How do you feel about the current state of Dark Eldar?

It's been a while since our Codex was released, and the game's changed quite a bit since then. The Ynnari got reworked, Doom/Jinx no longer applies to us, other (powerful) factions have come to the forefront of tournament play. We might also be about to see some radical changes over the next few months, with both Psychic Awakening and the first Chapter Approved that our Codex might be eligible for.

With all that in mind, I'm curious about how people are feeling about us right now. Good? Bad? Do you think we've got room for improvement? If so, how?

I'm intending for this to be a pretty broad question, so take it however you'd like.

I think we're in a pretty good spot at the moment.

We're competitive without being broken.

We've got a swathe of competitive builds.

Fluffy lists are viable and fun.

Places where we fall short are the same as ever, though. Our HQ roster is sorely lacking and the one good named character we have is Rakarth. The loss of Trueborn and Bloodbrides hurts as ever. And though Bloodbrides are no great loss, having never really been good, not even having the option anymore kind of sucks. Wish our HQ could jump on Bikes, Skyboards and Wings again.

I'm sort of neutral on the topic. Obsessions are both powerful and easily exploited with multiple detachments. Our strategems are good and universal relics are powerful.

I do think we are too heavily weighted for shooting. There are also some seemingly arbitrary decisions on weapon selection options. No Blast Pistol options for Arena Champions or Helliarchs, but yes on Solarites. No power sword option on Succubus, but yes for Hekatrix.

The other thing that is bizarre to me is the utter lack of HQ options outside of special characters. Having exactly 1 Kabal, Cult and Coven option is a joke compared to other factions. They aren't even have good customization options.

For power level? Excellent for for sure. For fun level? Compare to 5th and.... sadly even 7th, not that fun, (many tactics and play styles are gone, and do to how 8th is, a large amount of weapons are not even viable, aka heatlances and dark lances, with changes to old rules like bladevane and WWP, we are so predictable as an army, move where, shoot here, coven move here, melee here)

From a competitive standpoint we seem pretty good.

From a fun and flavour perspective? Bleh.

I'll be honest, I'm still not liking our army being split in the manner it has been. Maybe it could have worked back in 5th, but now it just seems that each subfaction has far too few units. Each one is stuck with just a single (generic) HQ choice and a single troop choice. And the other slots are barely any better.

e.g. using Kabal? Okay, so you've got all of 1 Fast Attack choice (which isn't even a Kabal unit), and all of 1 Heavy Support Choice. And even your Elite choices consist of 2 non-Kabal units and 1 Kabal unit that wasn't even printed in the codex.

It just makes army building far too constrained and predictable for my tastes.

I'm also not at all fond of the lack of overlap or synergy between subfactions. An Archon's aura, for example, doesn't even affect mercenary units, let alone Cult or Coven units. In fact, there's basically nothing that works across the subfactions. Haemonculi can no longer buff Wyches, Archons do nothing for Incubi in spite of all the fluff that depicts them fighting side-by-side. Imagine if Eldar were changed such that Farseer powers were only able to buff Guardians and Wraith units. Oh, and including anything other than those units in a detachment mean you don't get your detachment bonus. Wonder if they'd be pleased with that change?

Also, Power From Pain is still boring as hell. And as far as Kabal is concerned you could probably remove the table from #2 onwards and I doubt most players would even notice the difference.

Anyway, the thing that really kills the DE book for me is the HQ section. HQs are my favourite part of any army. I love creating and converting custom characters, and finding ways to represent them on the table. But I just find DE HQs to be so shallow and boring. So much wargear has been stripped out as to make choice almost nonexistent to begin with, and there has been absolutely no effort to make the HQs even remotely interesting. Mechanically, the Archon could probably make a compelling case for being the worst-designed HQ in the game. He's a melee-HQ leading a shooting subfaction. His only defence is unreliable and reads like we're using a codex from a previous edition of the game. He's supposed to be bringing an aura, yet his aura is useless on his own Court and doesn't work in, into or out of open-topped transports . . . in a subfaction that wants to be firing from inside open-topped transports.

