Sneak Peek at New Drukhari Codex

harlokin wrote:

Cerve wrote:

I'm...more in the Dark Elf Dave, if I must admit it. In a fluff wise we lost the faster Archon in 5ed when the bg was silghtly reworked. For how we are now, an Archon will never ride a bike nor a skyboard just because his artistocracy. Bikes and Skyboard are trash toys for underground people, while an Archon is the creme-de-la-crem of the highest levels of Commorragh. It's like watching a politician going on skateboard, it simply doesn't work.
Succubus just don't ride them for the same reasons Wyches don't do that. Because it is not in their etiquette. They're just gladiators, nothing less nothing more.
Haemonculus.....really?
The only way to get a Reaver lord/Hellion lord should be in the way of new HQs choices which.....it is doable, but sounds kinda weird (in a bg perspection). It should be a special character, it works better (Sathonyx?).

So about the Transports capacity, it is true that Venoms should carry 6 guys, just because I remember they were an HQ's carry in their description (5 ed). But I would argue that Incubi should be 4-10 more than 5-10 for that role.
Anyway.....really, it is not something to complain so much about, IF you like our background. Because Kabals and Wyches are never meant to be the "bodyguards" of our lords. Succubus are independent, they don't really care about wyches, it's more like wyches admires (envy?) Succubus, but there's no description of any Succubus leading his army of wyches (nontheless Reavers or Hellions). In fact, imho his bubble area doesn't fit the bg at all...Succubus should have been more like little-Soilitaires-alike.
Archons are the rulers, full of pride and egoism. Kabals? No way. In books, in Codexes, their bodyguards are alwaya 1) Court, 2) Incubi, 3) sometimes Trueborns...but never Kabals, they're just militia.
So Trueborns are off, Courts already fit the role being 1x choice (in fact Court seems writed for filling empy seats on HQ's Transports) and Incubi, as I said, are the real """mistake here""" cause they should be 4-10 in my opinion just for this role.
But I can't really complain about "I can't pick 9 Wyches because I'm missing 2 weapons stuff", it's just out of background for me.

So this limit, in my opinion, it's not a mistake but more like a solid design choice. Which works a lot for me. What I REALLY would like to see it's some.kind of rule that extend the HQ's bubbles out from.their transports. Because in this way, YES, it would really fitting the Drukhari Theme of raiding force.
That, or some Catacomb-like datasheet that promote any Raider/Venom as the personal boat of the lord, denying him to disembark but actually buff the entire transport making it a new unit.



Abou the salt, I agree with the last post, but I must admit that sometimes a lot of whine against our Codexes is just silly and it shows no care about our DESIGN. There's a lot of passive role playing in this forum, with a lot of full of pride discussions, egoism, incapacity of get the design behind choices, any bg rework ect.
We're all about egoism, pride and trash talking. Like Archons simply do :p

Nonsense.

Vraesque Malidrach was previously a Reaver, and he still wears the helmet; how many politicians do you see going about in motorcyle helmets? Yes, your 'point' was ridiculous. Even if bikes and Skyboard were "trash toys" unworthy of an Archon, Venoms and Raiders are in the same category. They are cheap an disposable transports.

Wyches don't ride jetbikes? Reavers ARE Wyches.

We lost HQs on bikes because of "no models no rules", not because GW has some deep commitment to our fluff.

Quoting one archon that was slightly different doesn’t change the main narrative. Archons in general are not skateboarders.

So he wasn’t talking nonsense at all.

I do agree you have some good points, but you're also missing some things.
For example, yes it would make more sense for an Archon to be supported by Incubi, a Court, or Trueborn. However, 2 of these aren't buffed by his aura, and the third doesn't even exist anymore. Also, your Incubi will want to be around Drazhar for their buff, not an Archon.
Same goes for the Succubus. At this point, it would actually be better to remove the aura's completely, and drop their pointcost accordingly, because that way we won't be paying a tax for a rule we can't use anyway.
Buff aura's working with open-topped vehicles, now THAT would fix a lot. But at this point, if I use an Archon at all, he's just running behind a vehicle, waving pompoms and shouting "you can do it". And as someone pointed out to me, this effort is even useless, because nobody can even hear our pompom-waving "leader".
Yes I am salty about this, because it's nothing but ridiculous. Give me working aura's from open topped vehicles, and my salt will wash away. I'm just asking for a functional HQ that has synergy with his army.

