Sneak Peek at New Drukhari Codex

I think my main concern is that Natural Perfection (and Thrilling Acrobatics in particular) seems like something that really shouldn't be locked to a single special character in our army.

That aside, she seems okay. It's a bit weird that a character specialising in duels seems to excel only in chaff-clearing, but such is life.

Looks like she switched placed with Drazhar when it comes to "character hunter". Clearly, her role has changed into a chaff killer, which should be decent.

Even with extra-damage against characters, she would have been inferior to Drazhar. You just can't compete with flat 3 damage. But in turn, this makes me believe that Drazhar will lose his fight-twice ability.

But that's clearly not all the rules, right? At the very least she should have an additional dodge rule.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I think my main concern is that Natural Perfection (and Thrilling Acrobatics in particular) seems like something that really shouldn't be locked to a single special character in our army.

That aside, she seems okay. It's a bit weird that a character specialising in duels seems to excel only in chaff-clearing, but such is life.

When I was reading it, I was like "yeah, that's what I'd love to see as Power From Pain".

Edit: If there is anything we can take from this, it is that we can't take anything anything away from it... I don't expect huge reveals from WC because they will omit too many details. We will know about the new codex once we physically have it.

I do like how these stats make her amazing against hordes. But I was hoping she'd be more of a character hunter. As a gladiator this feels more accurate to me. And killing hordes of small creatures is not our weakness in the first place.

Gelmir wrote:

I do like how these stats make her amazing against hordes. But I was hoping she'd be more of a character hunter. As a gladiator this feels more accurate to me. And killing hordes of small creatures is not our weakness in the first place.

She's good against hordes, but certainly not amazing (with what we know so far). She kills about 8 T3 models or 6 T4 models per turn, assuming they don't kill her in between swings. She is as amazing as 2 shredders are.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

When I was reading it, I was like "yeah, that's what I'd love to see as Power From Pain".

Very much this.

That sneakpeak is a solid meh

She gained 1 attack but lost one AP, the natural perfection strength buff is included in the blades now. She also lost half the chance for bonus attacks as only unmodified 6s now grant extra hits.
We don't know if her warlord trait remains the same and if the faction trait stayed the same.

Why doesn't she just flat out ignore armour saves? Would that really be sooo op?

Why can't she just be a 200 points glasshammer that's actually scary to more then guardsmen and sisters? In the best case scenario she kills 3 marines or 4/5 of a captain. OOOOOOH what a great gladiatrix she is.

AzraeI wrote:

That sneakpeak is a solid meh

She gained 1 attack but lost one AP, the natural perfection strength buff is included in the blades now. She also lost half the chance for bonus attacks as only unmodified 6s now grant extra hits.
We don't know if her warlord trait remains the same and if the faction trait stayed the same.

Why doesn't she just flat out ignore armour saves? Would that really be sooo op?

Why can't she just be a 200 points glasshammer that's actually scary to more then guardsmen and sisters? In the best case scenario she kills 3 marines or 4/5 of a captain. OOOOOOH what a great gladiatrix she is.

Yes? Yes it would be sooo op? You are asking that every Wound is a Mortal Wound. And whether it breaks your mathhammer or not, GW have decided that is a line they wont cross.

Also, everyone keeps going on about her dueling, saying the lore says she is the best duelist, but isnt it actually the case that she WAS the best duelist, but can no longer find an interesting opponent? So now she just wades through the battlefields, bored out of her tiny mind, personally slaughtering thousands? Just like her profile allows her to do?

While Drahzar does not care for spectacle, or a challenge. He just cares about winning. He WOULD go after the enemy HQ first. Cut off the head and the snake dies.

If anything, Lelith, who is mortal, cares little for whether she lives or dies, just so long as she finds something fun before the end. While Drahzar, who is immortal, isnt going to waste time being put on by his followers every 5 minutes, and would rather kill the king and leave.

If this change is indicating that Lelith is a lawnmower and Drahzar has been shifted to an assassin role, I am all for that.

