Advent to destruction

When do we expect the campaign book with Death Guard vs Ad.Mech to show up?
Before or after the drukhari codex?

As that is supposed to contain Drukhari updates as well I would expect after the codex. If it was before our codex and you need our new DeX to use them then it wouldn't make sense.

I guess we could also assume that as we are getting a campaign book entry and our codex say Q1 2021 we may not get any further updates from then until 10th Ed.

JRG wrote:

As that is supposed to contain Drukhari updates as well I would expect after the codex. If it was before our codex and you need our new DeX to use them then it wouldn't make sense.

I guess we could also assume that as we are getting a campaign book entry and our codex say Q1 2021 we may not get any further updates from then until 10th Ed.

personally i find it an abherance to release a codex AND another book that will contain extra rules.....why not just put them in the codex already?????
If the 2 books had at least 6 months delay between them.....fine.....but a question of day of weeks???? its a real robbery if you ask me!
Seriously my hope is that the campaign book only contains additionnal rules for crusades or mission centered rules. If you REALLY want them because you play those kind of game, fine, an happy customer, but for me who only do matched play.....i really don't want to buy 2 books in the same month to be up to date for the 9th edition.
Already the pills was hard to swallow regarding the mission pack and monitorum being that costly for a mere update in the points (should be totally free if you ask me) and some additional maps (buy it at lower cost if you really want it).

What I want-

Hellions.
Same cost, same movement and stats except save = 4+ with a 6+ Invulnerable.

Hit and run

Hellglaives +1 str, damage 2, ap-1

Special rules-
Masters of Urban Warfare- No models receive the benefit of being in cover against attacks made by hellions.

Aerial Acrobats- Hellions receive a 4+ "Jink" save against all shooting attacks. This save is made just like a FNP save.

Crazed Killers- Hellions only ever lose one model to failed morale tests.


Put this in my stocking Santa!

Skulnbonz! me too i want my beautiful Hellions to be good!!!!! seriously, with the Talos, they are my favorite lookin models, so for sure i'd love to field them a lot and see a little fear in my opponent face
I specially love your idea for: masters of urban warfare and aerial acrobats

JRG wrote:

I'd prefer the character aura abilities to reflect the nature of our army. Imperium/SM are leaders and are supposed to be inspiring, Drukhari care less about this, It's a selfish society that doesn't help each other freely. Coven aura I think makes sense as is their creations, they are boasting them but I'd allow it to grow in potency as models are killed within range of Haemonculus.

Succubus are amazing dualists, they should debuff an enemy instead of buffing wyches (-1WS) or loss of attacks would be thematic or a space marine seal of oath like power against a target unit.

Archons are ancient, rich, arrogant aristocrats. They should be bringing unique weapons and personal body guards to the fight. They should have versatile courts they can bring that get bonuses for achieving the archons whims but get negatives if the archon or court models are injuried or die.  

The idea is that within a raiding force the Kabal, Cult and Coven all have their own reasons and machinations for being there and the character auras, interaction with with battle and how we score VP should reflect this.

I'd rather not be a distorted mirror image of how marines play.

(Nothing against marines! )

I agree with you regarding auras and the fact that ours shouldn't be crappier versions of Marine auras.

With the Haemonculus, it's not awful but I'm not a fan of him handing out +1T. I'm not even sure he should have an aura, honestly. Seems like it would make more sense for him to pick a unit at the start of the game to augment in some way (maybe 1 unit of Talos/Cronos/Grotesques or up to 3 units of Wracks). Maybe something like +1S and +1T or +1 FNP. Whatever the buff is, the idea is that it wouldn't require the Haemonculus to stay near the unit.

Could also give him the Apothecary ability (or something like it) so that he can heal nearby monsters and characters.

With regard to the Succubus, I'm not sure she should have an aura at all. They always seemed more like killers than leaders to me. I'd rather she became a better duelist and just dropped the aura entirely.

With regard to the Archon, what if he just gave a free CP each turn as long as he's alive (doesn't need to be on the board)? Seems like a better representation of his strategic ability than a crappy reroll aura.

Or maybe he could let you use a free stratgem each turn, but only within a certain range of him (or his transport)?

It's difficult, to be honest, as I'm struggling to think of something that would represent his strategic acumen, without also encouraging players to keep him shoved at the back of the table for the entire game.
Perhaps some decent wargear would help?

Soulless Samurai, i gotta say that your idea around the Haemonculus really got me! I think it is really lorewise the fact that he ''augment'' some units, but the part i prefer the most is the healing ability that you are referring, now that is the real purpose of those guys: heal and resurrect! They would really bring something unique to our army

[quote="Soulless Samurai"]

JRG wrote:

It's difficult, to be honest, as I'm struggling to think of something that would represent his strategic acumen, without also encouraging players to keep him shoved at the back of the table for the entire game.
Perhaps some decent wargear would help?

What about: Ancient Strategies: "Once per game, when an Archon loses his last wound, he may be redeployed anywhere on the battlefield with 1 wound remaining with all of his wargear. Please note, this means if he lost his shadowfield earlier in the game, it is now active"

This may not seem to powerful at first glance, but it is 100% something I would trade his aura for in a heartbeat.