It's true that by lore the Archons will not be with the warriors on a raider, but that doesn't work with sucubo or the haemonculi.

Anyway, if someone defend a position using the argument of the lore, the playstyle, or the balance, that person must be coerent enought to use the same argument to every aspect of the army. And I know that all of us defend an equilibrium betwen all of them, but sometimes is frustrating read someone saying that some lore stuf can't be because it would be OP, and two pages after is saying that something that don't match with the playstile it's OK bc it's like in the lore.

It's difficult make a good codex. It's obvious. All people here are dark eldar player and we are not even capable to reach an agreement between us of how the codex should be, and GW must do it thinking in the other factions too. But the intention of do it good is not negotiable. We are talking about +1 in transport capacity of t5/6 vehicles. It's painly sad this being our principal demand, the most basic one.

Van Halen used to incorporate a clausule in their contracts asking for a bowl of m&m's without the brown ones, and that was the first thing they checked. If the m&m's was ok, that means that the people had read all the contract. The transport capacity are my m&m's. If they don't fix the most basic demand of the comunity, to me that means that they had 0 interest in the codex.

Rodi Sikni wrote:

It's true that by lore the Archons will not be with the warriors on a raider, but that doesn't work with sucubo or the haemonculi.

Anyway, if someone defend a position using the argument of the lore, the playstyle, or the balance, that person must be coerent enought to use the same argument to every aspect of the army. And I know that all of us defend an equilibrium betwen all of them, but sometimes is frustrating read someone saying that some lore stuf can't be because it would be OP, and two pages after is saying that something that don't match with the playstile it's OK bc it's like in the lore.

It's difficult make a good codex. It's obvious. All people here are dark eldar player and we are not even capable to reach an agreement between us of how the codex should be, and GW must do it thinking in the other factions too. But the intention of do it good is not negotiable. We are talking about +1 in transport capacity of t5/6 vehicles. It's painly sad this being our principal demand, the most basic one.

Van Halen used to incorporate a clausule in their contracts asking for a bowl of m&m's without the brown ones, and that was the first thing they checked. If the m&m's was ok, that means that the people had read all the contract. The transport capacity are my m&m's. If they don't fix the most basic demand of the comunity, to me that means that they had 0 interest in the codex.

That's true, I would never claim that it would be broken. No way on that. Maybe I'm just a bit optimistic, but I like to consider even draws as a design matter. It's not that we are just "fast", it's way more than that. And the transport capacity/Archon on bike topic never bugged me. I like our bg, I would not like to see an Archon on bike "just because it will be good in play". I prefer character over rules.

We lost out on most of our special characters, not because of fluff but purely and simply because GW didn't and won't make a model for them (despite that logic not applying to certain other armies).

Even if I accept your fluff argument, which I don't, why do we only need to be thinking about Archons and Succubi on bikes, skyboards etc? Why are we even limited to 3 specific HQ units? Why do we not have a 'Reaver Gang Leader' or 'Hellion Lord' or Scourge or Mandrake or whatever?

I’m not saying units must be supported by the fluff...all I’m really saying is that demanding a winged archon because you want one isn’t necessarily a sign of GW not showing you some love.

For me personally it would make far more sense for an archon to be in a transport. I wonder if a points upgrade for a Raider to make it a command Raider that allows auras from its passengers would be a good idea.

Much like the way you can increase the points of space marine characters and give them better/more special rules.

So you’d say have an option for one transport to be upgraded for 25 points to a command vehicle. That vehicle is recognised by the army as the command vehicle and so auras from passengers do work while onboard.

Based on the books already released, is it likely that the Forgeworld vehicles will be in our new codex?

harlokin wrote:

Based on the books already released, is it likely that the Forgeworld vehicles will be in our new codex?

No. Forge World stuff stays in Forge World books unless core GW starts making the kit.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

So you’d say have an option for one transport to be upgraded for 25 points to a command vehicle. That vehicle is recognised by the army as the command vehicle and so auras from passengers do work while onboard.

Personally I'd completely ditch the idea of auras for our characters. Instead I'd beef up the characters to make them deadlier by themselves and just give our vehicles abilities to boost the occupants. Like built-in (5e) splinter racks for example.

I am on the side of "The Archon should be on a Venom with his court, or in a Raider with court and Incubi", and that is how im building my army right now. On my head, Archons are the ones that go on a vehicule, Hemies just stay on foot with their creations, and Succubus along with the foot-slooging wyches just waiting for someone to open the webway portal and charge in directly from the colisseum to the battlefield. So i would be happier to see a cost reduction to the portal strat (make it a relic again, maybe? Like the Tu'Sahk dagger on IG, "The character and up to two infantry units...") than getting venoms TC6 and Raiders TC11.

