Wishlists aside - whats your craziest new codex dream?

Rodi Sikni wrote:

I want add The ambull of The black fortress to our beast pack. That is my wildest dream. I love that mini and would be amazing got It as a new unit of the faction.
I don't think that is imposible, but very improbable.

You would think that adding an existing beast unit to our model range would be an absolute no-brainer.
It allows them to return their investment on multiple fronts.

I'm also in the camp of wanting more Mandrakes - especially in the HQ department.

But even the regular Mandrakes feel kinda... bland. They're functional, sure (which definitely hasn't always been the case), but when you compare them to the fluff you start to see the cracks.

Possibly the most noteworthy (and terrifying) ability of Mandrakes is the power to pull themselves out of another creature's shadow. This is represented with... regular deep strike rules which forbid them from appearing within 9" of an enemy model. Is this not a little backwards?

Plus, they've been shown to have all manner of other abilities - they can open up mysterious portals, they emit an aura of life-draining cold that saps strength from those nearby, to opening mysterious, they can use this stolen life/strength to fuel their abilities (particularly their bale blasts), etc.. We've even seen that Mandrakes with more unusual anatomical arrangements exist - such as the four-armed Decapitator.

Even if some of this might be tricky for a standard unit, it seems perfect for an HQ. You could even make it a pseudo-psyker, with a particular focus on movement and debuffs. It would give DE a caster-type model, yet without breaking their 'no psykers' rule.

Of course, there's also the route of more assassin-type Mandrakes, like the Decapitator. This would also be a cool and thematic concept. Hell, we could even have an HQ that could be tailored to do either (I know, an HQ that can be meaningfully tailored to different roles - what a concept!).

But yeah, a Mandrake HQ and more focus/options for Mandrakes in general (plus more stuff for our other HQs) would be my greatest dream for our new book.




On a different note, however, I'd like to get your opinions on something - do you think the Depravity mechanic from AoS Slaanesh would be a good replacement for PfP? In effect, during the Battleshock (Morale) you get a point for each unit (yours and your opponent's) that suffered wounds but didn't die and for each unit that ended the turn with fewer models than it started with.

Slaanesh can spend these on summoning, but obviously we could do other stuff with them instead.

I wondered if this would be a good representation of pain caused for our purposes?

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Possibly the most noteworthy (and terrifying) ability of Mandrakes is the power to pull themselves out of another creature's shadow. This is represented with... regular deep strike rules which forbid them from appearing within 9" of an enemy model. Is this not a little backwards?

Oh! You reminded me of my most "WANT" thing about mandrakes! And the great thing is, GW already has a unit do this!

Ok, ok, hold on. I just started an AoS Sylvaneth army. I want mandrakes to behave like....

TREE-REVENANTS!

Ok, not FIGHT like them, mandrakes should be deadly foes, and tree-revs are chaff.

But Tree-Revs have a super cool couple of abilities that synergise really, really well.

Every unit of tree-revs can reroll 1 dice per phase. This essentially gives them a 3-dice-drop-lowest charge, making a 9" charge more than a 50% chance.

But every 5th tree-rev can carry waypipes.

Now, Sylvaneth are a big mobility army. You are supposed to use their wildwoods as teleporters.

But a tree-rev unit with waypipes can, instead of moving, INSTANTLY REDEPLOY ANYWHERE ON THE BATTLE FIELD 9" FROM AN ENEMY. But thats still 9" away, right? RIGHT? Only, after the movement phase is the (wait for it) CHARGE PHASE!

Ok, so in 40k, the charge phase is after the shooting phase, but still, I think "waypipes" and the reroll 1 die ability would really fit that "pull themselves into reality through shadows" thing. Redeploy instantly and better than 50% charge afterwards? Just make them not have Obsec and I think thats fair!

EDIT: for reference, 3d6dl gives a a 52% chance of getting at least a 9, but actually you only need to be in engagement range which is 1 inch from the model, so really you need to charge 8", so that brings the probability up to 68%.

