Dark Eldar Changes, 8th

Seeing as we now know most (if not all) of our rules for 8th edition, I think it's time to see what we gained/lost from the transition from seventh to eighth edition. Brace yourselves.

Let's start out with the big daddy himself, the Archon. Statwise, he's remained pretty much the same. He keeps his high WS and BS, Eldar level Strength and Toughness, he gained two wounds, gained a base attack in place of his two close combat weapons before, but has lost a point of leadership. Finally, he gained a 8" movement. He clocks in at 64 points with his basic wargear.

Pros
Four point Agonisers help to compensate his still meager strength, even if it lost a point of AP. The power sword, also at four points, helps cut through some tougher armor in melee, but, based at the same cost, means that our signature whip will probably be taken in almost every instance.

The shadow field comes standard. Having this factored into the base cost of the model really helps increase his viability, even if the rules have been copy pasted from the old codex.

Being able to fire the Blast pistol in melee, as well as point decrease, means we have our Power Fist equivalent (kinda).

His Overlord special rule kinda helps with morale, I guess.

Cons
Oh boy.

The Huskblade is a whiff, identical to a Power Sword only with D3 damage at almost double the cost. Seriously, this disappointment is the most expensive melee weapon we have. Stick to something else.

The Archon has lost pretty much every piece of wargear that made him unique and fun to play. The following is a list of equipment that is no longer available to him.

• Haywire Grenades
  
• Plasma Grenades (Well, I guess "Darklight Grenades" now)
  
• Soul Trap
  
• Clone Field
  
• Webway portal
  
• Oh, and did I mention that we no longer have any Artefacts of Cruelty?
  

Overall, while the Archon's close combat potential and durability has become considerably more cost effective, and his ranged potential has remained largely unchanged, a genocide of wargear has left our favorite despots as a bland, generic, Close Combat character, or a source of a single Blaster shot. Without a Webway Portal, his maneuverability has been gimped, and without Ld 10, a minimum 58 point investment for a buff of two units maximum is hardly worth the cost.

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I'll be posting more, if people are interested, of course. Let me know if you'd like me to continue.

In regards to WWP and other arcane wargear and artefacts, we have to wait for the full codex. NThere indexes are mostly done in order to get a quick start in the new edition, maybe that's also why there are no new models. We simply have to wait.

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In regards to WWP and other arcane wargear and artefacts, we have to wait for the full codex. NThere indexes are mostly done in order to get a quick start in the new edition, maybe that's also why there are no new models. We simply have to wait.

Keeping in mind they have to release a codex for every other faction. We are by no means a popular army.

It was what, ten, eleven years between our third and fifth edition updates? I would expect we're going to be on the back burner for a long time.

Since the differences will be so much greater between armies with the placeholder rules and the Codex I think they're gonna pump them out as fast at they can.

With your list I just have a couple of things to add:

Loss of haywire grenades can be mitigated with the Blast Pistol. And since he still wounds vehicles on 5+(In the case of our vehicles)/6+ a haywire is kind of unecessary.

Plastma grenades: One of my least used things he came stock with.

God damn where's my Soul Trap!

Agree on the WWP aswell

Agonizer is worse is worse now but also 21 points cheaper, lacking the reroll to wound if S>T of target. But without my Soul Trap I guess that'd never happend anyway.


The Artifact are gone, sure. But were they any good anyway ? Really ? In my opinion they only removed the illusion of choice. This probably goes all around the army i think. Maybe Djin and Armour of misery was... kindi of worth it ? Maybe ?


Since he come stock with the Shadow Field the unit compared to the last ediition should be 24p, and that I feel like he's worth.

He got greater Movestat compared to before, he can wound everything, he can keep his FNP (only 6+ but better than nothing like it used to be).

He got a bit wose in shooting but also cheaper. (The 24 cost in mind)

I'd assume that WWP and some other nifty things will come in the Codex, and that the codex will come sooner rather than later. (not in 10 years that is)

I think until he gets some other choices I'll be rolling with a Succubus or maybe a Heame som HQ, but then again, the Archon wasn't tha good before, and I think if he gets some cool knick-knacks(Soul Trap) he could be a good choice.

