Codex Drukhari Preview: The Kabals

yellabelly wrote:

As a newer player, I don't know the answer. Did venoms used to have access to splinter racks or will it likely be raiders only?

Raiders only

Do you think Dark Lances will get any buffs? If they keep the same statline, Blaster Scourges will be better than DL. I wonder how much they dropped points wise..fourteen seemed about right, maybe twelve?

Nah, but they can now have +6" and even ignore cover lol, thats a good buff IMO.

Okay, here are my thoughts based on what we know so far:

Kabal of the Black Heart

Thirst for Power - Since Kabal units currently benefit the least from PfP, this seems really awful. I can only hope that PfP has improved greatly since the Index.

Screaming Jets - Not sure why this is a stratagem, but whatever. Is there a reason we're not allowed to use it with WWP?

Labyrinthine Cunning - Half as effective as the 'standard' one of its type, but works for you and your opponent. Seems good.


Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue

The Serpent's Kiss - Unless poison has been improved, this is really weak. You're going from a 6/12 chance of wounding to a 7/12 chance (and most of the time it'll be even worse in melee). Also, it doesn't work with artefacts. For some reason.

Splinter Racks (not sure if these are unique to Poison Tongue Kabal, but this is where the designers put them) - This seems like a serious downgrade from rerolling all misses. Especially since a lot of abilities confer -1 to hit - which will negate it entirely. Once again, it doesn't work with artefacts. I'm sure it's because our artefacts are so amazing that allowing any other bonus to work with them would be like giving us God-mode.

Soul Seeker - Seems okay. Hardly seems powerful enough to warrant being excluded from every relevant bonus, but whatever.


Kabal of the Flayed Skull

Slay from the Skies - Gunboats Ahoy! Basically an interesting set of benefits for transports and embarked models (+3" move for stuff with fly, models with Fly or that are embarked on models with Fly ignore cover and reroll 1s with rapid-fire weapons). Only getting rerolls for rapid-fire weapons seems a bit niche (basically excludes Scourges, Raiders, Ravagers, our Fliers, Warriors/Trueborn with Blasters or Dark Lances etc.), but we'll see.

Masters of the Shadowed Sky - A single unit gets +1 to hit against a unit with Fly. Functional, if a bit niche.

The Blaster now does d6 wounds, which is really nice.


Kabal of the Obsidian Rose

Flawless Workmanship - yet another ability that doesn't work with our artefacts. Does any other army have this on all their abilities? Anyway, +6" of range on most weapons seems pretty good.

Failure is Not an Option - Well this seems niche as hell. Also really doesn't sound like a Dark Eldar ability to me.

Armour of Misery - I'm guessing this is for people who want to turn their Archons into Incubi-Lords? If so, then unless Archons are allowed to by Glavies now, then we're still missing half the equation. Anyway, flavour aspect aside, it's hard to imagine this saving an Archon if he gets into trouble. Also, I'm going to go ahead and assume this means that Shadowfield is still rubbish.


So, some nice stuff, some interesting/okay stuff, and some bit of bad/weak-looking stuff. Lots of flavour, which is always nice to see (though Failure is not an Option still doesn't sound at all like DE to me ). Of course, I don't know what else has changed, so we'll have to see.

Raiders only

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They've been raiders only in the past, don't see why that would change. Plus they are most useful on raiders anyway considering it affects more models.

edit: way too wait on that lol. Also naturally we have The Shredder to come in here and try and take away all the excitement by pointing out how "bad" are traits are..

Question, and maybe I'm just being silly here so bear with me:

Can you use a Flayed Skull Venom to transport Poisoned Tongue Kabalites? I'm not seeing anything in the index or rulebook about transports being exclusive to models in the same detachment.

I may just be blind though.

Shredder, im fairly sure screaming jets is not black heart only same with labyrinth of cunning, splinter racks, soul seeker (why do we just get more pistols...).

Shredder I'm actually surprised and pleased by how negatively you took things we all took as positives. Your arguments are well worded whether I agree with all of them or not and I appreciate the fact someone took the time to provide counterpoints to our enthusiasm.

