Letter to GW about our wishes and requests

I've done the stats. The format is different. If someone else wants to jump in and format it the same, feel free. Otherwise, I will try and do so tomorrow

Wow, i hadn't imagined that the splinter rifle would win the efficiency competition against EVERY target.
Tells a lot about how good our AI guns are.
Thanks !

Sorry but the math is wrong at least on Liq for 5+. You are saying Liq does 1.75 vs T3 Sv5+ which you got from 3.5 shots, wound on 4+, ap 2 average so no save. But in reality liquifier does not do 1.75 vs T3 Sv5+, because 1/3 of the time you will roll a 1 for ap, and then they get a 6+ save, while there is no corresponding benefit to rolling a 3 for ap

The real number is approximately 1.653. Can I suggest you use Lord Splata's calculator to check the numbers?

First thing that come to my mind about poison is: variety. Nature and Men are capable of producing different kind of poisons. So why not making a corner stone?

It would be fluffy yet competitive if we could get different sorts of poison. Neuro Toxin which inhibits Psychic Spells or reduces by 1 on psychic tests. Blood Toxins could reduce the chance to hit. Necrotising Toxin could give an AP on our to wound rolls, and so on. Somewhere there might be a toxin which can melt steel, I guess.

We'll call it jatfuel...

I think there are already different kinds of poison are there not? Such as the Needle Pistol being poison 2+.

I think poison is what it is...which is better than having lasguns.

The Red King wrote:

We'll call it jatfuel...

Can it melt warpsteel beams?

As for poisons, I think we already get a pretty decent array of weaponry that fits a lot of roles, maybe different poisons on Wych or Haemy weapons would be cool, as for our guns, I can deal with the way they are

I don't really want my Kabs and Wracks to become the Deathwatch of poison weaponry, because if they were to become such a unit, they would double in points, and that's not the point...

Also, RWJF missiles. We have 3 options, and use the same all the time. So i'd rather have one good-cheap poison than access to a list of mediocre ones.


But i think that synergy with poison weaponry would be cool. Lhaemies giving +1 to wound for nearby poisons, for example.

Lord Nakariial wrote:

The Red King wrote:

We'll call it jatfuel...

Can it melt warpsteel beams?

As for poisons, I think we already get a pretty decent array of weaponry that fits a lot of roles, maybe different poisons on Wych or Haemy weapons would be cool, as for our guns, I can deal with the way they are

I am going to have to respectfully disagree.

We have a cripplingly small list of weapon types: Poison, Darklight, Disintegration.
Shredders, Haywire Blasters, and Heat Lances are all non-viable, being expensive and inefficient at their roles (I believe someone added stats that show our splinter rifles are the most cost-effective anti-infantry weapons in all cases, the heat lance is massively overcosted and only available to a few units, the haywire blaster is a bad joke, and Coven weapons cannot effectively be fielded in significant numbers). Our list of weapons our army can field in considerable numbers is very small, and more than half of those options are overcosted and outright bad at their roles.

Dark Eldar in this edition can currently make deadly lists. However, these deadly lists generally revolve around spamming as much darklight/disintegration weaponry as we can, rather than fielding a varied and interesting army.

We have lots of weapons, but most are not playable.
So instead of creating new ones, fix the ones that don't work (80% of them).

If HWB, HL, Shredder, Ichor Injector, Liquies, etc. were viable, we would have a healthy weapon pool.

FuelDrop wrote:

Dark Eldar in this edition can currently make deadly lists. However, these deadly lists generally revolve around spamming as much darklight/disintegration weaponry as we can, rather than fielding a varied and interesting army.

This ^^ is something that should be emphasised heavily in the letter.

Will be honest, actually tried to convince my friends to let me drop the Dracon from my trueborn squads and replace him with a regular squaddie while still paying the full price. Dracon not being able to take a special/heavy weapon is a significant detriment to the squad's efficiency (dropping him would mean I could get 2 more blasters onto a raider, an increase of 25% of my firepower!).

A running theme with DE seems to be that our leaders slow the Kabals down. More Squaddies with big guns > squad leaders.

Space Marine Sergeants can take combi-weapons. Exarchs can take weapons that fit with their squads. Why do DE have melee only squad leaders for shooty squads? Make them optional so we can start ignoring them.

Better still, make them functional. If you have a shooty squad then let the squad leader take shooty options. If the Dracon could take a blaster (or even had access to some more esoteric ranged weaponry) then that would complement the squad rather than detract from it.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Better still, make them functional. If you have a shooty squad then let the squad leader take shooty options. If the Dracon could take a blaster (or even had access to some more esoteric ranged weaponry) then that would complement the squad rather than detract from it.

... that's crazy talk.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Better still, make them functional. If you have a shooty squad then let the squad leader take shooty options. If the Dracon could take a blaster (or even had access to some more esoteric ranged weaponry) then that would complement the squad rather than detract from it.

...or put emphasis on synergies. Let him get a small multiplier with 3": Ignore -1 to Hit for being moved, re-roll one dice to hit or to wound, improved poison, and so on. We can easily put up a list of usefull squad buffs.

I don't mind you respectfully disagreeing, but every army has subpar weaponry, it's the way it is. And if you have something that does it's job well, then I don't see the issue. Yes there's some room for niches to be filled and hopefully they will deal with this. I would love heat lances to become a special form of sniper projectile, but that's just me.

Lord Nakariial wrote:

I don't mind you respectfully disagreeing, but every army has subpar weaponry, it's the way it is. And if you have something that does it's job well, then I don't see the issue. Yes there's some room for niches to be filled and hopefully they will deal with this. I would love heat lances to become a special form of sniper projectile, but that's just me.

An army have a few bad weapons is not the same as DE having almost all bad weapon options.

i actually cannot recall the last time i even considered using something that was not blaster/darklance

this letter should ask for more internal balance, imo. that's our real problem. maybe even with just point tweaks.

edit: also, about leadersbeing useless...just giving one reroll to hit to one of his squadmates could be extremely useful. we lack combos and useful auras, compared to anyone else.

edit2: also, i always wondered why our monastic cousins have mobility option for their leadrs while ours has to take a taxi every time. we used to have biker archons too!

I think it is safe to say that auras could be expanded upon in the codex...having seen what GW have done with recent codex releases then there feels like a lot to look forward to. DE have a specific game style which could be made unique and full of fluff...I am quite positive about what we might get in the codex.

I have one question for you all :

Are we ready to send this now ? I know we could tweak and add/remove things forever, but the earliest it hits home, the more effect it will have. And i think it could be sent this week end.

Whady'all think ?

I agree Mppqlmd. Good job man!

Gone through it again and made a few suggestions, mainly with spelling and format rather than content.

Other than that, looks good to me!

Im already looking forward to their response.

I corrected the Liquifier against T3 5+, and i put the AI guns in the same formating as the rest.
Let's give this another 24 hours so everyone can came final remarks.
Do we have ideas for an email adress, and Social Media tag, someplace to put this gem ?

really nice letter. looks like the glaring issues are covered. let's hope for the best!