Sneak Peek at New Drukhari Codex

The thing that boggles my mind is... why can't Raiders equip Athersails? Sure, we have "Enhanced Aethersails" as a Stratagem, but we have distinct pieces of plastic for our sails. It should be a vehicle equipment piece, just like Star-Engines for CWE.

Aethersails: When a model with Aethersails Advances, add 2D6" to that model’s Move characteristic for that Movement phase instead of D6". Costs 10pts.

I think a base movement value of 14" is perfectly fine, but we should definitely have extra movement rules.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I agree with this. Just because other armies have fast options doesn’t make us average. We are optimal in our fast builds. I’m quite sure we will see some strats added as well.

I fear I'm not following your logic here.

Other armies don't count as fast because they have lots of fast options but Dark Eldar counts as one of the fastest armies in the game because it has fast options, even though those other armies have more and faster options.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I agree with this. Just because other armies have fast options doesn’t make us average. We are optimal in our fast builds. I’m quite sure we will see some strats added as well.

I fear I'm not following your logic here.

Other armies don't count as fast because they have lots of fast options but Dark Eldar counts as one of the fastest armies in the game because it has fast options, even though those other armies have more and faster options.

I must side with DED. With exceptions of HQs, we can put our whole army in transports (and whatever can't be put into transports has a high movement value). Next to Harlequinns, we are one of the few factions that can pull this off. Sure, Wave Serpents are much better than Raiders, but they also cost twice as much. Impulsors aren't cheap either and they carry 6 models max.

And even things like Taloi are very mobile if you re-roll advances and use FnF.

Could we be more mobile? Certainly.
But I argue that our weakness is certainly not speed, it is damage output.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

The thing that boggles my mind is... why can't Raiders equip Athersails? Sure, we have "Enhanced Aethersails" as a Stratagem, but we have distinct pieces of plastic for our sails. It should be a vehicle equipment piece, just like Star-Engines for CWE.

Aethersails: When a model with Aethersails Advances, add 2D6" to that model’s Move characteristic for that Movement phase instead of D6". Costs 10pts.

I think a base movement value of 14" is perfectly fine, but we should definitely have extra movement rules.

But that would imply it's an optional part of the Raider. It's not. A raider should always have Aethersails. The optional upgrade "Enhanced Aethersails" could be an upgrade to regular Aethersails, but they made it a stratagem instead.

We can say that if we're not the faster army we're the most agile one (with Harlequins, as it should be).

Cerve wrote:

We can say that if we're not the faster army we're the most agile one (with Harlequins, as it should be).

Harlequins are considerably more agile. White scars are the harlequins of space marines. We are definitely behind both in agility. Falling out of combat and then being able to charge back in army wide (ie NOT one unit per turn) is a hell of an ability.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Beyond being horde-eldar (which isn't really much to go on), what do you think should be our focus? As in, if we do just one thing better than Harlequins and Eldar, what should it be? Speed/mobility, maybe? It seems we should at least do it better than the Craftworlders.

One thing we also should excel in at least in the lore is the usage of the webway. Craftworld infantry have keystone to open existing portals, we have portable portals we can bring wherever we need them. Commoragh is not only in the webway, it is also separated in different sub realms, so you cannot just walk into the neighbouring district. The other Aeldari factions live outside of the webway for a long time, for Drukhari it is just a short intermezzo. The webway is for us, what the ocean is for fishes or for the Idoneth Deepkin if you prefer a tabletop example. So a lot of webway shenanigans would be an option. Things like the Khadron ability fly high mentioned in another thread, basically, their sky vessels instead of moving can be removed from the table and immediately deep strike in the same phase.

Koldan wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Beyond being horde-eldar (which isn't really much to go on), what do you think should be our focus? As in, if we do just one thing better than Harlequins and Eldar, what should it be? Speed/mobility, maybe? It seems we should at least do it better than the Craftworlders.

