About the letter to GW

I appreciate the effort, and I sympathize with the sentiment, but I think you guys are missing the mark!
If you want DE to be "fun and fluffy" and have ZERO chance at tournaments, might as well leave them as they are now. No changes, because adding a single wound to a Grotesque will not in any way make them suddenly viable.
Giving reavers better weapon options won't magically make them immune to autocannons, or make their cost suddenly worth it.

I agree with a lot of what you guys say, and if everything was close to equal I would say "send it!"
But even if every single change you ask for was implemented, every single one, would we be on par with Demons? Marines? Grey Knights? Heck, even the new Guard is over the top.

Nope. If we get everything you are asking for we will still be bottom tier. In fact, the VERY bottom tier.

To make us on-par with the powerlevel they are putting out:
Splinter cannons are twin linked stock.
reavers are 11 points, drop to 1 wound, caltrops back to what they were but causing mortal wounds
Wyches 4++ save if they are within 1" of an enemy, and the other changes in your letter are implemented
Talos- 2d6 attacks ap -4 damage =2.
Cronos- DE units within 9" do not take fear tests and add +1 to their feel no pain roll.
Shredder- Flamer, D6 attacks. If held by trueborn- rerollable
Blaster- same as is now but trueborn make them assault 2
Heat Lance- 18"- all shots count as half range. Also needs a points decrease even with this ability.
Haywire- str 8 ap-3 damage d6. Does mortal wounds to and can reroll the damage roll on vehicles/walkers.

etc Etc etc... maybe even splinter weapons do an extra mortal wound on a roll of a "6" or the ap is -4 on a "6".

Now I know you all think I'm nuts. That what I think we need is stupidly over the top.
But if the guard players wrote a letter and said" I want my tanks to be able to move, and oh, let them fire the big gun twice because 40 shots from pask hitting on "2" is not overpowered at all!"
Or "I want to reroll all variable shot weapons. Heavy flamers that auto hit and you can reroll sound fluffy to me!"
or demons...How about 20-30 models casting smite that cost a few points a piece. In fact, for 30 points, i want a model with smite and one that does d6 versus vehicles 24" away!

Marines... I want a model that allows everything within range of him to reroll all to hits and all to wounds! All of them!

Grey knights- Yeah, if you can put my lord in a nemesis dreadknight chasis that would be great...

While our DE lords are hoofing it across the board. Oh, but don't forget... we are "blisteringly fast!"
For crying out loud, why cant an archon afford a bike? or a skyboard?

Oh well. Just my "rant" against shooting to low. Because if they give us what we are asking for, we WILL end up regretting it.

Over-asking is only a valuable tactic when you have leverage.

We have none. The player input from the DE community is not required for the company to stay financially solvent, or even to keep our product line solvent.

Shooting for the moon is an effective (if sometimes unethical) strategy in negotiations. Unfortunately, we're not in a position to be able to negotiate. We're only in a position to be able to request. And a request is more likely to be granted if it's reasonable.

GW is not a pizza delivery service, where you send a letter saying "I want a pepperoni", then you end up regretting it because you forgot to ask for extra-cheese.

In the Indices meta, DE were powerful, but incredibly boring and repetitive to play (only 3-4 valid units). The letter is pointing that out.
But it makes no sense to compare Deathguard/Astra Militarum/CSM/SM with Dark Eldar. Every single Index army (except maybe orks...) looks dumb and UP when comparing to a codex-army. We can only assume that, when we get a codex, we'll be around the codex general level of power.


The letter is not about power-oriented demands. It's GW's job to assure that factions are equally powerful and, while they are not always good at that, it's not our job to make sure they succeed.
The letter thus isn't about externa balance. It's about internal balance. It's about the fact that 15% of our units outshine severely the other 85%. It's about the fact that, to succeed in the game, we need to play the same 3 units over and over again.


Also, we indeed aimed to sound as reasonnable as possible. We can't dictate anything to these guys, and they are not going to go "Ah, let's do everything the letter says, and nothing else". They are, AT BEST, going to take it as suggestions, casting away what they don't like and MAYBE taking some ideas from it. So the power-level of what we ask is irrelevant, as we are only giving them ideas to make the army more flavored and fluffy.