But more than that they're just not mechanically interesting - even with artefacts and warlord traits. As a counter-example, Necron Destroyer Lords are also very poorly designed (a melee unit that is only able to buff a single shooting unit). However, they at least have a couple of options when you factor in artefacts and/or Warlord Traits. For example, the Nanoscarab Casket gives one exceptional healing and also gives it a 50% chance of reviving once per game. The Veil of Darkness lets him himself and another unit once-per-game. Crimson Haze actually gives him an aura to buff himself and other melee units (so suddenly he can make use of his speed to fly alongside Wraiths and Scarabs to buff them). You've even got the option of giving him an 18" shooting attack that can target characters (if you want to keep him near Destroyers). Now, I'm not saying that all of these options are amazing - just that they give you a lot of different ways to play the same unit (and its not even a good unit).

But when you look at the DE artefacts and warlord traits, there are very few that make any meaningful change to the way a model actually plays. Most of them are either 'better melee' or 'better defence'. For example, Writ of the Living Muse improves an Archon's aura, but it doesn't actually remove any of the flaws of said aura. I guess it can affect the Court now . . . a bit? But it still can't affect models in, into or out of transports. So for the most part you'll be going from an aura that buffs Ravagers to an aura that buffs Ravagers a bit more. Aside from that, you've got the Soul Seeker, I guess (which lets your Archon pretend to be a sniper) and maybe the Vexator Mask (though even that isn't really changing anything). Oh, and the standard CP Warlord traits. But really, there's almost nothing you can pick that will meaningfully change our HQs' preexisting roles. There's nothing like, for example, Webway Portals - which would at least give them a use in deploying a unit via deep strike. Hell, most of the artefacts feel less like you're improving a model and more like you're giving them abilities they should have started with in the first place (the Obsidian Veil certainly comes to mind here). I don't know how well I'm explaining myself here but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at.

I know I've brought this up a million times already but it still irks me that DE have 3 different mobility options (wings, skyboards and jetbikes) and yet not one of our HQs can access even a single one of those. This alone cuts off so many possibilities. I mean, at the very least, GW could have given us an artefact like Faolchu's Wing (since artefacts don't need to be represented) to at least give a single model flight.

Speaking of artefacts, they suffer from the same unnecessary restrictions as army building. You're already going to be greatly limited by 10 of the artefacts being constrained to particular subfactions (e.g. the Red Grief artefact is already locked from the Archon and Haemonculus), so was it really necessary to lock them even more? Why does the Tryptych Whip need to be off-limits to Archons and Haemonculi? Hell, why does it need to be off-limits to Beastmasters? Why does the Nightmare Doll need to be limited to Haemonculi? I'm afraid I just don't see the point of having such heavy restrictions on everything. We're not talking about Imperial Knights here. We're talking about T3 characters wielding weapons that were weak 3 editions ago and have only gotten worse since. There's also just a lot of irritating stuff - like the Poison Tongue bonus not applying to its own artefact.

I'll finish by saying that I played through both 6th and 7th with Dark Eldar, yet this is the edition that has made me finally seek out allies. Not because I need a stronger army but because it seems like the only way to obtain HQs that are even remotely interesting.

I strongly disagree on the army not being fun. I've never had more of a blast playing dark eldar in any edition. The army as a whole really plays like I feel it should play. Super mobile but fragile, with strong options for shooting and melee. The best part is that while yes they are some units that are not in a great state (hellions, cronos, few others), overall the majority of the units in the army are balanced. I can take wyches as a actual melee mob without feeling like it's a bad choice, no more running them as haywire grenade suicide squads. Same case for a lot of units, they play like they should play, and that's really the best feeling to have for an army. Not every choice needs to be the best, but I feel plenty of flexibility to mix and match between the three subfactions and try new lists all the time. I think because of the detachment system of 8th, the subfaction split really is not a big deal, still plenty of flexibility.

