Preorders for our Codex and new Start Collecting box next week!

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Perhaps there is a special rule to make patrol detachment award CP's? That could be a good way to make the separate armies shtick a lot more viable.

I bloody called it!
Pretty stoked! Great set of rules so far. Taking all 3 elements is great, and even the warlord traits we do have right now are decent to take for 1cp. Good start so far, my detachment worries are abated.

Hard to say if the extra warlord traits stratagem will be worth it given we don't know what our other traits/stratagems are, but I'm reasonably confident that we will get plenty of warlord traits to choose from which will probably make the cp worth spending.

The extra Warlord trait is pretty much already worth it. Giving Lelith the bonus attacks and letting her rip without running the risk of giving up Slay the Warlord isn't bad at all.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Hard to say if the extra warlord traits stratagem will be worth it given we don't know what our other traits/stratagems are, but I'm reasonably confident that we will get plenty of warlord traits to choose from which will probably make the cp worth spending.  

Maybe but that's part of the point: It's an option, it's not that expensive honestly at only 1 CP, but it allows you to NOT get bogged down in forced choice which is something we've all been fearing.

If you don't want to take an Archon and kabalites, you don't have to. Nothing is lost that isn't already lost from not fielding kabal units. But if you DO take them alongside your other units you are not losing nearly as much as we potentially could have.

And THAT is what excited me the most. Sure, we still have a TON of questions and concerns but to me we're one article in and we're seeing they've done stuff that at least tries to alleviate our concerns of mix factions.

I do agree with you there, the raiding force system and the extra warlord traits stratagem will be excellent for letting you build a mixed force of DE while actually keeping all the unique benefits kabals/cults/covens are going to get. Can't wait to see what those traits will be.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Perhaps there is a special rule to make patrol detachment award CP's? That could be a good way to make the separate armies shtick a lot more viable.

I bloody called it!
Pretty stoked! Great set of rules so far. Taking all 3 elements is great, and even the warlord traits we do have right now are decent to take for 1cp. Good start so far, my detachment worries are abated.

Hard to say if the extra warlord traits stratagem will be worth it given we don't know what our other traits/stratagems are, but I'm reasonably confident that we will get plenty of warlord traits to choose from which will probably make the cp worth spending.  

At 2cps I'd agree with you. At 1cp it's a no brainer. Even with the warlord traits we have now it's a good idea. 1cp to give a haemonculus heal d3 wounds and the archon reroll 1s? Imagine what sort of wargear buffs/relics well get to make those even better. If we get a Djinn blade that has a flat to wound value of 2 or even 3+ it's a great use of 1cp. If lelith keeps blood dancer, she's golden. With whatever warlord traits we'll get (and I'm thinking what we have now are amongst the most mediocre) it's a great use of 1cp.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

I do agree with you there, the raiding force system and the extra warlord traits stratagem will be excellent for letting you build a mixed force of DE while actually keeping all the unique benefits kabals/cults/covens are going to get. Can't wait to see what those traits will be.

Exactly. And there are some debating whether it's simply worth it to take battalions over patrols. If you think it is, great. Nothing from the little information we've gotten says you can't do that. In fact they've hinted that while they've done a lot to make it work to field the entire codex's worth of options together, there may be something as an extra bonus if you DO just field one of the subfactions for your whole army. And that sounds very enticing, but most importantly...just more options.

"More options" is deceptive. There are usually only 1 or 2 options, those being the best, and the others are not options so much as varying flavors of "wrong".

You have the option of bringing Rubric Marines in your Thousand Suns army, but that codex is truly "codex Tzangors"

You have the option of ruining Saim Hann craftworld and getting jump-shoot-jump scatbikes again, but you'd be shot off the board.

You have the option of bringing fortifications but no one ever does.

You have the option of bringing Tau HQs other than Commanders, but so many players didn't that GW had to force them to.

I'm not expecting all our options to be good, but I'm expecting one or two to be usable. What they will be is anyone's guess.

There's a good chance you're right, there will be one or two options that will be considered the most competitive, but I'm far more concerned with getting 3-4 decent options. I don't need to play a hyper competitive list all the time, I'll be very content with more options that maybe aren't top of the line competitive but keep the army interesting to build army list wise, and I think that's exactly what the raiding force will let us do.

TeenageAngst wrote:

"More options" is deceptive. There are usually only 1 or 2 options, those being the best, and the others are not options so much as varying flavors of "wrong".

You have the option of bringing Rubric Marines in your Thousand Suns army, but that codex is truly "codex Tzangors"

You have the option of ruining Saim Hann craftworld and getting jump-shoot-jump scatbikes again, but you'd be shot off the board.

You have the option of bringing fortifications but no one ever does.

You have the option of bringing Tau HQs other than Commanders, but so many players didn't that GW had to force them to.

I'm not expecting all our options to be good, but I'm expecting one or two to be usable. What they will be is anyone's guess.

So if I may, putting sarcasm and spite aside, what suggestions might you have for this army? Even general one's?

Ubernoob1 wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

"More options" is deceptive. There are usually only 1 or 2 options, those being the best, and the others are not options so much as varying flavors of "wrong".