I'm not trying to prove you wrong, i sympathize with your feeling that we might be disappointed again (we all have that fear around here...), but there is only so much you can do with a simple letter : suggestions. Fun, fluffy suggestions. Asking for power-level changes is pointless.

Mppqlmd wrote:

GW is not a pizza delivery service, where you send a letter saying "I want a pepperoni", then you end up regretting it because you forgot to ask for extra-cheese.

In the Indices meta, DE were powerful, but incredibly boring and repetitive to play (only 3-4 valid units). The letter is pointing that out.
But it makes no sense to compare Deathguard/Astra Militarum/CSM/SM with Dark Eldar. Every single Index army (except maybe orks...) looks dumb and UP when comparing to a codex-army. We can only assume that, when we get a codex, we'll be around the codex general level of power.


The letter is not about power-oriented demands. It's GW's job to assure that factions are equally powerful and, while they are not always good at that, it's not our job to make sure they succeed.
The letter thus isn't about externa balance. It's about internal balance. It's about the fact that 15% of our units outshine severely the other 85%. It's about the fact that, to succeed in the game, we need to play the same 3 units over and over again.


Also, we indeed aimed to sound as reasonnable as possible. We can't dictate anything to these guys, and they are not going to go "Ah, let's do everything the letter says, and nothing else". They are, AT BEST, going to take it as suggestions, casting away what they don't like and MAYBE taking some ideas from it. So the power-level of what we ask is irrelevant, as we are only giving them ideas to make the army more flavored and fluffy.


I'm not trying to prove you wrong, i sympathize with your feeling that we might be disappointed again (we all have that fear around here...), but there is only so much you can do with a simple letter : suggestions. Fun, fluffy suggestions. Asking for power-level changes is pointless.

This.

I am pretty sure we will get some powerful options - this is not so much about adding power but adding character and fixing a few under powered things. IMO, the list of potential solutions could easily be 10x the length of the current article.

So i gather basically what most Drukhari/Dark Eldar fans are asking for, is to be able to make a list consistent of pure Dark Eldar that will have a chance of winning tournaments/ if you play strategically sound and the dice doesn´t hate you (too much), we have a chance of actually come in on first place in tournaments.

If that´s the fact where´s the letter and to what e-mail do i send it?

It's been sent an replied-to already The info is on its way.

Then i shall wait for that    
I really want Dark Eldar to do well, because it´s really hard to get motivated into painting finish painting my army, when the rumor is that almost no matter what you do, a pure DE army will never be able to get first place in the really serious tournaments.

Quote :

when the rumor is that almost no matter what you do, a pure DE army will never be able to get first place in the really serious tournaments

Meta comes and goes. If anyone told you last edition that T'au, Necrons and CWE would be absolute trash, and that the meta would be disputed between the Imperial Guard and the CSM, would you have believed it ?

True true it would have been hard to believe and i do feel a little bad for T´au players out there whose armies are more or less trash now.
And i don´t mind that there are armies out there who are easier to win with than others.
Problem as i understand it though is that certain armies have become so strong that it´s almost impossible to win against them.
That is something i hope GW will do away with, so that every army will have a chance of winning.

The only concerns I have had with the letter is what changes will the codex bring and how it will affect what we asked for.

My personal wishlist for DE is far simpler than what most people have posted. I want the army to match their fluff.

If speed is going to be our best feature then we should be faster than everything else. If our units can slide in and out of the shadows then they should do that. I don’t need an army with an auto win mode - just one whose abilities match what’s described so I have a fair chance.

clively wrote:

My personal wishlist for DE is far simpler than what most people have posted.  I want the army to match their fluff.

If speed is going to be our best feature then we should be faster than everything else.  If our units can slide in and out of the shadows then they should do that.   I don’t need an army with an auto win mode - just one whose abilities match what’s described so I have a fair chance.

That.

And plastic Grotesques.

Bottom tier xD Seriously what are you lot doing? I've thrashed new marines and Guard xD I even take units you lot consider "useless" (granted they're not amazing but they're damn cool) such as Sslyth, a Medusae and a Lhamaen.

Go read my battle report from Tuesday last week.