What you're saying Skulnbonz is something i would love to see more in our army: stuffs that redeploy, more deepstriking possibilities, etc....
anything that reflect our way of fighting: cunning, strategies, deception, treachery etc....

Our enemy thinks that we are there, but bang! we hit them hard on their backrow while their troops are now in an innocupied SPACE....THAT'S the way i want my Drukhari to fight......all the lore i read about them states clearly that this is the way they fight.....they almost never talk about our poison weapon in the lore but strangely the majority of our table play experience is based on those weapon....

Kalmah wrote:

Soulless Samurai, i gotta say that your idea around the Haemonculus really got me! I think it is really lorewise the fact that he ''augment'' some units, but the part i prefer the most is the healing ability that you are referring, now that is the real purpose of those guys: heal and resurrect! They would really bring something unique to our army

Thanks.

I thought it seemed a little closer to their fluff, and it would give them something active to do, as opposed to just sort of sitting there.

I also thought it might be nice if they were a bit more flexible, rather than being encouraged to deploy almost all your coven units in big blobs around Haemonculi.


Oh, just in case you're interested, I had another idea relating to Haemonculi (kind of). Basically, I was wondering whether our version of Cryptek Arcana could be Haemonculus augmentations. These could include stuff like +1S, +1T, +1FNP (similar to the augmentation I suggested), but we could also have things like wings, extra movement (maybe also Advance/Disengage and charge), regeneration, additional limbs (character can take an additional ranged or melee weapon, if the latter he can make 2 extra attacks but only with that specific weapon) etc..

Each one would cost a number of points, but rather than being limited to one-per-character (like with Arcana), you'd instead have a set point limit (e.g. no more than 50pts per character). Each Haemonculi in your army would give you a number of free upgrade points for themselves or other characters.

I realise it's a little vague but hopefully you get the idea.

Skulnbonz wrote:

What about: Ancient Strategies: "Once per game, when an Archon loses his last wound, he may be redeployed anywhere on the battlefield with 1 wound remaining with all of his wargear. Please note, this means if he lost his shadowfield earlier in the game, it is now active"

This may not seem to powerful at first glance, but it is 100% something I would trade his aura for in a heartbeat.

Oh that's interesting. The self-preservation aspect is certainly appropriate, and I like the idea of opponents fighting a shadow.

I was going to suggest going a step further and maybe make the Archon all about teleporting himself and other units around (with this being a final fail-safe) . . . then I realised that I was basically just making my Mandrake Lord concept again.

Soulless Samurai, seems legit indeed, would work a little bit like the combat drugs for cults but the upgrade would apply before the start of the battle (as if you were choosing a warlord trait or an artifact for example). Just to add a little twist, i know it would nerf down the ability a little bit, but a dice roll could determine what bonus the unit gains, or you can choose, but only once per ability until all abilities have been chosen once (same as combat drugs).
And once the battle has started, it could have a role for healing and resurrecting surrounding models.

There is for sure something there to work with, and that would make an amazing HQ that would fill his role perfectly.
fingers crossed for the release of our codex!!!!! i just can't wait!

Kalmah wrote:

Soulless Samurai, seems legit indeed, would work a little bit like the combat drugs for cults but the upgrade would apply before the start of the battle (as if you were choosing a warlord trait or an artifact for example). Just to add a little twist, i know it would nerf down the ability a little bit, but a dice roll could determine what bonus the unit gains, or you can choose, but only once per ability until all abilities have been chosen once (same as combat drugs).
And once the battle has started, it could have a role for healing and resurrecting surrounding models.

There is for sure something there to work with, and that would make an amazing HQ that would fill his role perfectly.

Ah, good catch regarding combat drugs.

Maybe avoid stuff like +1S, +1T with my proposed system then? I think that would make more sense than having it random, since Archons and such would probably be quite definite about what augmentations they wanted.


Aside, regarding Combat Drugs, am I the only one who misses when your whole army would all be taking the same drug? If nothing else, it made things a lot easier to keep track of.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Kalmah wrote:

...

Ah, good catch regarding combat drugs.

Maybe avoid stuff like +1S, +1T with my proposed system then? I think that would make more sense than having it random, since Archons and such would probably be quite definite about what augmentations they wanted.  

If I had to do a rework of the codex from the ground up (as claimed by WHC) I would make Haemonclus powers more akin to psykers. These "powers" are in-fact just sophisticated pieces of ancient technology which can be activated once per game and go off reliably:
- Powerful Stimulants to increase attacks and strength on a unit for a turn.
- Unleash genetically engineered insects from another dimension that maw through hordes
- Space bending devices which lowers the distance for movement and charging
- Open a Dark Gate for Eldritch Horrors that kill Elite creatures
- A bubble of faster space-time which gives units longer time to shoot and provide a +1 to hit.

Or debuff abilities that force enemies to take a leadership test.