You have the option of bringing Rubric Marines in your Thousand Suns army, but that codex is truly "codex Tzangors"

You have the option of ruining Saim Hann craftworld and getting jump-shoot-jump scatbikes again, but you'd be shot off the board.

You have the option of bringing fortifications but no one ever does.

You have the option of bringing Tau HQs other than Commanders, but so many players didn't that GW had to force them to.

I'm not expecting all our options to be good, but I'm expecting one or two to be usable. What they will be is anyone's guess.

So if I may, putting sarcasm and spite aside, what suggestions might you have for this army? Even general one's?

If I'm not mistaken TeenageAngst approaches army viability with a tournament mindset. Of course things will be spam. That's what the competitive scene is. Is that the correct attitude to take? I don't think you can really say. If you're a hardcore tournament player, than there's probably reason to be disappointed in everything. However, TeenageAngst seems to take this one step further in wanting every option to be tournament viable, which is just an impossible demand, hence why the constant cynicism.

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Ubernoob1 wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

"More options" is deceptive. There are usually only 1 or 2 options, those being the best, and the others are not options so much as varying flavors of "wrong".

You have the option of bringing Rubric Marines in your Thousand Suns army, but that codex is truly "codex Tzangors"

You have the option of ruining Saim Hann craftworld and getting jump-shoot-jump scatbikes again, but you'd be shot off the board.

You have the option of bringing fortifications but no one ever does.

You have the option of bringing Tau HQs other than Commanders, but so many players didn't that GW had to force them to.

I'm not expecting all our options to be good, but I'm expecting one or two to be usable. What they will be is anyone's guess.

So if I may, putting sarcasm and spite aside, what suggestions might you have for this army? Even general one's?

If I'm not mistaken TeenageAngst approaches army viability with a tournament mindset. Of course things will be spam. That's what the competitive scene is. Is that the correct attitude to take? I don't think you can really say. If you're a hardcore tournament player, than there's probably reason to be disappointed in everything. However, TeenageAngst seems to take this one step further in wanting every option to be tournament viable, which is just an impossible demand, hence why the constant cynicism.

And that's partly why I am honestly curious to know what a good game of warhammer 40k, and what a good dark eldar codex looks like to him. Claiming that dark eldar will be entirely broken OP because of our razorwing birds, but then the moment they get nerfed we're back to being terrible, all because 8th edition is the most broken edition ever because they even allowed raozrwings and conscripts to be so good in the first place...I just want to know what a non-broken 40k edition looks like to him. Because I can guarantee no matter what it is, people will be in disagreement about it, especially since plenty of people are in disagreement over the edition as it stands.

Ubernoob1 wrote:

Bad-baden-baden wrote:

Ubernoob1 wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

"More options" is deceptive. There are usually only 1 or 2 options, those being the best, and the others are not options so much as varying flavors of "wrong".

You have the option of bringing Rubric Marines in your Thousand Suns army, but that codex is truly "codex Tzangors"

You have the option of ruining Saim Hann craftworld and getting jump-shoot-jump scatbikes again, but you'd be shot off the board.

You have the option of bringing fortifications but no one ever does.

You have the option of bringing Tau HQs other than Commanders, but so many players didn't that GW had to force them to.

I'm not expecting all our options to be good, but I'm expecting one or two to be usable. What they will be is anyone's guess.

So if I may, putting sarcasm and spite aside, what suggestions might you have for this army? Even general one's?

If I'm not mistaken TeenageAngst approaches army viability with a tournament mindset. Of course things will be spam. That's what the competitive scene is. Is that the correct attitude to take? I don't think you can really say. If you're a hardcore tournament player, than there's probably reason to be disappointed in everything. However, TeenageAngst seems to take this one step further in wanting every option to be tournament viable, which is just an impossible demand, hence why the constant cynicism.

And that's partly why I am honestly curious to know what a good game of warhammer 40k, and what a good dark eldar codex looks like to him. Claiming that dark eldar will be entirely broken OP because of our razorwing birds, but then the moment they get nerfed we're back to being terrible, all because 8th edition is the most broken edition ever because they even allowed raozrwings and conscripts to be so good in the first place...I just want to know what a non-broken 40k edition looks like to him. Because I can guarantee no matter what it is, people will be in disagreement about it, especially since plenty of people are in disagreement over the edition as it stands.

That's exactly it - I sincerely believe that, no matter what he might say, TeenageAngst will never be content with Dark Eldar. That's fine, but at some point you need to temper your expectations a tad.

I would MUCH rather have a tournament viable army, so that Dark Eldar have a chance to hit the top tables in tournaments, and let the fluffy players tone it down for their friendly matches than have a crappy codex to make the fluffernutters happy, but leaving tournament players gnashing their teeth.

So to that reguard, Damn right I want every unit to be tournament viable!
Will I get it? no, but that does not stop me wanting it. :-)

I hold the 7th edition Eldar codex as the high water mark of a "good" codex. Not in relation to the rest of the game, it was overpowered as hell, but it had almost perfect internal balance. Some options were obviously better than others but the gap between the good and the bad was narrow and you could make almost any army you wanted and have it be quite playable outside a competitive format. Even within the competitive format there was variation and room to wiggle different units around.

