Sneak Peek at New Drukhari Codex

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

In fairness both versions of the SC suck compared to them so is this a gripe with the update or Dark Eldar in general?

I'm just a bit disappointed, is all.

Azdrubael wrote:

Quote :

9th edition has brought a need for a obsec units that can hold objectives. The 4+ save is great! Get those troops in light cover and it’s even better. Add the 6++ from pfp and it means that Kabs are now legit objective holders.

4+ save makes no difference.

Ive been running skitarii with exact same stats T3 4+ 6++, plus army wide ability to give cover. Believe me, those models will be dead at the exact moment enemy can shoot at them. They are NOT legit objective holders. ITs delusion to think they will survive a round of shooting on objective.

Light infantry basically have only type of defense in this game - one that is provided by game rules. Range, vision, transport, close combat etc...can save light infantry. Pathethic or slightly less pathethic damage reduction - cant.

It might play a little maybe against S3 AP0 shots...or close combat attacks. But thats pretty much it.

So there’s no difference in a 4+ save and a 5+ save? I’m sure your gaming club will allow you to play with the 5+ save if you feel so strongly.

I do know that Spider aka Lawrence from Tabletop Tactics has been calling for the SC to be damage 2 and he always says it should be like the heavy bolter.

I think the SC could fill a role for vehicles if it's super cheap. It could be the budget option but unless it comes along with some change to how poison works I doubt it'll be much more than that (for all we know units wounded by a poison weapon might suffer a mortal wound in addition to dmg, could be anything/nothing). There also might be some big synergy with kabal rules, we just don't know YET.
Tbh its never a weapon I've been very excited about or used outside of my venoms. There are far more interesting weapons I'm excited to see.

I'd love the shredder to either get a range increase or be turned into an auto hitting weapon. I liked the idea of moving the dissi to an alternate firing mode weapon, one rapid-firing D2 shots the other something else. I fully expect darklight to be D3+3 as standard which I really hope will include the blaster. I wanna see what happens with heat lances. Imagine if haywire forced vehicles to use bracketed profiles in the turn after they've been shot.

Right now all they've shown us is this one weapon. I think it was a very strange way to try to build hype for the reboxed unit. They could have shown the new shredder, blaster or darklance but we can't really draw many conclusions beyond "I'm likely still not taking this on infantry"

Regarding the Splinter Cannon, I'd be surprised if it was less than 15pts.

And I'd be shocked if it cost fewer points than the Heavy Bolter (which completely outclasses it).

The SC having S3 and Poison makes it better than before as it now wounds T2 on 3+, T3 and above on 4+ and although it only wounds vehicles with T6 and above on 6+ as before, it now wounds any T5 vehicles on a 5+ Rather than 6+ like before.

Azdrubael wrote:

Quote :

9th edition has brought a need for a obsec units that can hold objectives. The 4+ save is great! Get those troops in light cover and it’s even better. Add the 6++ from pfp and it means that Kabs are now legit objective holders.

4+ save makes no difference.

Ive been running skitarii with exact same stats T3 4+ 6++, plus army wide ability to give cover. Believe me, those models will be dead at the exact moment enemy can shoot at them. They are NOT legit objective holders. ITs delusion to think they will survive a round of shooting on objective.

Light infantry basically have only type of defense in this game - one that is provided by game rules. Range, vision, transport, close combat etc...can save light infantry. Pathethic or slightly less pathethic damage reduction - cant.

It might play a little maybe against S3 AP0 shots...or close combat attacks. But thats pretty much it.

Drukhari and Mechanicus play in two completely different ways, which involve into that save imho.

Barking Agatha wrote:

Where's our bucket of dice of unavoidable death and destruction, I'd like to know!

I've been saying that for ages. You have individual models in some armies putting out more firepower than virtually our entire army and our highest rate of fire is 3 shots per weapon (not including any blast weapons, of which we have few). So much for our advanced technology!

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

it now wounds any T5 vehicles on a 5+ Rather than 6+ like before.

So other Dark eldar vehicles with a few others sprinkled in.
Guess what heavy bolters wound those on?
4+

The heavy bolter is far and away better overall than the splinter cannon. Only against toughness 6+ non vehicle models does the cannon fare better.

so easily 90-95% of what is on the tabletop in any given game a heavy bolter is superior.
Same stats... heavy 3, ap-1, damage 2....
but if it is the same cost that will be a slap in the face.

November 2020: new Incubi teased.
Last monday: new Kabalites teased.
Me, this week, waiting for more news from the new codex on my phone like a stupid plastic addict.

Damn you, WC.