AzraeI wrote:

That sneakpeak is a solid meh

She gained 1 attack but lost one AP, the natural perfection strength buff is included in the blades now. She also lost half the chance for bonus attacks as only unmodified 6s now grant extra hits.
We don't know if her warlord trait remains the same and if the faction trait stayed the same.

Why doesn't she just flat out ignore armour saves? Would that really be sooo op?

Why can't she just be a 200 points glasshammer that's actually scary to more then guardsmen and sisters? In the best case scenario she kills 3 marines or 4/5 of a captain. OOOOOOH what a great gladiatrix she is.

AP is less valuable these days, while a marine saving on a 6+ can be annoying most things worth killing have invulnerable saves. This means you need either high damage attacks, lots of attacks or mortal wounds. If she could do mortals on 6s to wound that would really be something.

We all know everything is moving to unmodified 1s or 6s for effects. This is no surprise.

It's also fair to assume if he has an aura ability that she no longer gets the benefit, so no more re-rolling 1s.

There's a lot riding on the "A League Apart" and dodge abilities.

i agree with Albions-Angel.
Right now we have 2 Named Characters who can fulfill two different roles perfectly! Drazhar is our Character killer (almost anything-killer) and Lelith will be a beast against hordes......really don't see where there is a problem there......everything is plain and simply better.....but it still not enough? a lot of you are still asking for more? and after that don't tell me it's just because of a flavour perspective.....you just want the bread, the butter, the money from the bread, and the money from the butter.....just assume it now come on, stop putting your head in the sand.

Considering how important it is in 9e to be able to reliably clean modest ObSec squads from objectives, us having a character who can actually reliably butcher her way through them is... Good, actually.
Like yeah it's odd that Lelith is great at slaughtering chaff rather than a duelist - but I'm glad we have a model for it, she fills a necessary niche that our army's had a bit of a rough time with.

Kalmah wrote:

i agree with Albions-Angel.
Right now we have 2 Named Characters who can fulfill two different roles perfectly! Drazhar is our Character killer (almost anything-killer) and Lelith will be a beast against hordes......really don't see where there is a problem there......everything is plain and simply better.....but it still not enough? a lot of you are still asking for more? and after that don't tell me it's just because of a flavour perspective.....you just want the bread, the butter, the money from the bread, and the money from the butter.....just assume it now come on, stop putting your head in the sand.

Noone said that she is not better, just... boring
She is good at killing swarms ok yeah ...and?
Have you seen any Necron, marine or deathguard named Hqs lattely? they all have "something" that makes them stand out from the crowd... Here we just have one that is good at killing anything and one that is good at killing hordes... Is that a problem? no Is this boring? yes

Edit: i understand completely if this makes me look like an ungrateful prick

albions-angel wrote:

AzraeI wrote:

That sneakpeak is a solid meh

She gained 1 attack but lost one AP, the natural perfection strength buff is included in the blades now. She also lost half the chance for bonus attacks as only unmodified 6s now grant extra hits.
We don't know if her warlord trait remains the same and if the faction trait stayed the same.

Why doesn't she just flat out ignore armour saves? Would that really be sooo op?

Why can't she just be a 200 points glasshammer that's actually scary to more then guardsmen and sisters? In the best case scenario she kills 3 marines or 4/5 of a captain. OOOOOOH what a great gladiatrix she is.

Yes? Yes it would be sooo op? You are asking that every Wound is a Mortal Wound. And whether it breaks your mathhammer or not, GW have decided that is a line they wont cross.

Wrong. Mortal Wounds would also ignore invulnerable, which is the main point of MWs.
Also, Chaos has the "Murder Sword" which turns each wound into a Mortal Wound. So, not even that would be unprecedented.

Most high-value targets either have high toughness, many wounds or an invul save. Ignoring armor saves really wouldn't make a huge difference. Heck, even Guard HQs have a 5++. Ignoring armor would have been a nice touch of fluff without any huge implications on the tabletop.

