Codex: Drukhai Preview – Assembling Your Raiding Party

The Shredder wrote:

Evil Space Elves wrote:

Stoked to see people getting excited about the codex for once. While I'm not 100% drinking the Koolaide, I'm excited for 95%+ of all the changes and flavor that has been added. Old school Archons will see flavor that has been missing since some of the 3rd edition wargear.

If that includes skyboards and jetbikes, I will chug an entire gallon of the koolaide.

Like I said, 95%!.

Looks like I need to get some Wracks if I'm going to have 3 patrols! Exciting stuff!

I dont see why 3 detachments or no duplicates are considered as such hard rules. They are just "suggested" limitations for matched play. It literally says to adapt them to fit our needs.

I think people see them as hard rules because the majority of tournaments have a hard cap of 3 detachments, and tournament rules often filter down to casual play depending on your group. I can say for sure though that in the official rules there's no such restriction, if you want to run the 6 patrols you can. I think 3 will be plenty though for your average list, if I ever wanted a little more flexibility/extra cp over the +4 you get from the 3 patrols I'd probably just add on an extra vanguard/outrider/spearhead detachment.

"I dont see why 3 detachments or no duplicates are considered as such hard rules. They are just "suggested" limitations for matched play. It literally says to adapt them to fit our needs."

Not matched play per say but tournament format rules make them hard rules. Most people are not talking about matched play at home or shop with friends, but at a tournament where these thugs are spelled out

Here is my CP needs before a game starts. Worst case scenario. 1 warlord trait. 1 extra relic. 3 webway. So 5 before the game. Yeh I think I want to try for the mid teens in CP.

Mid teens in CPs is pretty rare for most armies, you really have to make an effort to maximize cp if you want that many with the exception of very cheap armies pts wise like guard. I'll be happy with starting the game with 6cp plus maybe a warlord trait that let's us regain cp on a +5 like many other factions have. With 3 warlords I'd feel even better giving up one to recycling cp.

I LIVE

Evil Space Elves wrote:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Quite an interesting idea. Now you could potentially have several sub-factions with separate special rules is that right? So two different Cult patrols using different special rules? You could have one that uses hellions and a rule that buffs them best and then a reaver cult with a different rule for them as well.

Is that correct?

You are absolutely correct! When you see the cult special rules you will start to see why Outrider detachments of Reavers, Hellions, and other things work. Add combat drug effects=good times.

Also, I get the Internet tournament scene nerd rage at the mention of the 6 Patrol thing. That was clearly put in for more narrative play games. In playtesting I used the triple patrol build to great effect, skipped the hell out of the six patrol deal since it's just easier to take a battalion and a couple of smaller Outrider detachments. People that are getting stuck on the six Patrol thing not being tournament legal are missing the larger context of the rest of the codex. There is no requirement to run that build!!! (Internets gonna internet)

Stoked to see people getting excited about the codex for once. While I'm not 100% drinking the Koolaide, I'm excited for 95%+ of all the changes and flavor that has been added. Old school Archons will see flavor that has been missing since some of the 3rd edition wargear. GW wanted to get the flavor of the army right and worked a lot of our suggestions in. Our playtesting opponents all commented that the army felt fast, terrifying, and brutal like a Realspace Raid should be.

lol, I'm going to pass on any positive read from GW playtesters until I see the book myself.

While I can respect that we're all in this hobby for different reasons, I've been down this road enough times to know we will widly differ from our opinions.

I will do a full-blown review once I have it in my hands.  Which should be soon.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

I'm excited for 95%+ of all the changes and flavor that has been added. Old school Archons will see flavor that has been missing since some of the 3rd edition wargear.

Oh how I miss thee, Tormentor Helm, Punisher and Combat Drug dispenser...

At the least, I miss people being genuinely fearful of running into an Archon.

ESE's replies have been suitably artful here. They have sold the positivity, while still leaving the open the chance the 5% that is missing is the Reaver jetbike option.

I'm not sure if it has been stated but is anyone else noting the parallels that seem to exist between 7th Corsairs and the current leaks? Our faction rules are called Obsessions (kinda like the Corsair Prince's of 7th) and the raiding force is kinda like the old coterie detachment.

Plus tomorrow we're getting the "militant" kabal. Which means we'll probably see the Black Heart Should be fun!

I am pumped to see what is in this codex. The CP thing sounds neat but the extra relic /warlord traits sounds even better.

HERO wrote:

lol, I'm going to pass on any positive read from GW playtesters until I see the book myself.