I do agree with you though Soulless Samurai on our characters, there is no doubt they are the weak spot of the codex in terms of flavor. I find it odd and annoying that they gave us some options say the archon kit doesn't come with (venom blades) but took away others (blaster). It's not just DE, it's a general trend to take away options that don't come in the box for characters, which sucks because I love converting characters. You can make some cool combinations with artifacts, I love my djinn blade archon who I converted, along with a converted heamonculus for the vexator mask and a succubus for the blood glaive, but the problem is you're pretty much down to 1 interesting character for each subfaction. Once you run out of warlord traits/artifacts you're down to the bog standard character, which is not terribly interesting. Plus it goes without saying, we all want wings/skyboard/jetbikes for our characters a great deal, especially considering our craftworld brethren get those choices. It is what it is though, I can work around the characters not being super exciting because the rest of the army functions how it should for the most part.

Characters are definitely our weakest link, and some of our units could seriously use a buff (I'd love to feel able to run Incubi, beasts or Hellions in a competitive game). The three way split of our faction also does indeed feel janky given the relatively few units that we've got.

On the whole, though, I think we're in a great spot. We play like I feel we should, we've mostly got the tools to take down almost any opponent, and we've got plenty of viable competitive builds - our continued presence at tournament top tables is demonstration enough of that.

We're not perfect but I don't think we're that far off.

I wish to state that I do find the characters rather Bland and Boring, but I always pay for court of the Archon, and extra artefacts, to try and make them interesting. And it was Unique. But now they've given equivalents to a few other factions, looking at you black Legion, and with every new release the Drukhari feel more and more... Bland. Shadowfield rules are dated, and worse than last edition, which at least gave you a full phase, and it's a none-optional thing that makes a useless character even more Expensive.

Archons are meant to be the worst of the worst, the baddest of the bad, but not literally.

Also splinter racks don't work with splinter cannons. There's a lot of questionable things, but because we're xenos, and have done well in a few tournamets, even if that's because of soup nonsense, or "spam" [which is built into the codex and almost unavoidable], I doubt they'll rework, or even re-release a second codex. Or at least not for a long time coming.

Burnage wrote:

Characters are definitely our weakest link, and some of our units could seriously use a buff (I'd love to feel able to run Incubi, beasts or Hellions in a competitive game). perfect but I don't think we're that far off.

I've frequently run 5 incubi in my local store tournaments. Do they do well? Often no, but given the rest of my army tends to be solid units like kabalite in venoms, ravagers and talos I feel like I can afford to throw down the 80pts on one subpar unit. That being said, man I'd love to see them get a buff, still my favorite DE unit.

I'm actually hoping that GW moves away from the constant codex release cycle, which seems likely given psychic awakening is about to begin. I'd much rather have campaign books with some new goodies for a few factions, instead of a complete rework and new stuff for only one faction at a time. I know someone will mention "but marines just got a 2nd codex in 8th edition". Let's be fair here, yeah we all know marines get too much attention, but boy they needed an updated codex. This was the first edition in a long time where marines were a subpar army.

Pilosocereus wrote:

I wish to state that I do find the characters rather Bland and Boring, but I always pay for court of the Archon, and extra artefacts, to try and make them interesting. And it was Unique. But now they've given equivalents to a few other factions, looking at you black Legion, and with every new release the Drukhari feel more and more... Bland. Shadowfield rules are dated, and worse than last edition, which at least gave you a full phase, and it's a none-optional thing that makes a useless character even more Expensive.

I was thinking about the latter point recently. For all my complaints about the lack of mobility options and an aura that's barely functional, I think what bothers me most about the Archon is actually his Shadowfield.

It probably doesn't help that I dislike the mechanic in general. This is more of a personal thing but I'm really not fond of a model's basic equipment either being once-per-game or (as in the case of the Shadowfield) having a chance of breaking with each use. If the Shadowfield was an *extra* layer of defence (and when it broke he'd go down to a basic 4++ or a 5++) I'd be fine with it. But when it's his only defence? I'd really prefer something more reliable. Especially when it isn't even optional anymore.

Also, another quirk of mine is that I have a fondness for regeneration/vampiric abilities. Stuff like Soul Thirst, Parasite's Kiss, Lord of Rebirth. But what's really frustrating is that these are all but pointless on the Archon. Usually, if he takes any significant damage it means he's lost his Shadowfield. And at that point regaining wounds is likely pointless since he's now a T3 character with no protection beyond a 5+ armour save and 6+ FNP. I know that for most people this is near enough a non-issue but it really does bug the hell out of me.