DevilDoll wrote:

Kalmah wrote:

i agree with Albions-Angel.
Right now we have 2 Named Characters who can fulfill two different roles perfectly! Drazhar is our Character killer (almost anything-killer) and Lelith will be a beast against hordes......really don't see where there is a problem there......everything is plain and simply better.....but it still not enough? a lot of you are still asking for more? and after that don't tell me it's just because of a flavour perspective.....you just want the bread, the butter, the money from the bread, and the money from the butter.....just assume it now come on, stop putting your head in the sand.

Noone said that she is not better, just... boring
She is good at killing swarms ok yeah ...and?
Have you seen any Necron, marine or deathguard named Hqs lattely? they all have "something" that makes them stand out from the crowd... Here we just have one that is good at killing anything and one that is good at killing hordes... Is that a problem? no Is this boring? yes

Edit: i understand completely if this makes me look like an ungrateful prick

I dont think it makes you look ungreatful. For most of this thread, I have been on your side of the arguments. And I agree, shes not as varied as some of the big headline named characters of this and last edition.

But I wouldnt personally call her boring. Not particularly varied, sure, but for (assuming the FAQ points are the Codex points) such a cheap cost, shes a steal, and damn scary vs obsec units. Either the enemy knows how much bad news she is and focuses her down, ignoring the rest of our army, or they dont, ignore the single model, and then start looking around going "where did all my obsec go?".

The model looks better to me than it first did (though I would pick up a third party and just call it Lelith when I play with my friends), and the little we have seen of her stats seems good enough to me for the hole I wanted to fill.

What I will say is this is kinda what I hoped the Succi would be, so I am interested to see how the Succi is better than a Wych, but worse than this. If its just a difference of a couple of attacks, then for my purposes, yes please. If shes just an HQ because Wyches need an HQ, then I will take Lelith instead.

Its not the crazy things I was dreaming for, but this first look has, for me, landed slightly positive of middle-of-the-road.

DevilDoll wrote:

Kalmah wrote:

i agree with Albions-Angel.
Right now we have 2 Named Characters who can fulfill two different roles perfectly! Drazhar is our Character killer (almost anything-killer) and Lelith will be a beast against hordes......really don't see where there is a problem there......everything is plain and simply better.....but it still not enough? a lot of you are still asking for more? and after that don't tell me it's just because of a flavour perspective.....you just want the bread, the butter, the money from the bread, and the money from the butter.....just assume it now come on, stop putting your head in the sand.

Noone said that she is not better, just... boring
She is good at killing swarms ok yeah ...and?
Have you seen any Necron, marine or deathguard named Hqs lattely? they all have "something" that makes them stand out from the crowd... Here we just have one that is good at killing anything and one that is good at killing hordes... Is that a problem? no Is this boring? yes

Edit: i understand completely if this makes me look like an ungrateful prick

I don't disagree but I'll reserve judgement until I see the regular HQs.

Tbh, I don't mind Drazhar and Lelith being boring if it means more options for our generic HQs.

Lelith is a killing machine. She’s not exactly a character with loads of layers. She should be good at killing things. If that’s too boring then I’d suggest you should temper your expectations.

Lelith is not just going to be good at killing chaff. I think people saying that are being a little narrow minded. She could be used for example to charge infantry on an objective who are supported by a buffing character. She kills the unit and then kills the character.

We still don’t know if she re rolls wounds etc etc so we may at this point only have half the rules for her. I hardly see the point at this stage in some of this pessimism.

albions-angel wrote:

AzraeI wrote:

That sneakpeak is a solid meh

She gained 1 attack but lost one AP, the natural perfection strength buff is included in the blades now. She also lost half the chance for bonus attacks as only unmodified 6s now grant extra hits.
We don't know if her warlord trait remains the same and if the faction trait stayed the same.

Why doesn't she just flat out ignore armour saves? Would that really be sooo op?

Why can't she just be a 200 points glasshammer that's actually scary to more then guardsmen and sisters? In the best case scenario she kills 3 marines or 4/5 of a captain. OOOOOOH what a great gladiatrix she is.