One thing we also should excel in at least in the lore is the usage of the webway. Craftworld infantry have keystone to open existing portals, we have portable portals we can bring wherever we need them. Commoragh is not only in the webway, it is also separated in different sub realms, so you cannot just walk into the neighbouring district. The other Aeldari factions live outside of the webway for a long time, for Drukhari it is just a short intermezzo. The webway is for us, what the ocean is for fishes or for the Idoneth Deepkin if you prefer a tabletop example. So a lot of webway shenanigans would be an option. Things like the Khadron ability fly high mentioned in another thread, basically, their sky vessels instead of moving can be removed from the table and immediately deep strike in the same phase.

If they gave me my WWPs back, I might die of sheer joy before I ever got to use them again.

I made them out of 2 clear plastic domes, on slightly smaller inside the other. I filled the space between them with a shimmering green fluid mixture and got flickering tea lights to put underneath to make them appear to glow from within. They have since fallen into disrepair.

I loved the playstyle of a WWP surprise attack army before GW utterly and completely removed it from the game (and gave GSC the playstyle instead). So unique, so fun, so thematic and opponents had no idea how to prepare for it.

Le sigh....

Koldan wrote:

So a lot of webway shenanigans would be an option. Things like the Khadron ability fly high mentioned in another thread, basically, their sky vessels instead of moving can be removed from the table and immediately deep strike in the same phase.

That kind of slippery-ness feels very drukhari-like, to me!
A force that is hard to pin down, and where you need to be wary of all your fronts, at all times, since ”you don’t know where they’ll show up” and strike.
It would also fit well with the idea behind the original Power From Pain-design; you may lose a lot of models, but the ones that are still there are potent enough to, potentially, make up for it. In this case that would mean that you may not have a lot of units with this ability left, but your opponent will also (probably) have lost units and so their ability to deal with the re-deepstrik-shenanigans of the few units you still have, will also be diminished the further the fighting goes on.
I like it!

sekac wrote:

I made them out of 2 clear plastic domes, on slightly smaller inside the other. I filled the space between them with a shimmering green fluid mixture and got flickering tea lights to put underneath to make them appear to glow from within.

That is rad as hell

sekac wrote:

Koldan wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Beyond being horde-eldar (which isn't really much to go on), what do you think should be our focus? As in, if we do just one thing better than Harlequins and Eldar, what should it be? Speed/mobility, maybe? It seems we should at least do it better than the Craftworlders.

One thing we also should excel in at least in the lore is the usage of the webway. Craftworld infantry have keystone to open existing portals, we have portable portals we can bring wherever we need them. Commoragh is not only in the webway, it is also separated in different sub realms, so you cannot just walk into the neighbouring district. The other Aeldari factions live outside of the webway for a long time, for Drukhari it is just a short intermezzo. The webway is for us, what the ocean is for fishes or for the Idoneth Deepkin if you prefer a tabletop example. So a lot of webway shenanigans would be an option. Things like the Khadron ability fly high mentioned in another thread, basically, their sky vessels instead of moving can be removed from the table and immediately deep strike in the same phase.

If they gave me my WWPs back, I might die of sheer joy before I ever got to use them again.

I made them out of 2 clear plastic domes, on slightly smaller inside the other. I filled the space between them with a shimmering green fluid mixture and got flickering tea lights to put underneath to make them appear to glow from within. They have since fallen into disrepair.

I loved the playstyle of a WWP surprise attack army before GW utterly and completely removed it from the game (and gave GSC the playstyle instead). So unique, so fun, so thematic and opponents had no idea how to prepare for it.

Le sigh....

Very first thing i said when i saw GSC get blips.......

sekac wrote:

I made them out of 2 clear plastic domes, on slightly smaller inside the other. I filled the space between them with a shimmering green fluid mixture and got flickering tea lights to put underneath to make them appear to glow from within. They have since fallen into disrepair.