I really like that idea, and it could be similar to how the C'tan powers work at the end of the movement phase. It's just Haemonculi pulling things out of a bag from their collection.

I'd love for haemconuli to be broadened out in that way. The sheer variety of terrifying artifacts that are used let alone mentioned in the both codex and black library draws me to them. I would love a focus on the downright eldritch and and reality-warping things that haemonculi have- like mirror shards.

I'd really like to see more options for our units. More ways to experminet with single units: optional rules and wargear to tailor different squads in fun ways. And new rules to allow difernt units to synergise and support eachother in fun ways on the battlefield.

Specific thing I'm thinking about is Venom Blades becoming availible to every squad leader and character again. I really miss them being our second iconic weapon*.=/
And I'd like to see more synergy between units. We got hit especially hard by the design-shift in 7ed. The min5-size to all our elite units (used to be 3-10 in a squad for all of them), thus making them unable to be taken as an escort/bodyguard for an HQ in a venom, is an example of a game-wide change that removed so much of the usefulness of, and potential uses for, the venom. And it was never adressed.
But I'm hopeful it will be now!=) In some way at least

Problem about giving venomblades, shardcarbines, etc. to units that aren't supplied with them in the kit** and changing the min.squad-size to a lower number than comes in the box, is that... I'm not sure that is something GW even does anymore. And if it's general policy there is low hope for anything like that to happen... So, well! I hope they find a way around it, or some other way to make the different units fun to experiment with and interesting/cool synergies to try out.

tl;dr: In conclusion, I think the codex as current needs a lot of work, in order for it to work out the kinks that accidentally appeared in 7ed. But! It sounds from what they've been saying that they've been doing just that! (Going through it and changing things up thouroghly). And from what we've seen so far (new Incubi, identifying the lack of damage output as a major problem) They seem to be on the right track! So I am hopeful ^_^ (SORRYFORTHELONGMESSAGEKTHXBI)

* I also miss Klaives (or "Punishers", as they were called back then) being our third army-specific choice for melee-weapon. But that was back in 3ed, when he game didn't differentiate between HQs and squad leaders when it came to wargear options, which was Wild (I mean you could take a jetbike for your sybarite. Not that she could use it for anything as long as the rest of the squad lived, but it looked Pretty Damn Rad!)
**Fun fact! The drukhari-line was actually conciously designed to encourage cross-kit-bashing, back in 5ed ^^!

I'm not much of a fan of the Haemonculi healing coven units the same way as a apothecary as that is too space marine field doctory. Drukhari is about rewards for hitting hard.

I'd like coven units to have a passive heal they get based on how much damage they deal. This is them fixing themselves with parts of their enemies then a Haemonculi can buff units in range to deal more damage and so heal more...this can be via "powers" like C'tan or litanies. The downsides of these powers could be they also harm the unit at the end of the turn etc that's the price of power, plus it would be cool if then Haemonculi could trade wounds with coven unit - so take wounds from a coven model or give them it's own wounds it has in your turn (not trade damage) this trading of flesh would be very unique and so would the heal via damage.

Similar ideas are in the PA book now but making them more available and choices you can make in game give adaptability, which is something the coven are supposed to embody.

Lastly, I'd like the coven/ Drukhari in general to also have focus around LD shenanigans too. I know this isn't very strong competitive wise as too many factions aren't affected enough but it would be cool to have those options too.

JRG wrote:

I'd like coven units to have a passive heal they get based on how much damage they deal.

Oooo! I really like that idea. It really plays up the "gaining benefits for causing pain and inflicting damage"-characteristic of the drukhari, and awards you for playing them in-character, or how they would act, on the battlefield/in the game.
Great idea!

Leadership manipulation will only work if it is not used for morale tests, like the old Obsidian Grenades.
They were not that great, but they could be:
Obsidian Grenades- roll 3d6, if higher, the difference from the result and the highest leadership in the unit is the number of mortal wounds the unit takes.

That would make me take phantasm grenade launchers again

Hopefully we will start seeing previews soon so we can see how many of our Christmas wishes came true

Its dangerous to dare to hope in the Dark City.

Well on Christmas day there's going to be model reveals, let's hope Lelith is in there

2021 promises to be an amazing year, packed full of rad Warhammer releases – with something new and exciting arriving every month. That said, the global situation means Warhammer releases in January and February will be lighter than in recent years.

Rather than weekly, you’ll see new releases every fortnight, with the first pre-orders of 2021 on the 16th of January.

If you’re a Warhammer 40,000 fan, you’ll see a new codex or expansion every month in January, February, and March starting with the Death Guard – Nurgle, bless ’em, they have waited a long time…

Optimistically hoping for February for Drukhari, then, but it could be pushed back as late as April if the Dark Angels and Warzone Charadon books count as the February and March releases.

I think March /April is more realistic. Death Guard is Jan and then it makes sense to do any further announced Marine releases. Hopefully they release our codex ahead of the Warzone Charadon book.

I think we will be released before Warzone Charadon along with Skitarii ... im pretty sure GW has said we play a big part in that war zone so I think they would want the 3 main armies to have their new rules before that book comes out