Yes? Yes it would be sooo op? You are asking that every Wound is a Mortal Wound. And whether it breaks your mathhammer or not, GW have decided that is a line they wont cross.

Also, everyone keeps going on about her dueling, saying the lore says she is the best duelist, but isnt it actually the case that she WAS the best duelist, but can no longer find an interesting opponent? So now she just wades through the battlefields, bored out of her tiny mind, personally slaughtering thousands? Just like her profile allows her to do?

While Drahzar does not care for spectacle, or a challenge. He just cares about winning. He WOULD go after the enemy HQ first. Cut off the head and the snake dies.

If anything, Lelith, who is mortal, cares little for whether she lives or dies, just so long as she finds something fun before the end. While Drahzar, who is immortal, isnt going to waste time being put on by his followers every 5 minutes, and would rather kill the king and leave.

If this change is indicating that Lelith is a lawnmower and Drahzar has been shifted to an assassin role, I am all for that.

What
No
Literally everything is wrong here

If she's turns into just chaff blender, then the question will be how good is she vs the same amount in points of 9th ed wyches. If venoms get the highly desired +1 character capacity then the question will be how good is she vs a cheaper Succubus.

In the 8th ed codex Red Grief adv & charge is so good on bikes plus the blood glaive etc so Cult of Strife hopefully get something really good to bring them in line.

I don't get it
Either people here can't math or are so starved for attention from GW that they celebrate the smallest buff (which this isn't) as the third coming of Vect

AzraeI wrote:

I don't get it
Either people here can't math or are so starved for attention from GW that they celebrate the smallest buff (which this isn't) as the third coming of Vect

I dont see anyone celebrating. I see several people (myself included) going "Huh, yeah, not bad".

Look, yeah, we all wanted more. We MIGHT still get it (though doubtful). But, in this regard, Lelith DIDNT HAVE TO CHANGE. Some of our units NEED rules updates for 9th. Lelith DIDNT. Not as far as I remember at any rate. She wasnt good, but she would have functioned. GW were under zero obligation to update her rules. Yet they did, and giving her some nice command phase variability, and making her better at hunting MSUs and hoards IS an upgrade.

So yeah, I am going to say this is appreciated. Thanks GW. What else ya got for us?

EDIT:

For reference:

Move, WS, BS, T, W, Ld and Sv have all stayed the same.

With Penetrating Blades, A has gone up by 3, S by 1, AP down by 1, D stayed the same, and she has gained exploding 6s.

We dont know if she still has:

A League Apart (which made her good vs Characters)
Brides of Death
Quicksilver Dodge
No Escape
Hair attacks
Weapon Choices

Natural Perfection used to refer to an ability where she upped any one of her stats by 1 (except M and Ld, which upped by 2) for 1 battle round. Now it refers to an innate, CP free ability to EITHER fight twice, OR Fallback and Charge.

She has stayed the same in 8 things.
She has gained in 3 things.
She has gone down in 1 thing.
We dont know about 6 things.
One thing MAY have been replaced, or renamed. We dont know.

From what we know, its a net gain. A slight improvement. But an improvement none the less, which, lets be honest, we were all worried we wouldnt see.

Obvs this is in isolation, and other armies have gained in areas too. Marines are a prime example. She cannot effectively deal with Marines. But she used to be able to take either blades OR an Impaler, which dealt 2 damage. If she can again, then thats good.

I'm not thanking for GW for making things worse? They spent effort on topics that don't need it.
And what do you mean command phase variability? That's the worst phase to give us any rules in. Half the army is in transports at the start of your turn, how is this gonna be a positive effect on our army?

AzraeI wrote:

I don't get it
Either people here can't math or are so starved for attention from GW that they celebrate the smallest buff (which this isn't) as the third coming of Vect

It is absolutely a buff to her. Even before she fights for a second time she's dealing more damage in almost all cases than the current Lelith to MEQ and GEQ.

AzraeI wrote:

I'm not thanking for GW for making things worse? They spent effort on topics that don't need it.
And what do you mean command phase variability? That's the worst phase to give us any rules in. Half the army is in transports at the start of your turn, how is this gonna be a positive effect on our army?

