3 Patrols might not be best

Soulless Samurai wrote:

@Mppqlmd I think Kabal have better troops, but Cult has better Fast Attack and their HQ is a lot cheaper.

By the way, is it me or does Kabal really not have much? With the removal of Trueborn and with Scourges and Incubi not being Kabal, it seems all you've really got is the Archon and Kabalites.

Oh, and the court, I guess. Seems weird to me that Sslyth and Ur-Ghuls are more Kabal-y than actual Dark Eldar. :/

You can at least include Incubi, mandrakes and scourges in a kabal detachment without stopping obsessions from working. I feel like the Kabals offer a lot though:
-Great obsessions
-Great stratagems
-Massed poison shooting and access to blasters en mass
-Cheapest troops choice in the army
-Ravagers

If you meant in terms of variety, then you're right for sure though.

I'd say we're 3 relunctantly compatible pieces thrown together in a mess.

Which sounds very fluffy to me. Sure, it makes list-building difficult, but having multiple WL trait is kinda nice, and the ability to nit-pick your obsessions and still have a decent CP pool is appealing.


IMO the best obsessions are in Cult. Cursed blade is one of the best trait i have seen in the game so far, and the other 2 are REALLY good.

HERO wrote:

Of course, I understand the need for CPs gentlemen.

I'm more interested in the discussion of: At what point do we sacrifice movement, damage (firepower and/or CC), and certain units being competitively viable to take additional CPs?

I think this is really a key question for every army in 8th edition, especially given how different command points and stratagems are from previous editions. I really think that will take time to answer though, need to get playtests in and try out different combinations to see how many cps is optimal. Good thing is though even without detachments we have access to 2 warlord traits that help with cp generation.

My initial thoughts are probably along the line of 2 battalions (1 kabal and 1 coven) and 1 Cult Outrider detachment. You've got the utility (and flexibility) of the Kabal obsessions and the durability of the coven obsessions, plus you can take advantage of the Cult speed. To me this seems like the most competitive scenario, without having the codex in hand yet.

I mostly agree with that outline of detachments except that taking 5 characters seems irritating, I'd rather not take that many unless I really have to. Also means taking 3 wrack units, and I think wracks are greatly improved but not sure I want that many.

Quote :

Which sounds very fluffy to me. Sure, it makes list-building difficult, but having multiple WL trait is kinda nice, and the ability to nit-pick your obsessions and still have a decent CP pool is appealing.

I'd rather be able to use my entire army in a list without having to go through list-building gymnastics to get them to work together. You know, like an army.

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I'd rather be able to use my entire army in a list without having to go through list-building gymnastics to get them to work together. You know, like an army.

Sure, i see your point. Still, I like the idea that we can do what nobody can (have multiple WL traits is really great), but it isn't effortless.

Call me a pretentious brat, but i like playing an army that requires planning, efforts and thoughts.

Mppqlmd wrote:

Quote :

I'd rather be able to use my entire army in a list without having to go through list-building gymnastics to get them to work together. You know, like an army.

Sure, i see your point. Still, I like the idea that we can do what nobody can (have multiple WL traits is really great), but it isn't effortless.

Call me a pretentious brat, but i like playing an army that requires planning, efforts and thoughts.

Oh ho ho, is that what we're calling it now? I'm calling it a broken mechanic, useless outside of theming, which anyone with a mind to do it could do it anyway if they wanted with or without the stipulation that we can't bring things together. All this limitation does is make it almost impossible to put a proper ITC list together.

Unless of course our illustrious playtesters have some work around for competitive play. Surely they took matched play into account.

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useless outside of theming

So not useless at all. Theming is what makes this game somewhat more than dice-rolling.

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All this limitation does is make it almost impossible to put a proper ITC list together.

I'm very tempted to answer "Git gud".

On a more serious note : let's not judge a book by its leaks, shall we ? Being or not being hopeful is a thing, but stating that the army is unplayable before you had a read of the codex is a bit... excessive.

Listening to the coverage of the codex outside the DE community, people aren't talking about this codex causing handicaps, the opposite in fact. Its also worth noting that making a brigade is not the "standard" in the average codex. Of course its easy in some (IG), but impossible in others (a Custodes brigade is an apoc game). In the middle-tier, its often possible, but seriously limiting. How many CSM lists are there with Alpha Legion cultists and World Eater Beserkers? You only get that when you give up on brigades. The implication that the codex must be rubbish because we can't have a brigade with all the units we want and with obsessions, is really pretty flawed. One thing that 8th mostly has got right is that it forces you to make hard choices between CP, strategems, traits and unit choices, and I'd say its more interesting because of it

I'm not saying the army is unplayable, I'm saying the way we have to rig the detachment slots to access only small portions of our overall codex is beyond annoying since no other army has to do it. I also think the play testers were asleep when they were designing that aspect of the army and intend to hold their feet to the fire with both hands.

TheMortician wrote:

Listening to the coverage of the codex outside the DE community, people aren't talking about this codex causing handicaps, the opposite in fact. Its also worth noting that making a brigade is not the "standard" in the average codex. Of course its easy in some (IG), but impossible in others (a Custodes brigade is an apoc game). In the middle-tier, its often possible, but seriously limiting. How many CSM lists are there with Alpha Legion cultists and World Eater Beserkers? You only get that when you give up on brigades. The implication that the codex must be rubbish because we can't have a brigade with all the units we want and with obsessions, is really pretty flawed. One thing that 8th mostly has got right is that it forces you to make hard choices between CP, strategems, traits and unit choices, and I'd say its more interesting because of it

100% agree

TeenageAngst wrote:

I'm not saying the army is unplayable, I'm saying the way we have to rig the detachment slots to access only small portions of our overall codex is beyond annoying since no other army has to do it. I also think the play testers were asleep when they were designing that aspect of the army and intend to hold their feet to the fire with both hands.