While I can respect that we're all in this hobby for different reasons, I've been down this road enough times to know we will widly differ from our opinions.

I will do a full-blown review once I have it in my hands.  Which should be soon.

As you should. It's a big hobby, people approach the game and play it from a lot of different angles.

Not targeting your comment directly, but it is interesting to read the salt and "of course they're positive, they have to be" comments regarding GW playtesters in these threads. I understand there are certain people that do this as part of their business and have to polish a turd for political/business reasons. Not trying to claim absolute objectiveness here, but some people are brought in as we were to provide fresh feedback and input. We were paid nothing, gain nothing by being positive, and volunteered our time in hopes of making the codex of the army that we've loved through thick and thin the best representation of Drukhari on the tabletop possible to avoid the trash codex that was our 7th iteration. My comments have been intentionally vague to avoid breaking an NDA, and the absence of anything critical to say about the codex has nothing to do with cozying up with GW and everything to do with not being able to comment without breaking the NDA. In fact, we wouldn't even be commenting at all if GW hadn't announced our involvement at LVO.

TLDR, of course some will disagree with our assessment. Nobody should take our word for it or the word of any other podcasters/blogger/YouTuber/whatever until they try it for themselves. Units that I felt needed to be better to earn their table time are better, the stratagems allow players to play dirty the way DE should, and I don't feel outgunned and like I'm playing the game on extreme hard mode when I've used it.

It's.......wait for it......solid.

Gah every you say about the codex just makes me pine for it so much more! Waiting two weeks is going to be tough, but I really do trust everything you're implying about the codex given how much time you've spent on the podcast discussing all the changes DE needed from index-codex. I can at least rest easy for the next two weeks knowing we are about to get a fun codex, with maybe that little 5% left for any minor disappointments.

The thing that concerns me most about today's hype article is what it means for the flexibility of our army. I'm a cynic by nature, but even I have to say it feels nice to see a fellow dark city denizen feeling enthusiastic about what our new codex has to offer. When Evil Space Elves says the codex seems solid, I genuinely believe him.

But what I'm actually hoping for isn't just solidity, but also flexibility. And it seems that we're not getting any mechanism to mix kabals, cults, and covens within the same detachment without giving up obsessions and stratagems. More than anything else, I want the Drukhari codex to give me a reason to leave Craftworlders and Harlequins out of my army. Obsessions and stratagems are supposed to be that reason.

So if I want to use stratagems, that means at least a Battalion (to get enough CP). And if that Battalion is going to use those stratagems, it needs to be single-faction. So I need two HQs in the same faction.

If that faction a wych cult, I guess I can use Lelith. If it's a coven, I guess I can use Urien. But if it's a Kabal, I have no choice but to field two archons. Archons might be willing to team up under dire circumstances, but I feel like any archon worth the name is going to be perpetually looking for an opportunity to stage a coup and seize control of the army for themselves -- especially if the supposed warlord is mechanically no better than the other archon I was forced to bring along.

I like most of the changes in 8th edition, but the new detachments have denied me the opportunity to run single HQ armies. And I'm simply not seeing a way to field a Drukhari army with enough CP to use the stratagems that doesn't involve 2 (or more) archons. I could possibly accept this if I could contextualize it as an archon of the upper-tiers leading a (cadre of) lower-tier archon(s). But if an archon is a "captain" in space marine terms, we simply lack the "chapter master" equivalent. And I feel that kind of distinction is a fundamental assumption of the multi-HQ detachments that form the core of the 8th edition force organization charts.

I hope the new Archon options help remedy this, but I've spent most of 8th edition feeling like my archons are trying to fill space marine boots whenever I select HQs for my detachments.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Mid teens in CPs is pretty rare for most armies, you really have to make an effort to maximize cp if you want that many with the exception of very cheap armies pts wise like guard. I'll be happy with starting the game with 6cp plus maybe a warlord trait that let's us regain cp on a +5 like many other factions have. With 3 warlords I'd feel even better giving up one to recycling cp.

I am not sure I agree with this. While I sort of agree with you, remember that we are close to IG in numbers of units we can field. The cheapest IG troop is more expensive than ours, although their characters are cheaper. Although with our boats added we become a lot more expensive.