Is this true though, the FAQ says "Embarked: other unit abilities have no effect on units while embarked, stratagems cant effect units while embarked"

This will not affect her own abilities that effect her, also the abilities only come into effect while she is disembarked. You choose one in the command phase.

AzraeI wrote:

I'm not thanking for GW for making things worse? They spent effort on topics that don't need it.
And what do you mean command phase variability? That's the worst phase to give us any rules in. Half the army is in transports at the start of your turn, how is this gonna be a positive effect on our army?

2 things here.

First, you dont need to thank them for making things worse. At the moment, they havnt. Its a marginal increase. But you dont even need to thank them for that. YOU dont have to be happy about this. But to say that we are innumerate and/or attention-starved just because we like a change more than you do is... kinda odd. Especially as we all know GW dont exactly frequent these forums, and I am already on record as saying "Thanks for the rules, now I am going to give some other company money for a stand in model".

Now, if you want to picket them for not paying us enough attention, I will write the placards and stand outside their gates with you. I agree, its still clear from this that we are being "touched up" for 9th, rather than given a ground up, top to bottom paradigm shift. And I wish we were being given that. And based on THIS ONE THING this MIGHT be the edition that kills DE for YOU, and I might only be 1 edition behind. But this change is positive for my intended playstyle. So I wont apologise for being cheerful about it.

Second, we have painfully little to do in the command phase AND the psychic phase. I will happily take ANYTHING that gives us more options there. To my mind, its BONKERS that half the armies in the game cannot interact with an entire phase, and several armies are severely crippled in another. Shoot/Charge/Fight phases behave like one giant phase, so a more melee army still gets bites at the apple compared to a more shooty army. But Psyker heavy armies just get a free round over, for example, us. The command phase is different. Like you said, we are usually sat in transports. But why would this ability not work in a transport? Pick your option, then pull off your plan. Thats something we didnt have before, and its a something that isnt terrible. I will take it.

JRG wrote:

If she's turns into just chaff blender, then the question will be how good is she vs the same amount in points of 9th ed wyches. If venoms get the highly desired +1 character capacity then the question will be how good is she vs a cheaper Succubus.

In the 8th ed codex Red Grief adv & charge is so good on bikes plus the blood glaive etc so Cult of Strife hopefully get something really good to bring them in line.

I am pretty sure she will be our supreme commander. So she will not care that much if you have red grief or cult of strife on the rest.

Another minor detail not about Lelith, but the Aeldari in total. They have removed Ynnari as a faction with the last update of warhammer40000.com. They just exist as a subfaction inside the other 3 aeldari factions now. And for us, there are in total 11 subfactions, all the kabal, cults and coven of 8th edition plus Ynnari, so no changes there.

Burnage wrote:

It is absolutely a buff to her. Even before she fights for a second time she's dealing more damage in almost all cases than the current Lelith to MEQ and GEQ.

It is minimal more damage if we expect everything else stayed the same. Vs MEQ it is actually less if you take into account that MEQs doubled their wounds. She had 7 attacks before, now they are just all with her better weapon, which is a straight upgrade. The strength +1 you could get before from natural perfection and she lost one ap, which is a downgrade. The exploding 6s are originally from her warlord trait, and the double fights from a stratagem you could use on her, You don't need to spend any cp on her, so she got cheaper, but her lethality is almost the same as before, at least with these details.

JRG wrote:

AzraeI wrote:

I'm not thanking for GW for making things worse? They spent effort on topics that don't need it.
And what do you mean command phase variability? That's the worst phase to give us any rules in. Half the army is in transports at the start of your turn, how is this gonna be a positive effect on our army?

Is this true though, the FAQ says "Embarked: other unit abilities have no effect on units while embarked, stratagems cant effect units while embarked"

This will not affect her own abilities that effect her, also the abilities only come into effect while she is disembarked. You choose one in the command phase.

If a Chaplain can't sing in the Rhino, Lelith can't choose in a raider