions on doing what people are already doing which personally I do not like from a gameplay standpoint as it makes the factions seem muddled and less unique. I much prefer every faction gets their own codex, their own decurion, their own list of formations, and have them all balanced around one another. Instead they're taking it the exact opposite direction where everyone gets to bring more or less any combination of whatever they like and let the game balance sort itself out.

Here's were I'm going to have to get off then since I'm not going to be able to convince you yet since no old AoS faction has received 2 different faction buffs yet. I'm betting that mech dwarf will be viable on release AND won't kill fireslayer styles but until that happens we just have the crapshoot from launch, and I'm not going to be the person who will tell you that you can play skryre skaven right now, they're definitely pestilens or bust at present.

From a structure standpoint we couldn't be more diametrically opposed. I have no interest in attempts at technologically informed monolithicity. balance through anarchy and a font of options is far more reassuring to me as a customer then either GW's time lapsed cyclical failure at balance, or PP's occasional hard stat resets. Better the ability to tinker with pieces then creating accidental sweeping changes that fundamentally alter the game. Battlebrothers not being able to start the game in each others transport is a pretty appt. example of the later.

You have the same mentality the current competitive scene at large has, one I've been more or less forced to adapt due to the highly competitive meta around where I am. Because I play mostly tourney players, my options are essentially "Win with Craftworld or try to have fun losing with Dark Eldar." Hence my apprehension about doubling down on the current game direction, I'm personally biased even though it is obviously the path of least resistance.

This is mostly just a gameplay philosophy schism though, one that I could live with as I have all of 7th edition. More concerning to me is the great heaps of Wardian plot twists that will somehow lead to the overfaction. If we lose the core fluff that makes us distinctly Dark Eldar (the need to inflict pain to survive, Commorragh, slave raids, Vect, our lack of psychic powers, etc.) then GW could give us floating Land Raiders for all I care. The heart of the army would be cut out.

In that case, I wouldn't worry. The idea that powerful, practicing psykers are verboten in Commorragh isn't going anywhere, I don't think. Nor is the psychic vampirism of the True Kin, their residence in the Webway, or their gratuitous use of slaves. Of the things you listed as being crucial to their unique flavor, I think the one you're most in danger of losing is Vect, and I don't think him personally is necessary for the faction. I think he could be replaced by one of a number of figures and the army would still retain its flavor.

You say that, but Blizzard did the exact same thing with Blood Elves in World of Warcraft, and their writing team/material is about at the same level as GW's. It's like they say, fool me once, I'm mad. Fool me twice, how could you. Fool me three times, you're officially "that guy."

Could we stay on topic? Im getting kinda tired of all threads going off topic and converging in the same discussion. This one is about an estimated time of arrival for gathering storm II, dont post here unless it is related to it. We already have a thread to discuss the identity of Dark Eldar, if you wanna discuss that, go there.

Going back to topic, how much time passed since the announcement of Fall of Cadia and its launch? Maybe that could give us a guess on the eelease date for Fracture of Biel-Tan

Actually this thread is about a new codex that isn't coming, at least until 8th edition.

Indeed. It's been off-topic since the third post, amigo.

However, since you're interested, Fracture of Biel-Tan goes up for pre-order the first week in February, I've been told.

The new codex that is ACTUALLY on topic for this thread is significantly farther out.