Also remember that we didn't lose any Psychic phase and our models stayed quite the same. So while every army that used Psychic got a bit nerfed, we didn't.

Pros
Hellions and mandrakes are good now
Wyches usefull
Movement better
Flyers are not useless anymore
Stock Archon is cheaper than a beastmaster
The court actually has a role to play now
Hqs gives usefull buffs, and you can field one without robbing the point pool
The three armies in one is a lorefriendly way of playing and is rewarded by extra buffs
Reavers look sort of fun and spamming them was a boring way to play them anyway

Cons
Talos a bit weaker
Grots at same wound level
Vehicle could be even faster
The salt level on the forum threads are draining the fun out of this place

You need to add the 5++ on all the Coven units aswell on that Pro list. The new drugs are nice as are the PFP list.

The Talos lost some of its Ap sure, but other than that its nice, it gets more shooting. Hardy enough to really take it as a total loss. Cronos could also be nice, and getting the old Blast weapnd make sence since it just adds on for more shooting.

Valid points, good sir!

I think the Splinter Cannon change hurt us bad. It cut every Venom's shots in half at maximum range, which negates it having the fast movement.

We also get the upgraded leader for every unit type. Like Acoythyst for Wracks. I feel like I need to give them Hex Rifles to kill Heroes now.

I have six of them, and I used all of them at 18" to use the blasters of my kabalites. No change for my part, other then gluing together more kabalites with them, as they are more usefull on troops then they were before. The thing that will be most annoyng from now on will be surpressing the urge to shout out "jink!" like a tourettes victim everytime the opponent declares a shooting action.

I also want to add Incubi. They finally look like real murder machines.
I will miss the compact size of 3-4, but they are also 18pts a piece and have a 3 attack base.

Sadly, Klaivex loses Rampage but gets 2+WS, 2W, 4 attacks and 3 damage on a 6 to wound. Couple that with a CC oriented PfP table and you got some serious melee power.

I see them being versatile against multi wounded targets with T7 or less or normal high-save units.
Just get a group of 5 with a Venom and let the Venom shoot from Rapid Fire range as well.

It's tempting to think of 10 Incubi in a Raider that will murder most things, but I suppose that is far too much points.


While Initiative is gone, I think their job as assassination units improved quite a lot and they are not as expensive as Reavers. Not to mention that leadership shouldn't be a problem.

Nonetheless, we need to see the game in action. Not only to see how worth melee really is, but also how the meta shifts and how big the default squad-sizes will become.

Hen Tai, the tentacle guy wrote:

The thing that will be most annoyng from now on will be surpressing the urge to shout out "jink!" like a tourettes victim everytime the opponent declares a shooting action.

lmaoshtmsfoaidmt. Imm really waiting for the rest of the rules because if we can't turbo-boost then I'll be triggered.

Correct me if I'm wrong but..

Pros
- Dark Lances are more reliable. AP-4 means removing 3+ saves. Also, the thougher stuff is T8 so wounding on 4+ at worse. 1D6 damage really gives the math to finish vehicles and monsters. Roughly, 1,17 wounds oer lance on T8 3+ and 1,52 wounds per lance on T7 3+.

The squad size change of Incubi means they can no longer be a bodyguard for your Archon in a Venom. Though you can use a Raider instead, and with the nerf to Splinter Canons is that really a con?

Venoms now are probably going to be relegated to transports for crack teams of Incubi and Blasterborn, with Raiders used for everything else. I won't be sad to see the end of Venom-spam, always made me cringe that you had to resort to that to have a fighting chance. Raiders look way better anyway.