What's more, there's a psychological factor in that I simply don't want to use my warlord in combat. Because there's always the nagging fear that the enemy will knock out his Shadowfield and leave him a sitting duck for the remainder of the game.

The final point is that (based on past editions) the excessive cost of the Shadowfield is what's inflating the Archon's cost above what he's reasonably worth. If he had a basic 4++ or a 5++ with a -1 to hit (like Mandrakes) but was 10-15 points cheaper, I think he'd be a lot more reasonable.

I mean, Archons have access to the Obsidian Veil and Armour of Misery. Using a relic on a 3+ or 4++ isn't objectively great but it definitely adds to their survivability, especially when paired with Soul Thirst as a warlord trait.

Burnage wrote:

I mean, Archons have access to the Obsidian Veil and Armour of Misery. Using a relic on a 3+ or 4++ isn't objectively great but it definitely adds to their survivability, especially when paired with Soul Thirst as a warlord trait.

This goes back to what I brought up earlier, though.

With other factions, I get to use relics to add flavour or function to my HQs.

With DE, I'm stuck using relics to try and compensate for their failings. I'm already being overcharged for the bloody Shadowfield and now I also need to pay CPs so as to gain access to a proper invulnerable save *or* some armour? The same things that virtually every HQ in the game gets together as standard.

Also, both of those items are locked into specific subfactions. What defensive options do I have if I'm playing, say, Poison Tongue?

I dunno what's going on with the points cost of the Canoness but the Archon's pretty appropriately costed relative to Autarchs and Troupe Masters, the most similar characters from other Eldar factions.

The Shadowfield is also horrendously unreliable but in practice it does work out to being roughly equivalent to a permanent 4++ or 5++, so you should feel free to give your Archon whatever wargear you'd like. It's just that in certain Kabals they have the option of that wargear providing additional defense, which is good!

Burnage wrote:

I dunno what's going on with the points cost of the Canoness but the Archon's pretty appropriately costed relative to Autarchs and Troupe Masters, the most similar characters from other Eldar factions.

I have to disagree.

Both of those have auras that affect their entire faction, whilst the Archon can technically buff a grand total of 11 units (including himself). Of those 11, 2 are fliers (which he has no way of keeping up with), 4 already get rerolls when near him, and 1 never wants to leave their transport. Even if you still include Warriors that's, what, 5 units? So all of 1/6th of the DE codex.

Compare that with the Autarch, whose aura affects *everything* in his faction and has a chance to regenerate CPs. Oh, and his standard melee weapon outclasses all 4 of the Archon's weapons.

The Troupe Master meanwhile has a very strong melee aura for a low-strength, a melee-oriented faction. He's also faster and more mobile than the Archon.

Burnage wrote:

The Shadowfield is also horrendously unreliable but in practice it does work out to being roughly equivalent to a permanent 4++ or 5++, so you should feel free to give your Archon whatever wargear you'd like.

I wish I had your fortune, then. Because my Shadowfields all seem roughly equivalent to a 7++ save.

Burnage wrote:

It's just that in certain Kabals they have the option of that wargear providing additional defense, which is good!

I fear we may have to agree to disagree on that point.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

With DE, I'm stuck using relics to try and compensate for their failings.

Tell me about it.  Succubi are not intimidating in the Fight Phase, lack options to truly take on hard targets (Archons with Husk Blades are strangely better at this) and their aura is even less expansive than the Archon's.  PfP gives you 2+ to hit on turn 3, and Serpentin can give you a 2+ from the start.  Hitting is not what Cults need.  Then there's the whole mess with Beasts not having a strong place in a Cult army, but still requiring a Beastmaster, that is Cult, therefor making it an awkward fit in Coven or Kabal, who could actually use a cheap screener unit.

But, these are just the rules.  There is so much capacity for more Elite character options, a vehicle fixer... like most armies, a big model, maybe a huge beast.  They went with big beast with the Dark Elf line, which is a major influence on the Dark Eldar army.[/quote]

Soulless Samurai wrote:

With other factions, I get to use relics to add flavour or function to my HQs.