Just a weird idea i just got while typing this post. What if the Archon gets a special rule where he does not count for transport capacity? Something like everyone is willing to take weird positioning inside it just so the Archon can go anywhere he pleases "Make Way for the Lord" could be a fun name hahaha

Count Adhemar wrote:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

So you’d say have an option for one transport to be upgraded for 25 points to a command vehicle. That vehicle is recognised by the army as the command vehicle and so auras from passengers do work while onboard.

Personally I'd completely ditch the idea of auras for our characters. Instead I'd beef up the characters to make them deadlier by themselves and just give our vehicles abilities to boost the occupants. Like built-in (5e) splinter racks for example.

That is perhaps the easiest way of removing the issue isn’t it.

I’d still like heamies to be acting like apothecaries and Succubus as one poster said could be buffed vs characters.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

So you’d say have an option for one transport to be upgraded for 25 points to a command vehicle. That vehicle is recognised by the army as the command vehicle and so auras from passengers do work while onboard.

Personally I'd completely ditch the idea of auras for our characters. Instead I'd beef up the characters to make them deadlier by themselves and just give our vehicles abilities to boost the occupants. Like built-in (5e) splinter racks for example.

That is perhaps the easiest way of removing the issue isn’t it.

I’d still like heamies to be acting like apothecaries and Succubus as one poster said could be buffed vs characters.

Come on we all know that then we would just be left with weak ass hqs without auras

When it comes to our characters, I'm somewhat shocked by the lack of creativity and game-design from GW. The role of HQs from 8th and forward is to serve as force multipliers, but somehow GW can almost entirely only think of "re-roll 1s of some kind" auras?

I would say, screw auras. They are just boring and lazy design. And it doesn't even make sense from a fluff perspective. And in terms of game-design, it opens up interesting ideas for debuffs:
- Choose one enemy unit within X, re-roll dice against this unit.
- All enemy units within 1" lower their attacks by 1 (to a minimum of 1)
- Reliable morale shenanigans.
- Shutting down enemy auras.
- Or synergies where you could allocate wounds from your Succubus to one of your Wyches...

To be fair, I really like the +1 Toughness aura of the Haemonculi. It opens up interesting combinations and can give you an edge against certain types of weapons. It's an interesting dynamic and frankly, I think it's good game-design.

But it appears that GW only knows how to design space marines or really tanky stuff?

Is anyone else sick of seeing the pariah nexus stuff? It feels like it's been pariah nexus pre-order every other week since January, im ready to see official get teasers for new rules and not just the "oh, here's a teaser for models and weapons because this is stuff that is pretty much already out due to reboxing"

I also don't like "normal" reroll auras for our HQs.

- I agree on the +1T Aura of the Haemonculous being awesome, both fluffwise and gamewise.
- Archons should command his Kabal to kill something, as you said. Debuffing the target or buffing the attacking unit.
- Succubus is more hard to imagine. I always thought of an ability that forces the Succubus to fight first if she can, and then buffing nearby Wyches depending on how killy she was. (Example: If she doesn't kill, +1 to hit to wyches; if she does kill any model, +1 to hit and +1 to wound; if she kills a Character, +1 to hit and wound and +1A). Maybe is too much, but you get the idea.

Also no preorder next week either. This starts to become tedious.

"You’ll be able to delve into Commorragh with a guide to some of the many ways to die in the Dark City, and Visions of Glory will take a closer look at the new boyz on the Warhammer Underworlds block, along with giving you a first look at another upcoming war"

Seems that this week starts our preview.

I guess this week is lore week, next week will be rules week with the preorder on 13th.

Archon_91 wrote:

Is anyone else sick of seeing the pariah nexus stuff? It feels like it's been pariah nexus pre-order every other week since January, im ready to see official get teasers for new rules

I’m also getting restless in waiting for more info. It’s really not helping with official word being so secretive about what’s coming out when.
I don’t know if this will help, but maybe managing expectations could give some relief:

GW said early in the year there was going to be one 40k-release per month (a codex or an expansion).
Jan was Death Guard, Feb was Dark Angels, and March is Kill Team.
That means the next 40k pre-order should go up on 27th of March at the earliest.