URIEN wrote:

Bottom tier xD Seriously what are you lot doing? I've thrashed new marines and Guard xD I even take units you lot consider "useless" (granted they're not amazing but they're damn cool) such as Sslyth, a Medusae and a Lhamaen.

Go read my battle report from Tuesday last week.

If you're thrashing IG with anything then the IG player is doing something very badly wrong.

If that's the case then what about the marine player? On a fair note if you read the battle report it will give you some insight, but I have told him to try Cadian and come up with a better list. I'm all up for helping him be a better player. Not to say he's bad, he's got plenty of units to choose from and can come up with some decent lists.

Actually tell some of my mates about all the suggestions you lot are coming up with and they're in disbelief xD Granted I've put suggestions forward but nothing like mortal wounding splinter weaponry xD

*Been editing original post to save multi-posting*

URIEN wrote:

If that's the case then what about the marine player?

Same thing applies. Seriously, IG are the undisputed top tier army right now. If they are being thrashed by anyone then the IG player is making bad mistakes somewhere along the line, either tactically or in the list building process.

Like I say, read the battle report for the Guard. The Marine list was solid, 2 Land raiders, 10 term's and plenty other stuff. Before the codex I was experiencing Conscript spam and what not like everyone else. I'll be playing the Guard player tonight and hopefully he's listened to my suggestions. To which I may write another BR to tell you of my experience against a poss' Russ heavy list.

I''m simply amazed by how many of you seem to be having trouble. Only one faction has given me trouble in a game and that was Ynnari, very in my face and were hitting hard as soon as the Yncarne came down. He's what started to muller me. I''m yet to experience some other armies as I don't go to my store for games any more as the manager there, who's leaving thank god. has allowed the store to have a heavy and boring atmosphere and I never seem to be able to get a game in.

*grammar edit*

Your local meta however is not necessarily reflective of the general state of the game. Look at tournament results and you'll see that your experiences don't match the overall performance of the army (and your opponent certainly doesn't match the overall performance of IG). Can DE win games? Yes. Are we going to win tournaments? No. Are we balanced against other Index armies? Probably. Are we balanced against Codex armies? Absolutely not!

Can DE win games, certainly. Can we win at tournaments? Well now is our best chance and without allies. Have I played in a 40K tourn'? No, though I would love to and give it a shot. Are we balanced? I dunno, you lot seem to think we need more. Are we balanced against Codices? dunno, we just don't have as much stuff to pick from like wargear and strategems. Again you seem to think we need more, there's a thread about how Tyranids have our "speed".

@Skulnbonz To stay on the topic, IMO dark eldars have always been underpowered if strictly compared to other armies. Everytime I looked for the first time to a DE codex I was all like "Wow sounds great and fun and doing damage", and  everytime i glanced at a Eldar or Harlies codex I just wanted to have their rules and point cost (fusion pistol vs blaster pistol for example ? Or auto rending on eldars ? Harlies movement and melee power ?).

At some point I even seriously considered playing a Eldar army with my DE miniatures.

After several years, I'm just playing for the fun of playing. I know that we can be somewhat competitive (just pack blastborns in venom and spam and voila) but I like my miniatures, always want to play a wild variety of them, and I will continue to do that. But I'm well aware that I won't be winning most of my games, and still enjoy them, and that's totally fine with me now. We just have to accept it ^^'

Quote :

Can DE win games? Yes. Are we going to win tournaments? No. Are we balanced against other Index armies? Probably. Are we balanced against Codex armies? Absolutely not!

This. DE was in a pretty good spot in the Index meta. They are however, completly underpowered (like every index faction) against Codex factions.

They also have no reliable AI to deal with the IG meta (the fact that you defeated an IG player doesn't prove anything. I've beaten IG, and i can still admit that it's an impossible match-up for DE).

Are DE bottom tier ? No. But the problem is that to win competitively with them, you spam the same 3 units over and over again. The letter was about creating diversity : allowing us to play more than 3 units and still be somewhat good.

Just seen the results from the first 40K GT at Warhammer World (ie, official GW tournament). 83 players and only 1 Drukhari army, which finished 60th.

Link at all? would like to have a nosey, don't normally pay attention to these things. Will it include lists as well?

How does one place at #49, get two first bloods, two slay the warlords, and have 0 points of enemy units destroyed?