Honestly, my craziest dream is to start getting regular hints on the upcomming release. Then the release happens and we have enough stock that we can all buy the codex

Considering I am still in line waiting for my copy of the Space Marine codex, this dream may be too crazy

I wish to have 3 news stratagemes :
- add 1 to bless with all poisonned weapons
- mandrakes can ignore "Look out Sir"
- Scourges can make 2 shoot against the same target.

Darklord wrote:

I wish to have 3 news stratagemes :
- add 1 to bless with all poisonned weapons
- mandrakes can ignore "Look out Sir"
- Scourges can make 2 shoot against the same target.  

I know it would only be a stratagem, but double shot scourges would oscillate between "sensible" and "obscene".

Darklight is likely to go to 3+1d3 dmg. Assuming the scourges dont move if they all have dark lances, then a MSU has 4 DLs and would hit on 3s, wound T4- on 2s, T7- on 3s, T8 on 4s and T9+ on 5s, have AP -4, meaning a super high chance of damaging, and each one does minimum 4 damage. I struggle to see any model that survives more than 1 volly of that. Haywire blasters, if they remain as they are, are similarly effective, what with vehicles getting hit with an extra MW on 4+, and 1d3 MW on 6+.

If you double that, even if only half the shots do damage, then with a DL squad you are looking at 16 minimum damage, and the potential for 24 damage.

On the other hand, it feels fine if they are equipped with shard carbines.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I'm also in the camp of wanting more Mandrakes - especially in the HQ department.
But yeah, a Mandrake HQ and more focus/options for Mandrakes in general (plus more stuff for our other HQs) would be my greatest dream for our new book.

I Love mandrakes and would also really like to see an HQ model for them (even if it is simply a model for keradruakh)
Would also love more options and expanded use for all our HQs.

albions-angel wrote:

Ok, ok, hold on. I just started an AoS Sylvaneth army. I want mandrakes to behave like....

TREE-REVENANTS!

Interesting! I actually used that kit to convert into a unit of mandrakes just a couple of months ago ^^ really great models

The craziest I could manage is....

Splinter weapons will do 1 MW on a 6 to wound
Venoms will be able to carry 6, Raiders 11
Kabalites in an open-topped transport will be able to fire into close combat
Wyches will be able to charge out of an open-topped transport after it has moved
Hellions will get a 4++
Scourges will get Fire and Fade as a free ability
Reavers will get Eviscerating Fly-by as a free ability
The Cronos will be good....somehow

harlokin wrote:

The craziest I could manage is....

Splinter weapons will do 1 MW on a 6 to wound
Venoms will be able to carry 6, Raiders 11
Kabalites in an open-topped transport will be able to fire into close combat
Wyches will be able to charge out of an open-topped transport after it has moved
Hellions will get a 4++
Scourges will get Fire and Fade as a free ability
Reavers will get Eviscerating Fly-by as a free ability
The Cronos will be good....somehow

I love these ideas

Has anyone even seen any leaks yet?

Historically we would have the leaks a few weeks before release. But 8th and 9th seems like GW has plugged most of our sources

Give it another week, they most likely are still boxed up in warehouses.

fisheyes wrote:

Has anyone even seen any leaks yet?

Historically we would have the leaks a few weeks before release. But 8th and 9th seems like GW has plugged most of our sources

I saw a couple of days ago that most of the new AoS Hedonites of Slaanesh book had been leaked, so perhaps we'll get similarly lucky.

My craziest wish would be more on the model side.
Have you seen the new head of Uriel Ventris? In the older previews, his right ear was free now there is some tech on it. Either it is a different head or it is photoshopped. Have they really trashed the original mould before even selling one model and made a new one, because people complain about his ugly head? I wish this treatment for Lelith, too.

They have actually changed the pictures in the old previews too. But Spikeybits has still the old pictures:
https://storage.googleapis.com/spikeybits-staging-bucket/2020/12/f0cc104c-ventris-zoom.jpg
https://storage.googleapis.com/spikeybits-staging-bucket/2021/01/6fee42af-uriel-ventris-black-library-celebration.jpg

And the new pictures on warhammer-community:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/m6mY4YJ3f9KIaApB.jpg
https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/9Ryj1frB3u8gEoqg.jpg

And such a change this shortly before a release could have an impact on the start of production, which results in other new products being pushed back. A machine making the delayed sprues for Uriel cannot be used for Lelith or the new Sister character or whatever it else was planned to make.