If that is the Drukhari dex, it means preview week is only 3 weeks from now.
If it isn’t us (maybe we’ve been delayed, or the Charadon-book comes out first, or something), then it may be even further out. (But by then we might at least have gotten a date, seen the last couple of datasheets, or seen what rules we get in the campaign book)

Some good news (maybe?) is that there’s going to be a small lore article on drukhari coming up on warhammer community this week. Which was alsp the case for DA in late january (when they were probably originally supposed to come out), and they were delayed a month, leaving some hope that we might in fact be just a month away.
(Though today’s article also said there will be unspecified delays to releases, so no ideah if that means us, or other stuff...)
Anyway, here’s to hoping!

Denegaar wrote:

I guess this week is lore week, next week will be rules week with the preorder on 13th.

I fell the same way.
This article give me the impression to be crushed beneath MArneus' boot.

Denegaar wrote:

I also don't like "normal" reroll auras for our HQs.

- I agree on the +1T Aura of the Haemonculous being awesome, both fluffwise and gamewise.

I'm going to be the odd one out and say that I don't like the Haemonculus' +1T aura for a few reasons:

- Because of how wounding was changed in 8th, combined with the average strength value on various weapons, I don't find +1T tremendously useful outside of maybe Wracks.

- It would also be somewhat useful on Talos and Cronos . . . if GW hadn't lowered their toughness so that they need the aura just to be T7. Hey, remember how Space marines didn't have their BS lowered to 4+ just to make their to-hit rerolls more meaningful.

- I'm not clear on what the Haemonculus is even supposed to be doing to grant this aura.

- I just find it really fething boring. Especially since it's the only ability he has.


As to possible replacements, I've already said that I'd like him to be our version of the Apothecary (healing/reviving units). However, I think it would be most fitting if he picked a single unit to augment at the beginning of the game with some sort of buff (which, once applied, doesn't need the Haemonculus to remain nearby).

I mean, I'm getting into wishlist territory here, but a further possibility would be to have some Haemonculus-based mutations for characters to take for points (similar to cryptek Arcana). A Haemonculus could grant a free mutation or some free points that can only be spent on one or more of these mutations.


Each to their own, of course. I just don't think the +1T aura is a particularly interesting way of representing Haemonculi on the tabletop.

Having taken a rather negative tone for the last few pages, I am going to buck the trend.

I am finally glad that the dark city is going to be back on WarCom. Hopefully this will mark the start of a steady trickle leading up to our release. I have been going crazy refreshing here and WarCom. Honestly, I think it would have been better for me if they HADNT told us Drukhari would have the first Xenos codex. Because they did, I assumed, as I think many did initially, that that would mean "Early in the new year". It made a sort of sense. Drop Necrons and Primaris, a couple more Imperium, then, ASAP, in quick succession, a Chaos and a Xenos. After all, 9th, while an incremental change to the rules rather than a reset (like 8th) has changed the rules enough to change the state of play for all the armies.

But I think I assumed several incorrect things.

1. I think I assumed the codex was done. In fact, I think we were told the codex was done. As in, back before December. I no longer believe this was the case. I think it was close, but not done. Maybe playtest was done and they were back using the info to tweak some stuff.

2. I think I assumed that because we had no (or very limited) models riding on the codex release, that we would be less affected by the pandemic. I think a part of me even hoped that when setbacks were announced for several other factions, we might even be parachuted in to fill the hole. That was... naïve. I think the release order is probably tied to some lore beats. We may not feature in those, but they may required Necrons/Primaris, then some more SM, then DG, then the kill team, and maybe then the campaign book, before any other releases, and we may have been put where it was easiest. A delay to any of those pushes us out further.

3. I assumed that, even though they were careful to say 40k releases, the 1 per month rule would only apply to codexes. That was hubris on my part. I failed to see the campaigns and kill team as 40k. To me, because I dont play them, they are just as removed from the main line (AoS and 40k) as Necromunda and Blood Bowl. Clearly, this is not the case. Its actually fairly obvious this is not the case.

A drip feed of information is what I was hoping for. I was lacking that, and became overly hungry. So as I said, while I am certainly the one at fault, I perhaps would have benefited if they hadnt given an indefinite roadmap that was so long. If they had said "july" I could have tempered my expectations. If they hadnt said anything, I wouldnt have known when to start hoping. But I should have seen how I was becoming with the refreshing and taken a step back. This announcement has been like balm, and now, not only can I hopefully scratch that itch, but also take a step back.