I'm quite disappointed that we haven't had any further Warhammer Community articles, even the supplement updates (which are surely smaller than our codex right.....) had more articles. I assumed our preview was this weekend....maybe not...

Announces labalite stats ..... Stops
Warhammer community normally posts at least every other day whats up

Why is everyone comparing the new SC to our old Disintegrator profile and whining about how redundant they are. None of you have any idea what the Disintegrator profile will be.

You have absolutely no idea how the SC interacts with any of our other rules! Just hold on and wait to make assertions until you have information, not just bad tummy feels.

Grimcrimm wrote:

Announces labalite stats ..... Stops
Warhammer community normally posts at least every other day whats up

Covid is what's up. Our Codex was meant to be released in January, it's been pushed back. The Kabalite tease was just to pre-empt some of the incomplete leaks that are going to be happening soon from kit reboxings that contain the new datasheets.

We've not hit our actual preview week yet. The week before preorders go live will almost certainly be dedicated to us.

I hope you're right.

I'm getting worrying flashbacks to Blood of the Phoenix, where there was so little content that Warhammer Community spend about two weeks previewing the same models, just from different angles.

Skulnbonz wrote:

The heavy bolter is far and away better overall than the splinter cannon.  Only against toughness 6+ non vehicle models does the cannon fare better.

This gets into a pet peeve of mine.
I think the ”always wound on 4+” mechanic is obsolete in 8e and onwards. But on top of that I don’t get why the distinction between vehicle / non-vehicle needs to be there. I got it before (as in: prior to 8ed), where you, mechanicallly, needed dedicated anti-tank-weaponry, and so there was a distinction already, that was simply heightened by poison’s inability to hurt vehicles.
But since the move to a system where all models use the toughness+wounds-system, it just feels arbitrary to keep that distinction. Why should poison be so much more effective against a Carnifex than it is against a Dreadnaught? Game-wise they fill similar roles, just that the aesthetics of one army makes their big monster look like a giant robot, while the other one looks like a beast-bug.
It just seems like a questionable design choice, for the game in general.
(Though it does get some usage out of keywords, and I like the theory of the keyword system a lot ^_^)

Anyway, it seems they’ve fixed that with the adding if strength values to the poisoned shooting weapons, so I don’t know why I’m complaining about it. Makes me glad, actually. I hope they’ve added something more to the poisoned rule, though. It would really be able to shine if they found an interesting way to spice it up a little.

Burnage wrote:

We've not hit our actual preview week yet. The week before preorders go live will almost certainly be dedicated to us.

This.
But they could give a sneak peak into one of the other repackaged boxes next week or so. Or leaks from people who’ve picked them up could appear.

But assuming they alternate between AoS and 40k, there should be one 40k-preorder in 2 weeks, and another in 6 weeks. So we should probably count on one of those to be our preview week. (Aaaand if the Charadon book comes first we may still se some previews for the Drukh’rules in that one. So probably a couple of snippets in the coming weeks. But I wouldn’t expect tooo much before it’s codex-time!)

ursvamp wrote:

This gets into a pet peeve of mine.
I think the ”always wound on 4+” mechanic is obsolete in 8e and onwards.

Personally, I think it's been obsolete since 6th.

ursvamp wrote:

But on top of that I don’t get why the distinction between vehicle / non-vehicle needs to be there. I got it before (as in: prior to 8ed), where you, mechanicallly, needed dedicated anti-tank-weaponry, and so there was a distinction already, that was simply heightened by poison’s inability to hurt vehicles.

I can understand trying to maintain some sort of distinction between vehicles and monsters. The problem is that the distinction is completely arbitrary. Why is a Riptide a Monster but a Dreadnought is a Vehicle? Why is a Deadknight a Monster? With the possible exception of C'tan, why is anything in the entire Necron codex a monster?

It seems like if we want to maintain any sort of distinction, we really need to replace 'vehicle' and 'monster' with something like 'organic/inorganic'. Though, as you say, it's questionable as to whether even that is necessary.