(Thought I'd repost this in the correct thread. )

I've thought of something else, actually - if we're talking about wildest dreams, I'd like our codex to take a few pages from the 7th edition Corsair book.

I loved that book.

I loved the customisation of the HQs - especially the Corsair Prince. In addition to a *ton* of wargear options, you also got to pick one of about 10 traits, with the option to buy a lesser version for each of the other heroes in your army. e.g. you could give him FNP and IWND and then you'd get the option to buy FNP for every other HQ in your army at something like 10pts apiece.

In terms of the units, you had Balestrike Bands - which were like Scourges but functional. Every squad member could take a Dark Lance (or other heavy weapon), so no more Sergeant-First-To-Die. What's more, the squad can take Jet Packs, allowing them to move and still fire their heavy weapons without penalty and also to JSJ.

Hell, *every* Corsair infantry unit could take a Jet Pack. Every. Single. One. So if you wanted, you could skip transports altogether and still have an incredible mobile army. Compare that to Dark Eldar, where removing transports leaves everything outside of our Fast Attack slots barely better than Imperial Guard, and significantly worse than Tallarn Imperial Guard.

Finally, in addition to the wargear-based movement, Corsairs also had a ton of other mobility options. Squads that fired at units within 12" could them jump away afterwards. Their psychic table was packed with movement and teleportation abilities.

Put simply, on the table they really felt like a fast, mobile, agile army. That's exactly what I want Dark Eldar to feel like.

I was thinking how I would design some of our trademark weapons if I had to "rework the codex from the ground up". So here are some ideas I had so far. I focused on our weaponry since that is most of what makes DE special. Without those we would just be Imperial Guard with 3+ BS, extra higher movement and some fancy rules.

This is mostly wishlisting, but with a game-design perspective still in mind.

Poison Weapons

Weapons:
- Splinter Rifles: 24", Rapid Fire 1, S3, AP-1, Poison
- Splinter Rifles: 36", Heavy 4, S4, AP-1, Poison
- Agoniser: melee, S-User, AP-3, D1, Poison
- Venom Blade: melee, S-User, AP-1, D1, Flesh Eating
- Huskblade: melee, S-User, AP-2, D1, Darkblade, Flesh Eating

Rules:
- Poison: Add +1 to the wound roll against non-vehicle units.
- Flesh Eating: Add +2 to the wound roll against non-vehicle units.
- Darkblade: Deals +1 damage against non-vehicle units.

The rules of Splinter Weapons can't possible depict how they are described in the lore as they would become way too powerful. As such, Splinter Weapons are designed from a gameplay perspective that is thematically inspired. We want a unique Bolter equivalent which reflects the themes of the army. As such, having a S3 gun with +1 to wound for non-vehicle is a nice thematic twist on the Boltgun. But we further need more damage to make up for our universal lack of durability, which is my argument for AP-1.

In general, Rapid Fire pairs well with our ability to get close to the enemy. In contrast, the Splinter Cannon will provide longer range firepower.


Heavy Weapons

Weapons:
- Dark Lance: 36", Heavy 1, S6, -4, D3+2, Darklight
- Void Lance: 48", Heavy 1, S10, -4, D6+2, Void Weapon

Rules:
- Darklight: The weapon will never wound on anything worse than a 4+.
- Void Weapon: On a hit, this weapon lowers the invulnerable save of the target by 1.

You can't compare Darklight weaponry to powerful explosives or a Lascannon. It are precise weapons which instantly vaporize almost everything they come into contact with. It always inflicts grievous wounds, but its damage radius still remains miniscule to minimize unwanted casualties. It pierces through the thickest armor like a hot knife through butter and can only be warded off by protective shields or eldtritch sorcery.

All in all, these weapons have the benefit of working equally well against every kind of enemy, regarless of their sise. Nonetheless, knowledgeable Archons sometimes prefer weapons of more... brutal force when facing a horde of monsters.