Do you have pictures? That sounds awesome!

sekac wrote:

Kalmah wrote:

IMO, the way to describe us right now would be: good at everything, master at nothing.
So what @Cerve is saying i think is true, we are indeed able to do anything, but no, sadly, we won't be the best at anything.....and i'm ok with that frankly.
As a casual player, that's exactly what i'm looking for: i can try whatever i want, with some bad results and some good results. I repeat, i'm a casual player, i'm not talking from a competitive view.

I'm mostly a casual player too. I don't care about having a top tier army. Good, sure, but not top tier. I just want an army with a personality.

In 5th, 6th, and 7th we were the fastest army in the entire game. Not top tier power, but nobody could move like us.

In 8th, we were no longer the fastest in straightline speed, but we had the ability to move top speed and still fire to full effect.

In 9th, everyone can move top speed and fire to full effect. We used to trade speed for fragility, now we just have the fragility.

The thing that made us unique was given to every army in the game--leaving us with no signature element to our army concept. That has nothing to do with being a good or bad army. Just a flavorless one.

This hits the nail perfectly on the head for me.

Our mechanics and abilities were good when they were unique to us but now everyones gets them we need to at minimum get the next step up, but preferably a proper rethink of our core mechanics. I think this is suuuper important if they wanna shift us to a more "stabby" army as they say.

I wanna see advance and charge on everything (maybe as part of PfP). Why are we the only "melee" army without a way to get reliable charges?? We need strats for that at least. All vehicles can fire into combat now, ok, let us do that with our open-topped troops inside then.

To my eyes, mass open-topped transports are one of the few things that are fairly unique to drukhari.
I'd love to see them lean into this.
Let us fire from them without penalty when advancing, charge out of them, shoot from them in melee, double shoot strategems for them, consolidate into them, overwatch from them, allow HQ abilities to work from them and for the love of god at least give the raider extra slots to fit those HQs.

All the while we need some kind of mechanic to represent us feeding off the pain and suffering we cause. I feel the current PfP is very lackluster.

Some combination of these changes could have drukhari with a more defined playstyle imo.

Please just make us flavorful then think of strategems ill spit if we get a "shoot twice" its a blight on the game

Grimcrimm wrote:

Please just make us flavorful then think of strategems ill spit if we get a "shoot twice" its a blight on the game

It a very unfun mechanic when you have huge units of marines with crazy numbers of shots but for an MSU army one transport crew wouldn't be too bad imo.

More webway shenanigans would definitely be appreciated.

Whilst hardly the height of their careers, at least the ability to take WWPs gave out HQs something useful to do. Being able to deep-strike risk-free (IIRC) wherever we wanted was a very handy ability and really emphasised our ability to appear out of nowhere.

I especially liked that we could do it with transports full of troops and with the Dark Artisan formation.

It would also be cool if some of our units could redeploy themselves each turn (disappearing and redeploying via deep strike).

sekac wrote:

If they gave me my WWPs back, I might die of sheer joy before I ever got to use them again.

I made them out of 2 clear plastic domes, on slightly smaller inside the other. I filled the space between them with a shimmering green fluid mixture and got flickering tea lights to put underneath to make them appear to glow from within. They have since fallen into disrepair.

I loved the playstyle of a WWP surprise attack army before GW utterly and completely removed it from the game (and gave GSC the playstyle instead). So unique, so fun, so thematic and opponents had no idea how to prepare for it.

Le sigh....

Do you have pictures of those? They sound incredible.

GreyArea wrote:

This hits the nail perfectly on the head for me.

Our mechanics and abilities were good when they were unique to us but now everyones gets them we need to at minimum get the next step up, but preferably a proper rethink of our core mechanics. I think this is suuuper important if they wanna shift us to a more "stabby" army as they say.

I wanna see advance and charge on everything (maybe as part of PfP). Why are we the only "melee" army without a way to get reliable charges?? We need strats for that at least. All vehicles can fire into combat now, ok, let us do that with our open-topped troops inside then.