I like what they tried with the multiple patrol detachments. Since in my local community the maximum detachments seem to stick I will not be fielding it very often. (I do understand this sentiment as well, otherwise I would always have more detachments with IG than the guideline). Unfortunately that will mean that in small games of 1000 pts I cannot even field a "complete" army (coven kabal cult mixture needs 3 detachments you only have 2).
Unfortunately it will be nearly impossible to field it in normal 2000 pt games having just 7 command points is not very few, but now I usually have that many in 1000-1250 point games) And I think for 1250 pt games the 3 detachments is fine but it might be more puzzling than now where we can just throw everything together in 1 big detachment. Probably if someone wants to play 1000 points I will have to convince him to play 1001 so i can get my 3 detachments .
And by the time you can field 6 detachments (I think that will usually be in 5k games) you will always field bigger detachments anyway.

I think the most equitable solution to the detachments/CP question for tournaments is 2 DE patrols=1 detachment. This limits the CP farming, while still allowing the Raiders Detachment to fill out beyond that.

You could even make it more general and say 2 patrol detachments count as 1 detachment. Most armies do not benefit much from having a patrol detachment since it does not give command points, while it does open the possibility for more different army traits it does so at the cost of command points.

Having two Patrols counts as one detachment still means you need another to get the command points, and that would run into duplicate detachment limitations.

The easiest workaround for Drukhari would be to count a Raiding Party of three Patrols as one detachment. For larger points values, you should be fine to go Battalion + Spearhead + Outrider or similar, so probably only need special permissions for small points values, say 1000 points.

As someone who runs a tournament, I am am looking at that article and thinking some changes may be needed to our future comp. I'm holding until I see just how integral it is in our rules.

Almost every tournament in my area sets a hard limit of 3 for Detachments, but also say no duplicates. Theres also a trend at the moment to avoid army specific comp.

I'm considering whrther, as the small one, Patrols could be excluded from that (there being little difference really CP-wise between taking three Patrols of one Battalion, except you need an extra HQ).

Waiting to see the book though.



Beyond that, I quite like the rule in general!

When will we see the next leak? Is it always between 3-4pm? UK time that is.

Squidmaster wrote:

As someone who runs a tournament, I am am looking at that article and thinking some changes may be needed to our future comp. I'm holding until I see just how integral it is in our rules.

Almost every tournament in my area sets a hard limit of 3 for Detachments, but also say no duplicates. Theres also a trend at the moment to avoid army specific comp.

I'm considering whrther, as the small one, Patrols could be excluded from that (there being little difference really CP-wise between taking three Patrols of one Battalion, except you need an extra HQ).

Waiting to see the book though.



Beyond that, I quite like the rule in general!

We have at our tournament that we run "Codex trumps BRB" so if a codex says they can have a special Detachment, they get those rules no matter what.

|Meavar wrote:

I am not sure I agree with this. While I sort of agree with you, remember that we are close to IG in numbers of units we can field. The cheapest IG troop is more expensive than ours, although their characters are cheaper. Although with our boats added we become a lot more expensive.

Bear in mind though that while our troops are 5pts cheaper than IG ones, IG are getting 10 men for that cost, whilst we're only getting 5. And the fact that their HQs are just 30pts mean they'll still end up cheaper than us in terms of base cost.

Evil Space Elves wrote:

Not targeting your comment directly, but it is interesting to read the salt and "of course they're positive, they have to be" comments regarding GW playtesters in these threads. I understand there are certain people that do this as part of their business and have to polish a turd for political/business  reasons. Not trying to claim absolute objectiveness here, but some people are brought in as we were to provide fresh feedback and input. We were paid nothing, gain nothing by being positive, and volunteered our time in hopes of making the codex of the army that we've loved through thick and thin the best representation of Drukhari on the tabletop possible to avoid the trash codex that was our 7th iteration. My comments have been intentionally vague to avoid breaking an NDA, and the absence of anything critical to say about the codex has nothing to do with cozying up with GW and everything to do with not being able to comment without breaking the NDA. In fact, we wouldn't even be commenting  at all if GW hadn't announced our involvement at LVO.

TLDR, of course some will disagree with our assessment. Nobody should take our word for it or the word of any other podcasters/blogger/YouTuber/whatever until they try it for themselves. Units that I felt needed to be better to earn their table time are better, the stratagems allow players to play dirty the way DE should, and I don't feel outgunned and like I'm playing the game on extreme hard mode when I've used it.

It's.......wait for it......solid.

I think many have been made wary by FLG's article promoting DE in the index and saying how amazing everything was and how wyches had finally been fixed for real and were great now. Yeah.