Returning for a moment to the topics before:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I’m not saying units must be supported by the fluff...all I’m really saying is that demanding a winged archon because you want one isn’t necessarily a sign of GW not showing you some love.

For me personally it would make far more sense for an archon to be in a transport. I wonder if a points upgrade for a Raider to make it a command Raider that allows auras from its passengers would be a good idea.

Much like the way you can increase the points of space marine characters and give them better/more special rules.

So you’d say have an option for one transport to be upgraded for 25 points to a command vehicle. That vehicle is recognised by the army as the command vehicle and so auras from passengers do work while onboard.

While we have butted heads over the last few pages, I wholeheartedly agree with you here. I would say that I dont see not giving us a winged archon as a lack of love from GW, and more that the call for a winged archon is one, fairly simple, example of increasing the mobility of our HQs, along with 6 man venoms, 11 man raiders, bikes and boards. But I see your point there.

I would, in a heartbeat, pay more points for a command raider/venom. The power to have it either extend auras, or better yet facilitate some of the ideas knocking around in the last few posts would be great.

And I wanted to touch briefly on the idea of putting HQs in raiders or venoms without troop units, or with reduced unit sizes.

For me, the reason I dont do it, is a mix of points cost and a sort of efficiency. I am not looking to win tournaments, and I am looking more for fun games. I do still want to stand a chance of beating my friends once in a while though. So I try to be efficient with my choices, while still including what I want to. Part of that is fielding the models I have and love.

So 20 warriors, 2 (one custom kitbash, one Raging Heroes) archons, 2 raiders, a razorwing, 2 venoms, 5 scourges, 10 wyches, 1 succi (also Raging Heroes), 12 reavers, a beastkeeper, 10 clawed fiends (kitbashed - in progress), 2 ravagers.

I want the kabalites in gunboats, and I kinda want the wyches in venoms. I cant afford (points wise) in 2000pt to cram in 2 more venoms (one for archon 2, one for the succi). And I am currently going Flayed Skull for, among other things, the screaming jets deepstrike. Which is incompatable with webway.

If webway becomes an artefact, or flayed skull changes, or I can convert a raider to a command barge, then I would be far more comfortable putting wyches in the web, and starting with all my kabal on the board. Especially if wyches can charge out of a webway or otherwise do better at not being stuck in the open.

I like seeing what people are going to be running

I’ve actually not got any ravagers. I’ve simply got 4 Raiders and 2 Venoms so I have plenty of transport capacity which is quite likely why I don’t understand the issue around capacity.

I like the idea of having two full Kab squads in Raiders. That means I can take a Dark Lance in each squad and it spreads out the danger weapons across more targets. If you lose a Ravager you lose 3 of your danger weapons...if I lose a Raider I lose only one. It’s also gives me more options for board control.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I like seeing what people are going to be running

I’ve actually not got any ravagers. I’ve simply got 4 Raiders and 2 Venoms so I have plenty of transport capacity which is quite likely why I don’t understand the issue around capacity.

I like the idea of having two full Kab squads in Raiders. That means I can take a Dark Lance in each squad and it spreads out the danger weapons across more targets. If you lose a Ravager you lose 3 of your danger weapons...if I lose a Raider I lose only one. It’s also gives me more options for board control.

Thats very fair. My list was largely based on what I ran in 8th, and also what models I think look cool. So it used to be 2 Dissi ravagers, and 2 gunboats, each with 2 squads of 5 kabalites. 8th was less about objectives, but they still existed, so putting 2 squads in each raider meant that, if necessary, I could dump one half on a point, and still have the other half flying around. Usually a back point, they wernt survivable enough otherwise.

In theory, this could change in 9th. But it likely wont, because I now have those models. I am happy to say they have different guns (and I am in the process of re-magnetising them), but saying they are different models bugs me, and I cant really afford to buy a ton of new stock.

I totally get people running what they have. That’s the same with me.

I’ve got to paint up some Incubi which I will add. I never had them before as I wouldn’t buy finecast.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I totally get people running what they have. That’s the same with me.

I’ve got to paint up some Incubi which I will add. I never had them before as I wouldn’t buy finecast.

If I ever field Incubi again, it will be the old metal ones I still have, along with my metal Drahzar. I just prefer their look, even if the proportions are... off now. But right now, I have no room points wise, and no transport for them.

My friends and I are thinking of going up to 3000 pt games though... Potentially with the War Eternal mission or whatever its called - the one that is more killy.