To my eyes, mass open-topped transports are one of the few things that are fairly unique to drukhari.
I'd love to see them lean into this.
Let us fire from them without penalty when advancing, charge out of them, shoot from them in melee, double shoot strategems for them, consolidate into them, overwatch from them, allow HQ abilities to work from them and for the love of god at least give the raider extra slots to fit those HQs.

All the while we need some kind of mechanic to represent us feeding off the pain and suffering we cause. I feel the current PfP is very lackluster.

Some combination of these changes could have drukhari with a more defined playstyle imo.

I'd agree with all this.

There seems to be a constant problem with one faction (especially a Xeno faction) getting an ability, and then in an edition or so that ability is then handed out to other factions as well.

In 8th, our vehicles could move at full speed and still fire Heavy weapons without penalty. It was a nice little bonus to emphasise how our army was supposed to fight. But then Marines didn't like getting a -1 to hit if they moved and so now everyone gets to move and fire at full effect.

And I agree also about PfP being lacklustre. Mainly I just find it fething boring. Especially when it's basically the only special rule most of our stuff gets. I'd much prefer a system like those used in AoS (or even 7th edition Daemonkin) where wounds/casualties are tallied in some way and can then be 'spent' on various effects. Even if it ends up being mechanically weaker, it's at least a much more interactive effect than a table of boring abilities that advances by one level each turn, regardless of anything happening in-game. Honestly, I don't even know why DE bother going on raids at all. Apparently they can increase their pain just by sitting about and reading a newspaper (or, in the case of an Archon, reading Vect's Book of Poetry aloud).[/quote]

Gelmir wrote:

sekac wrote:

I made them out of 2 clear plastic domes, on slightly smaller inside the other. I filled the space between them with a shimmering green fluid mixture and got flickering tea lights to put underneath to make them appear to glow from within. They have since fallen into disrepair.

Do you have pictures? That sounds awesome!

Sadly, no

My phone once decided to delete on the pictures on my SD card. And the website for the game event that hosted it switched servers some years back and many of the old archived photos are lost to history.

But now that I work in manufacturing and my technical skills/knowledge have improved, I'll be rebuilding those better than ever!

Ya know...if ever I have a reason to....

So you guys dont like a 6+ FnP, +1 to WS and reroll charges and advances that is army-wide? I have seen (and suffered) a lot of lost games because that charge didnt go, a unit rolled poorly on combat or someone got a bunch of good dices on special saves and hold into that objective.

I play Khorne on AoS and while you have a lot of nice skills, i ussually end up summoning demons with those Blood Tithes than using the special skills. Its one of those cases where people see it and say "oh that is broken because i dont have it" but it really is not, besides a couple of good ones (being the most expensive to use too) the abilities you get are a bit meh at most and some armies have equal effects as common spells. Let me put it this way, do you prefer to wait for turn 2 for the army-wide reroll charges or having to wait for 2 units to die on the tabletop to then SPEND those deaths on rerolling ONE charge? Because that is how Blood Tithe works, you get one charge per unit eliminated and then you need to use those points, its not acummulative or anything, you use them, like 40k CP.

From what i have seen on Drukhari games online (lets just admit it, we dont have a lot of players on this faction and i will be the first on my local group to play them "seriously") a big chunk of our already small staying power comes from the PnP, and you want that out? So the only save that the wyches got for pistols being shot to their faces, another layer of dice-rolling for wracks, and (in the case of Soul-bound or Black Heart) a chance to save for our squishy transports, is "lackluster"? I pretty much prefer a 6+ FnP army-wide than a 3+ FnP once per game on one unit because another 5 are already dead...

Kurtix wrote:

So you guys dont like a 6+ FnP, +1 to WS and reroll charges and advances that is army-wide?

Honestly? No.

