DE Rule Leaks

The Shredder wrote:

Wasn't it actually part of Lelith's fluff that she didn't use drugs?

From 7th edition, The Cult of Strife: "Alone amongst the Wych Cults, Lelith does not use combat drugs to enhance her performance... Lelith is a born predator, preferring to look her prey in the eye at the moment of death. The use of combat drugs is for the weak, for they corrupt the instant where the killing strike hits home and the lifeblood flows out... "

Count Adhemar wrote:

tegs wrote:

Wyches aren't utter crap.

I've seen a few people say similar things about Wyches but what exactly about them is not crap now? They are slightly more survivable in that most stuff wounds them on 3+ rather than 2+ now and they might actually take an armour save every now and then. But their Dodge save is still Fight phase only, their FNP is now half as effective, their damage output is still just about zero, their special weapons are bland and inoffensive (a real drawback in a weapon) and their special ability is pretty naff as it's a simple roll off and not influenced by any other factors, like a buff for x number of models in the unit or having a Succubus nearby.

In short, what is it that isn't utter crap now?

One of my buddies plays Tau, and being able to stop them from running away, shooting, and then forcing me to soak massed overwatch again is a big deal.

The change to strength vs toughness doesn't just make them tougher, it also makes them better able to wound T5.

The changes to AP means they get saves against bolters. Raiders being tougher and being able to disembark wyches, charge with the raider to soak overwatch, and then charge with the wyches should really reduce casualties before they get stuck in.

Succubi allowing rerolling 1s to hit makes hydra gauntlets a lot more attractive. Re-rolling to hit and to wound is appealing, particularly since you now get to allocate wounds so you can kill off unupgraded wyches first.

There's a lot of little things that add up.

Don't forget about the possibility of picking your drug... huge boost. They can be S4, T4 or +1A, all very nice.

Wyches are still a little weak but I think people are wanting them to be a super elite murder ball of a unit. They're troops. They do a little bit of damage each turn, like warriors do a little bit of damage with their shooting. If you wanna face roll with them then you need to spam them, like spamming splinter rifles before you reach any significant damage output. They have more tactical use now though, as you can do that little bit of damage first, before the opponent can respond and your wyches are now one of the few actual tarpit units in the game. Imp Guard get an order that allows troops to fire after they withdraw from combat, pumping rapid fire shots into whatever charged them. Wyches can shut that down. They can lock characters in combat and isolate them. They can pin centurion devastators in combat. Once they get fearless a single wyche model who just won't die can tie up a whole bunch of models in combat. And the way pile in works now you can have your wyches pile in and drag new units into combat if they're too close to the action.

Wyches aren't really for killing stuff, they're for locking stuff down so that other units can kill them, or just to get them out of the game for a turn or two.

I would agree with you if it was auto lockdown. Its a gamble and if you lose your wyches are very dead after achieving very little.

I will try wyches one day tho.

Painjunky wrote:

I would agree with you if it was auto lockdown. Its a gamble and if you lose your wyches are very dead after achieving very little.

I will try wyches one day tho.

I've had my DE army for more than a decade, though I didn't do much with them until the last year or two. Tomorrow night I'm buying a used lot which includes more of the old metal incubi and talos I love so much, but it will also come with a handful of wyches.

They might be OK, or they might be garbage. The price is right, so I certainly won't mind the process of finding out.

Just played a series of games with a giant Beast Pack.

It turns out the new beast packs are fantastic. The only way to effectively combat them is to pick off the Beastmasters, and good use of terrain as an LoS blocker makes that very challenging for enemy snipers, thanks to their 12 inch move (results may vary depending on the quantity and type of terrain used by your local group). Beware of Eldar Rangers and Necron Death Marks, however- their large number of sniper rifles coupled with deep strike can ruin your day. A few minimum squads of Razorwing Flocks can help deny deep strike positioning, though.

All three of the beasts are super solid, but with the new S/T chart, Razorwing Flocks are particularly delightful.

If you've got some Beast models sitting around, I highly recommend you field them- if nothing else, they force your opponent to choose between targeting your valuable HQ and your more situationally dangerous beastmasters.