@ Eldur
Sounds good. Slightly over 1 wound for each shot or 1.5 wounds per shot.
So let's look at the ork truck. 10 wounds t6 and on a 6 he can turn multiple wounds into 1.
10/1.32=7.57 shots needed
ok, uh maybe try a devilfish 7.89 shots
maybe something though like a chimera/rhino: 6.6 (8.77 with smoke launchers on)
OK go for the really though things now, a wave serpent 12.18 a land raider 16.46 shots
Garguantuan stuff:
Funny thing, shooting at our own raider: 9.86 shots and even our venom needs 7.71 shots yes against our own shooting we are better then the imperium. Unfortunately once we look at s5 or 6 shooting we still die in droves and they suddenly gained twice as much survivability (more if they do not ignore armour saves)

@ demantiae
I personally prefer the look of the venom over the raider. But I dislike spamming any unit, no matter how good (looking) it might be. I prefer a mix of different units, that is why I play wargames to see and play with an army on the table, if I only wanted to use one unit we would not need so many different options.
And the question is if incubi can join anything in a raider, since it mentions incubi or drukhari infantrie (although incubi are drukhari infantry as well, thus you could say I put them in as drukhari infantry and mix with others?).

@Demantiae Page 242 Understrength Units allows you to take units that are not at their minimum strength at the cost of paying points for the missing units. This is by no means an optimum way of playing of course but you do have the ability to do it.

@Meavar So 6,6 dark lances to kill a rhino, sometimes more, sometimes less. I like it, it is reliable, as I don't expect a one shot kill, but they won't get saved by cover as before, which made you waste your whole shooting across the battlefield with poor results.
How many times I continuosly failed to hit/pen/get trough saves/roll something useful in the damage table? Oh, so many.

Now I can do a short mental exercise. The 1D6 damage roll is a multiplier factor for each shot after passing hits, wounds and saves. I'll wound a T8 3+save model with 1 of every 3 DL shots. If it has 20 wounds, in the worst IDEAL case I'll need 60 shots (all rolling 1s to damage), while in the best ideal case I'll need 12 (EDIT) (rolling 5 + to damage. What case is more likeliy ti happen, rolling 1s sixty times or rolling 5+ four times? This is just a simplified image of what the 1D6 damage roll does to mathammer. The more shots you throw at something, the more likely it will fall.

My biggest frustration currently are bladevanes. When they first previewed the transport rules I got really excited. I assumed all the chains and blades works make our vehicles better on combat. But no, they are built-in mandatory downgrades. I know vehicle is S5, but ignore that! It is actually S4 because you have to use a CC weapon. Thanks.

I'm not too worried about the WWP, as others have said, we'll probably get it back. It does sting that everything with deep strike out equivalent got a WWP, and we lost all of our deep strike. So we lost it, and everyone else got it. Oh well, just a temporary setback.

sekac wrote:

and we lost all of our deep strike.

We lost the majority of our deep strike not all, Scrouges can still deepstrike as well as Mandrakes.

But, yeah for a sneaky, underhanded race we pretty much lost everything that makes us that way.

Im not sure you HAVE to use tbe bladevanes but they are -1ap so using them is better than not most of the time.

You can take 3 incubi for the cost of a single th/ss terminator and the incubi win that especially as you should be getti g the charge off most of the time

I've seen alot of people bemoaning wyches as still not killy but im just excited they got their tarpit unit status back... having the only unit that can keep things in ccw and also expecting it to cheese grate things might be a bit much.

@CurstAlchemist
Yep we lost ALOT, i'm hoping Codex will bring osme of it back :/

@helvexis
Termies are also 2+/5++ 2 wounds, can shoot and can DS, they better cost more XD

Naturally but point for point incubi beat them

In melee sure, but Termies also shoot, and they can be placed when and where they want, its not always about winning in 1 v 1 melee.

Am I the only one distressed by the fact we can't see in the dark anymore?

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Am I the only one distressed by the fact we can't see in the dark anymore?

The parasitic and immense city, whose name is whispered across the galaxy in terror. The Dark City, full of unimaginable horrors and wretched withered denizens, it's immense danger only offset only by the inability of its occupants to discern prey from a rather humanoid looking rock, due to the perpetual night that the metropolis is named for.