Also vehicles will say something along the lines of "may transport X <KABAL> units". In this case kabal would become flayed skull and thus could not carry other troops.

Also I should add I hate the 6+ to regain traits that seem to be the benchmark of xenos tacticians as you need to roll 3 times to have the same chance of getting 1 point back as a basic imperial guard general.

Mppqlmd wrote:

All poison is 4+, and the old 2+ now has a +2 instead. Poison is unchanged.
Will kabal of the black heart give inured to pain to vehicles??

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I doubt so. It will probably be non-vehicle only.

Quote :

Can you use a Flayed Skull Venom to transport Poisoned Tongue Kabalites? I'm not seeing anything in the index or rulebook about transports being exclusive to models in the same detachment.

Probably. You can transport Kabs in a Coven vehicle, which is part of why that aura is so great. It'd require them being in separate detachments, though, but it shouldn't be that hard to pull off

Yes technically you can do that, but you pick transports for each detachment. So say you're taking a flayed skull patrol and a poisoned tongue patrol, and you take a kabalite warrior unit and a venom in each detachment. Yes you could put the poisoned tongue warriors in the flayed skull venom, but only one of your two venoms can be flayed skull, other other has to be poisoned tongue, so you're still kinda stuck with some transports must be from the same kabal as their warriors.

zergavas wrote:

Shredder, im fairly sure screaming jets is not black heart only same with labyrinth of cunning, splinter racks, soul seeker (why do we just get more pistols...).

Yeah, I wasn't sure. But the article filed them under those Kabals, so I left them there.

zergavas wrote:

Shredder, im fairly sure screaming jets is not black heart only same with labyrinth of cunning, splinter racks, soul seeker (why do we just get more pistols...).

Labyrinthine Cunning refers to Black Heart Archons and Soul Seeker says Poisoned Tongue. Agree on Splinter Racks though.

Yea just did not want people to start a riot over it. I am realy dissapointed that they did not improve PFP.

TheBaconPope wrote:

It looks like Power From Pain in unchanged, which is meh for shooting armies.

Do we know that for certain? So far all that we know is that turn 2 is still reroll advance and charge. There is nothing stated thus far that any of the others have not been changed. Yes, this also means nothing is stated that says they ARE changed but...I dunno. Fanning the flames of hope

The Red King wrote:

Also vehicles will say something along the lines of "may transport X <KABAL> units". In this case kabal would become flayed skull and thus could not carry other troops.

As they are now, as of the Index, they just say "Drukhari Infantry", it is feasible until we see such a change. I do expect you to be correct though.

In a way it's a shame, I think it's rather fluffy for one Kabal to hire out its vehicles to another...for a steep price, of course.

If I had to guess I'd say PFP is unchanged, but they've only seemed to indicate that the first two traits haven't changed so can't say about the rest.

Count Oh thx i completly missed that. RIOT!!!!!

The Red King wrote:

Shredder I'm actually surprised and pleased by how negatively you took things we all took as positives. Your arguments are well worded whether I agree with all of them or not and I appreciate the fact someone took the time to provide counterpoints to our enthusiasm.

Well, when I started writing no one else had posted, so I hadn't actually intended for them to be counter-points.

Edit: Count beat me to it, disregard

Well i would have liked the older version or a new version that would be more individual for each unit. As right now i dont care if my kabalites gets a 6+ fnp, gets to reroll move and charge, the fearless is not that relevant but its nice to have.

Screaming Jets is just a "Drukhari Stratagem" meaning the army gets it, not the Faction

Also Black Heart does give our non-PfP units (including Raiders, Venoms, and Ravagers) Inured to Suffering, which is kind of nice. 6+++ on our vehicles is alright as it goes, though I think I prefer the more offensive Obsessions.

Yeah it's not a bad little extra buff, but as of right now black heart is probably my least favorite kabal since the extra turn for pfp ability would probably be better on non kabal units like wyches.