As for wyches, my group has elected to interpret the "must win a roll off" as ties meaning the units stay locked in combat, which makes wyches a very solid choice, though that may be incorrect- perhaps the full release on Saturday will make things clearer.

So, late to the party but am throwing in my 2 cents.

This leak shows army wide nerfs.
Wyches still cannot hurt anything, get less wytch weapons (with the hydra gauntlet once again being an auto take), and get shot to crap in melee by anything with a pistol, aka all space marines. Bloodbrides are somehow even worse this edition due to not even getting a points cut. Succubus is the worst cc hq in the codex, with a buff that is leagues behind what a Space Marine character is putting out.
Covens units got hit pretty bad too, from Grots losing their rerolls to wound and not getting more wounds this edition unlike every other multi wound model to the Talos being nerfed into uselessness.
Our shooting also suffered heavily. Rapid Fire 3 on the splinter Cannon translates to half the shots from venoms at long range. Haywire blasters are now a joke, they deal a mortal wound 50% of the time when there are vehicles around with 12 to 20 wounds. The Heat Lance lacks the strength to reliably threaten even a Dreadnaught, let alone a tank, so Blasters are now our only Scourge Based VA.
The lack of twin linked is kicking our ass hard this edition, as everyone else is getting a bunch of extra shots. Ravagers are now even more heavily outclassed by Predators, with our short range and low strength comparing lances to lascannons just exasperating their low numbers.
Most of our gimmicks are looking to be histroy too, with no Arcane Wargear visible. I really hope that they have changed things since the leak since this is a serious blow against us.

Quote :

Most of our gimmicks are looking to be histroy too, with no Arcane Wargear visible.

Don't forget that we, by my conservative calculation, lost 87% of our deep strike options.

Very true. And we are also without our beloved 3+ jink, replacing it with a 5++.
So less survivable too.

I'm wondering how useful poison will be in this edition.

Positives:
- It can now wound vehicles on 6s, so there's that.
- Splinter Cannons are better on Infantry
- Warriors are slightly cheaper

Negatives:
- Splinter Cannons are drastically worse on Venoms.
- Venoms cost about 50% more.
- No more Splinter Racks (whilst every other race got to benefit from the new Twin-Linked rule).
- No AP on any Splinter weapon (even Guardsmen and Orks now get saves against them)

So, let's just say for now that Splinter Weapons stayed about the same overall (at the very least, I'd argue that they haven't improved significantly).

Well, a lot of units now have significantly more wounds than before - not just vehicles but also MCs and units like Terminators, Destroyers, Thunderwolves etc. What's more, if they're in cover then they'll have a better save (e.g. Marines in cover have 2+ saves) and Splinter weapons have no AP to counteract that.

What's more, the advantages of poison have largely been eaten away by the changes to wounding - which make it a lot easier for other armies to wound high-toughness units with medium-strength weapons.

I don't know. Maybe Blasters and Dark Lances doing d3 and d6 wounds, respectively, will make up for it. However, I'm really not convinced about the damage output of Splinter Weapons in 8th.

I think Splinter Weapons, at best, have remained where they were in 7e.

The ability to wound vehicles is nice but literally any weapon can now wound vehicles as well or better. Bolters, for example, wound most vehicles on a 6, just like us, but can wound any vehicle with T7 or less on a 5+. Is that offset by their lesser effect against high Toughness non-vehicles? Not sure.

Retaining the 4+ to wound is okay but still offset by not being able to use a better score against lower toughness opponents. Personally I'd have liked something different, like a fixed S value but subtracting x from your opponents T value when rolling to wound.

Nerfing of Splinter Cannons was brutal and unneccessary. I'm convinced the sheer number of dice that Venoms roll induced this nerf as, if you look at their actual effect, they are by no means overpowered. Seeing someone pick up 12 dice is scary though and we seem to pay the price for that. Given the lack of AP on our Splinter weapons, we'd already taken a swing from the nerf bat before this change! I suspect GW have sold enough Venoms too so maybe that factored into the decision.