Quote :

So if I may, putting sarcasm and spite aside, what suggestions might you have for this army? Even general one's?

Bonuses for bringing multiple parts of the faction to the detriment of running any one part of it. They should build us like a Decurion, where if we include units from covens, kabal, and cults we get stacking benefits. Overlapping auras, a bigger pool of stratagems and warlord traits, maybe a bonus to the power from pain table, and what have you. Reducing the army so it plays with only one third of its model line at any time should be a thematic challenge and the sum of its parts should be greater than any one subfaction.

And before anyone says it, this is different from what they're proposing right now. What they're saying is basically throwing us a bone for rounding out detachment slots with our own forces instead of allying in others. 3 patrol detachments will still function as 3 separate armies with no overlapping functional benefits. The synergy outside of what the individual faction/unit brings to the table is non-existent still, and as such opens itself up to comparisons with Eldar and Harlequins. Why for instance would I bring a patrol of Wych Cult if a patrol of Harlequins does so much better at the same task? The answer is an extra command point, which honestly isn't enough to sway a decision.

The point I'm trying to make is they're breaking us up without any real bonuses given for doing so. Leaving aside the glaring fact you can't take 6 patrol detachments in a tournament, the benefit of a couple CP isn't worth the tax. The subfactions still operate in isolation and their lack of synergy means armies that compliment each other will outperform us. Ynnari/Eldar, CSM, and Imperial soup do this so well and that's what makes them incredibly powerful armies.

Skulnbonz wrote:

I would MUCH rather have a tournament viable army, so that Dark Eldar have a chance to hit the top tables in tournaments, and let the fluffy players tone it down for their friendly matches than have a crappy codex to make the fluffernutters happy, but leaving tournament players gnashing their teeth.

So to that reguard, Damn right I want every unit to be tournament viable!
Will I get it? no, but that does not stop me wanting it. :-)

I guess this is where we differ - I hold up Tyranids as the ideal codex. Not super viable in the tournament scene (excluding Flyrants of course) but has great internal balance with many fun and distinct ways to run the army.

We've seen two rules from our Codex so far and literally all of them provide synergy for bringing multiple Dark Eldar detachments.

Burnage wrote:

We've seen two rules from our Codex so far and literally all of them provide synergy for bringing multiple Dark Eldar detachments.

It might well be the whole of it however.

Burnage wrote:

We've seen two rules from our Codex so far and literally all of them provide synergy for bringing multiple Dark Eldar detachments.

There is a difference between synergy and just getting bonuses. Those bonuses don't mean a thing if the units involved are chopped up in such a way they don't benefit each other by being there.

Bringing a Farseer provides more synergy and benefits the army as a whole more than anything we've seen so far.

So if the rumor about trueborn and blood brides being removed is true, then that means that kabals have 0 elites choices in their mini dex. Am I missing something?

Leninade wrote:

So if the rumor about trueborn and blood brides being removed is true, then that means that kabals have 0 elites choices in their mini dex. Am I missing something?

Mandrakes and incubi will be available to all factions.

Mandrakes, Incubi and Scourges are universal entries.

Quote :

So if the rumor about trueborn and blood brides being removed is true, then that means that kabals have 0 elites choices in their mini dex. Am I missing something?

There's technically the Court of the Archon, unless they turn it into a merc faction as well, of course.

This does bring up an interesting point though, Kabal and Covens lack Fast Attack, and Cult lacks Heavy Support.

It just really kind of astounds me how they're taking an army perfectly able to fill a Brigade and making it so they, well, don't.

I mean that's a fair point but at the same time they are giving us an interesting different take with the raider force system, which I'm at least going to give a try before just straight up deciding for sure that brigades are better.

The disappearance of trueborn/bloodbrides seems to have no solid basis to me. Yes GW has gotten rid of units without models to represent them in the past, but chaos space marines still have chosen when there aren't really any models to represent them, so we may very well keep trueborn as they are similar to chosen in their role. I'll withhold judgement until we know for sure if they are going or not.

Quote :

I mean that's a fair point but at the same time they are giving us an interesting different take with the raider force system, which I'm at least going to give a try before just straight up deciding for sure that brigades are better

That's true. I'm not saying that Brigades are better than Raiding Parties (for those who read my comparison between Patrols and Battalions, that was ironclad evidence against the former in a fantasy world where a Patrols requires two troops, I apologize for my mistake), but I really find it interesting how, essentially GW has chosen to slightly bend their formerly rigid detachment rules to accommodate for the split, instead of not splitting us to begin with.

So far I'm liking what I'm seeing. They have thought about it and taken a different angle to other armies that is thematic and losses different and interesting challenges.
What makes me excited about this is because it is thoughtful there is a great probability of the rest of the codex being thoughtful and well designed.
Call me optimistic about it if you will, but Ive got years to be pessimistic about the Dex after its release!

Tournament wise, sure internal balance needs to be the ultimate goal, but I appreciate gws chapter approved system and other balance changes to allow them to create that balance if they miss the mark the first time. (Even if the first year it was done it was atrocious).