I hate 6+ saves and similar abilities on general principles. I don't mind rider effects that trigger on a 6+ to hit or to wound, but when you're making an entirely new roll that only works 1/6 times I consider it's primary function to be wasting time.

I'd rather have a 5+ FNP on a few choice units and leave everything else to go hang.

+1WS is boring as hell, but I'll freely grant that it's at least functional. But rerolling Charge and Advance rolls? I can remember maybe one game in the history of 8th where either of even came up. I'd far rather have something to let me charge after Advancing. Or, hell, something to let me move after shooting or even after melee.

Not to mention the fact that +1WS and reroll charges are basically dead abilities for one of our main subfactions.

Kurtix wrote:

So you guys dont like a 6+ FnP, +1 to WS and reroll charges and advances that is army-wide?

So its not that they are super weak rules, its more that I don't think they are fun or interesting.
They are good on melee units but that is only a part of our army.
I also don't like the extra time that the FnP adds to the game with all that extra dice rolling for a very slim chance of saving.

I'd rather rework it or failing that change what the buffs are.
I think I get the logic of why the buffs are the way they are to buff us with stuff we need for each stage of the game, but in most games the last 2 are irrelevant. Leadership just doesn't really matter in most games.
Maybe a simple change of giving extra strength for turn 4 or regening some lost wounds?
5 could be units count as having double the number of models for obsect or something else objective focused??

Personally though I'd still rather a full rework. I think it would make more sense to relate somehow to how many casualties or wounds are inflicted. I'm not sure how that would best be implimented though. I wouldn't want a ton of bookkeeping adding faff to games so it might be a hard mechanic to make work smoothly.

Kurtix wrote:

So you guys dont like a 6+ FnP, +1 to WS and reroll charges and advances that is army-wide?

Incubi got 2+ WS, which means the newest plastic kit would not profit from such a faction ability. I guess that means army-wide +1 to hit in close combat is gone as GW writes rules often in the intention to sell the newer kits. 6+ FnP could also be gone on everything except maybe coven units and most of the times the rolls did nothing, except taking time, even though occasionally it messed up some opponent's plans really bad.
I admit reroll charges is nice, but in most situations, it basically just the weaker and unreliable version of Harlequins advance and charge.
Advance rerolls are for me mostly a gimmick, if I need the distance I don't risk it with an advance roll, I just use fire and fade or enhanced aether sails or find something to charge into, 2d6 +(6" for pile in and consolidate) beats 1d6 with a reroll most of the time. And the most interesting units for advanced rerolls don't have it, beasts and ur-ghouls as they cannot fire and fade and for their jobs, I would really like to have once in a while a more reliable advance.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I agree with this. Just because other armies have fast options doesn’t make us average. We are optimal in our fast builds. I’m quite sure we will see some strats added as well.

I fear I'm not following your logic here.

Other armies don't count as fast because they have lots of fast options but Dark Eldar counts as one of the fastest armies in the game because it has fast options, even though those other armies have more and faster options.

You can’t rewrite what I say in your own words and then say you don’t follow me. You’re not getting yourself!

Kurtix wrote:

So you guys dont like a 6+ FnP, +1 to WS and reroll charges and advances that is army-wide? I have seen (and suffered) a lot of lost games because that charge didnt go, a unit rolled poorly on combat or someone got a bunch of good dices on special saves and hold into that objective.

I play Khorne on AoS and while you have a lot of nice skills, i ussually end up summoning demons with those Blood Tithes than using the special skills. Its one of those cases where people see it and say "oh that is broken because i dont have it" but it really is not, besides a couple of good ones (being the most expensive to use too) the abilities you get are a bit meh at most and some armies have equal effects as common spells. Let me put it this way, do you prefer to wait for turn 2 for the army-wide reroll charges or having to wait for 2 units to die on the tabletop to then SPEND those deaths on rerolling ONE charge? Because that is how Blood Tithe works, you get one charge per unit eliminated and then you need to use those points, its not acummulative or anything, you use them, like 40k CP.