With DE, I'm stuck using relics to try and compensate for their failings. I'm already being overcharged for the bloody Shadowfield and now I also need to pay CPs so as to gain access to a proper invulnerable save *or* some armour? The same things that virtually every HQ in the game gets together as standard. \

We do have some fun, flavorful relics, but I do have to agree with you there. A generic archon without a relic has a d3 damage, slightly boosted power sword at best, while the vast majority of other factions have access to some sort of power fist equivalent item to boost their melee character's strength to 6+. Succubus is in an even worse state, sure the glaive gives you the boosted strength, but just one damage sucks. The blood glaive is honestly close to what a generic glaive should be like. I'd even take the option for electrocurrosive whips on archons/succubi as a decent substitute for a better weapon, at least that's a 2 damage, decent ap weapon. Plus of course the other problem with the relic reliance is you're down to making only a handful of good characters, once you've used up your relics your 2nd hq to fill out that battalion is usually fairly mediocre.

It is what it is though, I don't see the state of characters changing anytime soon unless we get some cool new one during psychic awakening, and I wouldn't count on that.

It might just be my area but I really only get 1 relic choice on my HQs because the other HAS to be the helm of spite otherwise I have no defence in an entire phase of the game that seems pretty prevalent, the psychic phase...

Last 3 tournaments I attended I went with Dark Eldar (screw this drukari nonsense) and no allies (kind of)

There was not a single game where I felt like I might lose. Not a one.
We are fine.

Skulnbonz wrote:

Last 3 tournaments I attended I went with Dark Eldar (screw this drukari nonsense) and no allies (kind of)

There was not a single game where I felt like I might lose. Not a one.
We are fine.

Whoops. It seems I've been having fun wrong again.

If you'll excuse me, I'll go check myself into my nearest GW Re-education Centre.

It's a fair point that there's more to an army than winning tournaments, in the past there's pretty examples of armies being strong competitively, but thematically they can't run the sort of lists most players would like. That being said we have the good fortune these days of being able to play fairly thematic lists, and still be competitive.

This is an interesting thread to read. I can see where the loss of some datasheets is a pain. And I concur that tournament results aren't the only measurement of if the book is good. But overall, I think this is the best book Drukhari have ever had.

Even under the Dark Eldar moniker, I don't know anyone that said the 3rf book was great, even with the Wych additions. 5th was awesome and I loved playing from that book. The 7th book (really felt like 6tg) was terrible from a strength and flavor standpoint. So really, looking at the current book and edition, I think it is comparable to where we landed with the 5th book.

Myrvn wrote:

But overall, I think this is the best book Drukhari have ever had.

I think this is a really good point. There are fewer examples of awkwardly useless units in this book than in 5th. The Cronus is lackluster, and Incubi are not highly optimized. But, nothing rises to the level of 5th edition Mandrakes.

I'd say 5th was better for fluff and the entire reworking of the faction, but 8th is best for crunch. Again - not perfect, but in a really good spot overall.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

I strongly disagree on the army not being fun. (...) The army as a whole really plays like I feel it should play. Super mobile but fragile (...)

I strongly agree.
I like the "flow" of the army in battle.

I would like some more sneaky tactics like redeploying or teleporting during the game, and the foot-slogging HQ's are a pain for the flow, but overall, my play experience feels fluent.
I think they've managed to fit the crunch well to the overall feel of glass hammer/canon. I felt that 5th was opposite - the gameplay was clunky, and the rules were in the way of the game's flow.
So, I think we're in a far-above-average spot today.

Myrvn wrote:

This is an interesting thread to read. I can see where the loss of some datasheets is a pain. And I concur that tournament results aren't the only measurement of if the book is good. But overall, I think this is the best book Drukhari have ever had.

Even under the Dark Eldar moniker, I don't know anyone that said the 3rf book was great, even with the Wych additions. 5th was awesome and I loved playing from that book. The 7th book (really felt like 6tg) was terrible from a strength and flavor standpoint. So really, looking at the current book and edition, I think it is comparable to where we landed with the 5th book.

I play any armies, and i'll tell you this. Tyranids being on the lower tier are one of the most fun codex's in the game.