(I'm not in any way trying to blame you for that - I just think it's made a lot of people wary of listening to the opinions of others on the new book.)

For what it's worth, you don't come across as someone who'd lie like that (though you've kept your cards pretty close to your chest, anyway ). However, what I can't be sure of is that the stuff that appeal to you in the book will also appeal to me, if you see what I mean.

To give you an example, the 7th edition Necron codex was undoubtedly solid. But it was also boring as hell for both myself and my opponents (I was basically playing an army of bricks). Hence, I'm concerned that "solid" doesn't necessarily mean "fun".  

I really do hope you're right, but the pessimist in me has chained the optimist in my to a wall.

amishprn86 wrote:

Squidmaster wrote:

As someone who runs a tournament, I am am looking at that article and thinking some changes may be needed to our future comp. I'm holding until I see just how integral it is in our rules.

Almost every tournament in my area sets a hard limit of 3 for Detachments, but also say no duplicates. Theres also a trend at the moment to avoid army specific comp.

I'm considering whrther, as the small one, Patrols could be excluded from that (there being little difference really CP-wise between taking three Patrols of one Battalion, except you need an extra HQ).

Waiting to see the book though.



Beyond that, I quite like the rule in general!

We have at our tournament that we run "Codex trumps BRB" so if a codex says they can have a special Detachment, they get those rules no matter what.

This sounds the sensible approach by far to me.

corollax wrote:

The thing that concerns me most about today's hype article is what it means for the flexibility of our army. I'm a cynic by nature, but even I have to say it feels nice to see a fellow dark city denizen feeling enthusiastic about what our new codex has to offer. When Evil Space Elves says the codex seems solid, I genuinely believe him.

But what I'm actually hoping for isn't just solidity, but also flexibility. And it seems that we're not getting any mechanism to mix kabals, cults, and covens within the same detachment without giving up obsessions and stratagems. More than anything else, I want the Drukhari codex to give me a reason to leave Craftworlders and Harlequins out of my army. Obsessions and stratagems are supposed to be that reason.

So if I want to use stratagems, that means at least a Battalion (to get enough CP). And if that Battalion is going to use those stratagems, it needs to be single-faction. So I need two HQs in the same faction.

If that faction a wych cult, I guess I can use Lelith. If it's a coven, I guess I can use Urien. But if it's a Kabal, I have no choice but to field two archons. Archons might be willing to team up under dire circumstances, but I feel like any archon worth the name is going to be perpetually looking for an opportunity to stage a coup and seize control of the army for themselves -- especially if the supposed warlord is mechanically no better than the other archon I was forced to bring along.

I like most of the changes in 8th edition, but the new detachments have denied me the opportunity to run single HQ armies. And I'm simply not seeing a way to field a Drukhari army with enough CP to use the stratagems that doesn't involve 2 (or more) archons. I could possibly accept this if I could contextualize it as an archon of the upper-tiers leading a (cadre of) lower-tier archon(s). But if an archon is a "captain" in space marine terms, we simply lack the "chapter master" equivalent. And I feel that kind of distinction is a fundamental assumption of the multi-HQ detachments that form the core of the 8th edition force organization charts.

I hope the new Archon options help remedy this, but I've spent most of 8th edition feeling like my archons are trying to fill space marine boots whenever I select HQs for my detachments.

...Did you actually read the Raiding Force rule? Mixed armies are exactly what it's made for!

1 Patrol = 1 HQ, 1 Troop
1 Battalion = 2 HQ, 3 Troop = +3cp
3 Patrols = 3 HQ, 3 Troop = +4cp
6 Patrols = 6 HQ, 6 Troops = +8cp
3 Battalions = 6 HQ, 9 Troops = +9cp
1 Brigade = 3 HQ, 6 Troops, 3 Elite, 3 Fast, 3 Heavy = +9cp

For the cost a single HQ over a Battalion, you get to split your force into three different detachments. Each one can be Kabal/Cult/Coven in any combination, with whichever tactics Obsession fits best for that part of the army. You get an extra CP as well, which can be spent either on getting extra Warlord Traits (so you can have a Tactical Genius CP-regening Archon, and a murderous Sucubus), or just save it and get more stratagem uses.

If you're looking for ways to run "single HQ armies", I'm sorry but the era of that is far behind us. 8th is the edition of spamming cheap troops and Buff-HQs, and has been that way since the Indexes first dropped. Maybe we get the Dracon back as a cheap Archon substitute, but if you want only one character you were always going to be disappointed with this edition.