From what i have seen on Drukhari games online (lets just admit it, we dont have a lot of players on this faction and i will be the first on my local group to play them "seriously") a big chunk of our already small staying power comes from the PnP, and you want that out? So the only save that the wyches got for pistols being shot to their faces, another layer of dice-rolling for wracks, and (in the case of Soul-bound or Black Heart) a chance to save for our squishy transports, is "lackluster"? I pretty much prefer a 6+ FnP army-wide than a 3+ FnP once per game on one unit because another 5 are already dead...

I personally like 5th a lot other than how it worked for vehicles.

I also am fine with a army wide 6+++, but if you limit it not the full army then it needs to be a 5+++.

I think PfP is fine, but I would rather see it ore like DoK in AoS if it stayed a chart,


Blood Rites
The fantasy variant of "Power From Pain". Every turn your units get a brand new special rule that stacks for the rest of the game.

Quickening Bloodlust: Reroll run rolls of 1.
Headlong Fury: Reroll dice rolls of 1 when charging.
Zealot's Rage: Rerolls 1s to hit in melee.
Slaughterer's Strength: Reroll 1s to wound in melee
Unquenchable Fervour: Your units rerolls saves of 1, and do not need to take battleshock tests.

Why do I like this better? Well b.c the 6+++ SHOULD be a army rule not a PfP rule, we are not getting power from our or their pain to ignore pain.... we just always are used to pain with the pull of slaanesh. So take the 6+++ out and make it re-roll 1's turn 1, now it helps the full army, re-roll charges of 1 can just be re-roll charges if you like. I also don't think we should have Aura HQ's for re-roll hits, we are DE we shouldn't work like that, how HQ's are cunning, make them so, making it a army rule turn 3 is better, and as the game goes on re-roll 1's is good and saves for late game is always nice.

Blades of Khorne gets 1 point per every unit killed and they can spend them to use abilities, thought I love this idea as its more like 5th i don't like "Spending them" and this should be used for Ynnari.

Be kinda cool if there were Archon strats and he gave you plus 1 CP to use them. Maybe you could tweak that idea into something cool. Just a way of me trying to think of a way to make an archon worth something extra, a way to make him involved in the battle outcome.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Be kinda cool if there were Archon strats and he gave you plus 1 CP to use them. Maybe you could tweak that idea into something cool. Just a way of me trying to think of a way to make an archon worth something extra, a way to make him involved in the battle outcome.

Instead of having Archon-specific Stratagems, what if each Archon just gave you a free Stratagem use during each of your turns?

You could also limit it a bit, whilst also emphasising that he's a Kabal unit but also an overall leader. e.g.:

'The Stratagem may target a unit within 18" of the Archon or a <Kabal> unit anywhere on the table.'

or

'You may use a Stratagem that targets a <Kabal> unit without paying its cost, or you may use a Stratagem targeting a non-<Kabal> unit and reduce its CP cost by 1 (to a minimum of 0).'

Just a couple of possibilities.


It'll probably need a little tweaking, but do I think free Stratagems/CP would be a good direction for Archons.

I really like the idea of our Archons playing with stratagems. It simulates the "cunning mastermind" role. I've always hated our non-functional re-roll aura, not just because it hardly works for us but also because it simply doesn't feel like what he should be doing. If the Archon just came with a list of strats that he could activate one off the list for free once per turn that'd be fun. Then give them some CP manipulation built in and boom, you now have a fun and fluffy Archon who feels on the table how he should.

Conversely also remove the aura from our succubus, she shouldn't care how her fellow wyches perform, she's the star of her own show after all. Give her stats and weapons that make her a terrifying beatstick (particularly in dueling characters) and done, Succubus now feels right.

Of course both of these should come with points hikes. Always felt weird that our ancient leaders of a near-perfect alien race barely cost more than a bloody imp guard company commander. Cause you know... those two are clearly on the same level right?