Well tester were aware of that thats why we have this patrol things.

Quauchtemoc wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

I'm not saying the army is unplayable, I'm saying the way we have to rig the detachment slots to access only small portions of our overall codex is beyond annoying since no other army has to do it. I also think the play testers were asleep when they were designing that aspect of the army and intend to hold their feet to the fire with both hands.

Well tester were aware of that thats why we have this patrol things.

You mean the patrol detachments that aren't legal in tournament play, as suggested by the guidelines in GW's own BRB? Yeah that's well thought out.

2 option here :- DE are strong enough to be played in tournament without this rule and it wont be a problem
                    -De will be too weak to be play in tournament without this and then we should have an exeption for us

In both case we are competitive what's the problem ?.

How are 3x patrols not legal? They're within the 3 detachment recommendation. The UK rule of no repeated detachments is not from GW as far as I'm aware. It seems this is a clear example of them recognising the mix 'n match of Kabs/WCs/covens and the weakness of our HQs, and giving us a way in to tournaments.

It also may indicate, and this may be more of an issue, that they are going to roll out new character rules of 1 per detachment (as with Tau Commanders) to deal with character spam

Quauchtemoc wrote:

2 option here :- DE are strong enough to be played in tournament without this rule and it wont be a problem
                    -De will be too weak to be play in tournament without this and then we should have an exeption for us

In both case we are competitive what's the problem ?

The first option is unlikely but only time will tell.

The second option relies on the charity of any given TO, so that is also unlikely.

And the third option is "let's not break Dark Eldar into 3 completely separate factions" which would seem like the obvious choice but apparently our benevolent playtesters thought otherwise.

I would LOVE to their their personal suggestions on how to work around this handicap btw.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Quauchtemoc wrote:

2 option here :- DE are strong enough to be played in tournament without this rule and it wont be a problem
                    -De will be too weak to be play in tournament without this and then we should have an exeption for us

In both case we are competitive what's the problem ?

The first option is unlikely but only time will tell.

The second option relies on the charity of any given TO, so that is also unlikely.

Well then the problem is TO, not the rule

TeenageAngst wrote:

Quote :

I'd rather be able to use my entire army in a list without having to go through list-building gymnastics to get them to work together. You know, like an army.

Obviously it's not the 100% ideal scenario where we get buffs nearly for free, but it's easily workable. Following on from another poster about how 2 batallions and an outrider would be a good start, here's a fairly simple core of a list to put all three together, keep the obsessions and reap the benefits of several battalions.

Blackheart Batallion

HQ
Archon WL
-Aggy
-trait: labyrinthine cunning
-relic: writ of living muse
total: 74

Archon
-Aggy
total:74

Troops
5 Kabalites
-Blaster
-Dissie Raider
total:127

x2 5 Kabalites
-Blaster
-Venom
total:224

Heavy support
x3 DL Ravager
total:420

Prophets of flesh Battalion

HQ
X2 Haeme
-Electro wip
total:156

Troops
x2 5 Wracks
-Dissie raider
total:260

5 Wracks
-venom
total:115

Red grief outrider

HQ
Succubus
-Blast pistol
total:60

Fast attack
x3 6 Reavers
-x2 Blaster
-x2 Grav talon
total:474

total: 1984

If you use the stratagem to generate the extra warlord trait, you end up with on average 11 CP and you can use every part of the codex along with some of the best stratagems.

It's not optimised, but I threw it together in 10 minutes or so. I'm sure if we wanted or need other units we can find a way.

It feels like an excessively negative reaction to what feels, to me at least, a fairly elegant solution to matching fluff/flavour with playability/competitiveness. But agree to disagree I guess

@Trueborn44 that list suffers from HQ bloat, which is the major issue with running so many detachments. What if I just want 1 unit from a Kabal, Coven, or Cult in my army without screwing up my detachment? If I was CSM I could do this. If I was IG I could do this. If I was Eldar, Tau, any other army I could do this. Instead I have to drag out at least 1 HQ to use it in a patrol detachment which in and of itself is 1/3rd of my army's detachment slots.

@TheMortician You don't play a lot of competitive games to you?

Its not a mystery that rule are not made for competitive game anyway

Enough. But if I wanted to be all out competitive obviously I wouldn't be playing DE without a Cat Lady and a bunch of Eldar psykers, dark reapers and shining spears.

Actually matched play rules are explicitly designed for competitive play, so yeah!

@teenageangst Honestly I've never found myself absolutely clamoring for a single unit. I'm not saying it doesn't come up but generally I'll want two of whatever it is because we die quick.

You're right to some degree on HQ bloat, but like I said it's not optimised because I threw it together in 10 minutes. I think you could probably drop atleast 1 Haeme and most of the wracks and make the POF battalion into a vanguard or the elite option and still have 9CP on average. I don't even really feel that it's that bloated though, because aside from the Archons, the other HQ feel very competitively priced for what they do.