Furthermore, I think there's an additional issue with the inconsistency of what poison is (in mechanical terms) and what it can or cannot affect:
- GSCs use 'traditional' poison. That is, it wounds non-vehicles on a fixed value. However, all of their poisoned weapons wound on a 2+ and all of them have additional damage, AP or other effects.
e.g. the weakest poisoned weapons GSC have access to are S1 AP0 Dd3 Poison 2+ and S: User AP0 Dd3 (can also do additional Mortal Wounds to characters).
- Death Guard poison seems to be in the form of either rerolls to wound or Mortal Wounds, both of which work just fine against vehicles and non-vehicles alike.
- Tyranids get various poisoned weapons and abilities (rerolling wounds, multiple-damage, extra damage on 6s to wound, Mortal Wounds, -1 to hit when wounded) - all of which work against infantry and vehicles alike. Even the Venom Cannon (which used to only be able to glance vehicles) now works normally against any target.
- Dark Eldar, however, seem to get the worst of all worlds. Unlike Death Guard and Tyranids, their poison (even with S3) is still going to be wounding almost every target on a 6+. However, unlike GSCs, DE have almost no weapons that wound on a 2+, and the few they do have don't get half the other traits/abilities (AP, multiple damage, extra attacks etc.). Now, you can make an argument for availability, but that still doesn't explain why the Electrocorrosive Whip - the best non-artefact Poisoned Weapon in our entire arsenal (and one that can't be taken en masse) - pales completely in comparison to the Sanctus Bio Dagger, which has the same AP and damage but wounds on a 2+ and gets an extra attack. Hell, we have artefacts worse than that.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that back in 5th Poison felt like we were trading out anti-GEQ and anti-vehicle capability in order to be much more effective against monsters, heavy infantry, bikers and similar units.

But now, with so many units having received extra wounds and other defences, it feels like we're trading anti-vehicle and anti-GEQ ability in order to be... still pretty bad against everything else.

Now, I get that a whole army of poison is difficult to balance (not just externally but also internally - since almost every unit is just bringing the exact same weapon profile), but perhaps the solution would be to reconsider having DE as a whole army of poison? Or else to take an approach more akin to Tyranids or Death Guard, where Poison applies an additional effect to the weapon (to both infantry and vehicles) but still allows a variety of weapon profiles.

I realise I'm getting into wishlisting territory here, as we already know Poison is staying in its current form, just thinking aloud really.

i'm in that our poison system should indeed be redone from the ground.
I know i already said it a lot of time, but i want debuffs!!!!! Instead of us growing stronger, why not downgrade our opponents? This would be an innovative and original mechanic i think.

What about "every 6s to wound cancel the wound and add 1 MW"?
Adding 1 MW seems just too much for the poison standard.

If you just focus on Kabs and poison then how would you change the way poison works for the SR and SC?

You can sit there all day comparing weapons and saying this is better than that...but there is a lot more to it than that. We have access to A LOT of poison. If you make it better, then the amount we can take means the balance could easily be lost. We would just get nerfed a month later and we don’t want that.

Splinter Rifle...how do you want poison to work for that?

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

If you just focus on Kabs and poison then how would you change the way poison works for the SR and SC?

You can sit there all day comparing weapons and saying this is better than that...but there is a lot more to it than that. We have access to A LOT of poison. If you make it better, then the amount we can take means the balance could easily be lost. We would just get nerfed a month later and we don’t want that.

Splinter Rifle...how do you want poison to work for that?

Honestly, re-roll 1s to wound buit-in would be enough for me. It's in line with what many auras do, but allows our army to spread out.

Otherwise, I'd be open to having 2 different strength profiles. Splinter rifles are S5, but S1 against vehicles. Splinter cannons are S7, but S1 against vehicles. That sort of thing. Though that's way more wishlisting than anything else.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I realise I'm getting into wishlisting territory here, as we already know Poison is staying in its current form, just thinking aloud really.

I mean, we don't actually know poison is staying in its current form given the addition of a strength value to the Cannon. I think the safest assumption is that just means "you can use the strength value if it would give you a better chance to wound", but something like "rerolls to wound if your target has a T value equal to or less than S" is possible and would be quite a noticeable improvement.

Burnage wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I realise I'm getting into wishlisting territory here, as we already know Poison is staying in its current form, just thinking aloud really.

I mean, we don't actually know poison is staying in its current form given the addition of a strength value to the Cannon. I think the safest assumption is that just means "you can use the strength value if it would give you a better chance to wound", but something like "rerolls to wound if your target has a T value equal to or less than S" is possible and would be quite a noticeable improvement.

That was what the poison rule used to be anyway, although it only applied to melee weapons.

Another thing, how long will you think it will take for the term GEQ to disappear? Assuming that our Craftworld brethren will also get the 4+ armour save, guards became more the exception for toughness 3 infantry, then the rule.
Besides them and the gsc troops, there will not be really much left with toughness 3 and a 5+ armour save. Most will have a 4+ armour save, sisters and aspect warriors a 3+, guards and hybrids a 5+ and cultists a 6+, daemons and harlequins (and wyches?) an invuln. At least for me it sounds like GEQ is not that relevant anymore for mathhammer, something like a SEQ (Skiitari, Scions Equivalent) sounds more relevant.