I liked how the 5th edition Codex was designed to give Dark Eldar tools to cheat around the high stats of enemies. The Lance rule was a nice idea, but didn't pay off in practice.

Similarly, Void Lances needed to feel like a significant upgrade with the purpose of a Titan-killer. I think this should do nicely.


Stratagems

- Blessing of Shaimesh (2 CP)
Phase: Any
After a non-vehicle unit got hit by a Poisoned Weapon, choose on of the following effects.
- The unit may not advance
- The unit has its WS lowered by 1
- The unit has its BS lowered by 1
The effect will last until the end of the next turn.

- Lethal Dose (2 CP)
Phase: Shooting Phase
Each hit of 6 on a Poisoned Weapon does not cause a normal wound, treat it as a Mortal Wound.

I like some of your ideas, but I've got a few comments/suggestions:

- Poison and Flesh-Eating do the same thing. Just make it Poison (+X).

If you want to keep Flesh-Eating in some form, maybe have it reroll failed wound rolls against non-vehicles?

- I think the Splinter Cannon (which I assume is meant to be the second profile) should really be Assault 4. It's still going to be worse than the Heavy Bolter in most cases (since that is D2), so this would both give ours a different advantage and also emphasise our speed.

- Make the Huskblade D2 or make Darkblade +2 damage against non-vehicles. You're already losing what little utility it had against vehicles, I don't think D3 is unreasonable for what is seemingly the apex of non-artefact DE melee weapons.

- A S6 Darklance seems like a marked downgrade, and Darklight does nothing to help.

Not trying to be overly negative, as I do like the direction you're going. Just postulating a few possible tweaks.

Another wishlist from me:

I really want huskblades to become noticably lethal.
Something like having a flat 6 damage would be great.

I mean... why not?
They used to cause instant death. The access to them is pretty limited. And if there is something that drukhari should get to be at the pinnacle of it’s the ability to bring things down. I don’t know if there is a weapon in the game that has a damage-value that high, but if not it seems like a perfect thing to let the drukhari be the best at.

I had an idea a while back for the Huskblade along the lines of:

S:User AP-2 D1d3 Reroll failed to-wound rolls against non-Vehicle, non-Titanic units. If a natural 6 is rolled to wound, the Huskblade does d3 Mortal wounds instead of its normal damage. Wounds caused by the Huskblade cannot be prevented by FNP effects.

The idea was to make it a risky weapon but one with the potential for a very high payoff.

What do you think - too strong? Too weak?


I've also been wondering what to do with regard to our other weapons - especially since many of them seem to occupy the same design space.

The Agoniser seems like it should be the go-to anti-infantry weapon. So maybe something like:

S:User AP-2 D1 Poison 3+ The user can make 2 additional attacks with this weapon.

For the Venom Blade, perhaps something leaning a little more towards character killing:

S: User AP-1 D2 Poison 2+

The Electrocorrosive Whip is currently just an Agoniser+1, so I'm going to suggest something a little different:

S:+1 AP-1 D2 Haywire.

Scissorhands seem like they should be anti-armour. Maybe something like:

S:User AP-3 D1d3 The wound roll for this weapon is equal to the base armour save of the enemy its targeting, unless it wound normally wound on a lower value.

Then there's Mindphase Gauntlet. Maybe something like:

S8 AP-1 D1 Wounds against the target's Ld value. A Character or Monster that takes one or more wounds from the Mindphase Gauntlet must subtract 1 from its Attacks characteristic for each wound taken (though it cannot drop below 1 attack). This effect lasts until the start of the next turn.


These are all very rough (just off the top of my head, really) but the basic idea is to try and meaningfully differentiate the weapons - rather than just having 10 slight variations on the Agoniser.

Any thoughts?

@Soulless Samurai I like your ideas here.

The mindphase gauntlet and scissorhands are my favouite though, if we got a few weapons like this we'd feel far more like we had weird and wonderful weapons of a hyper-advanced race like we're supposed to.

I personally want the huskblade to be more indimidating than you suggest. I want it to be really scary for even the toughest opponent to face but given how squishy archons are it'd have to be able to kill most characters in one round. I think you're along the right lines with having a chance to do a big burst of damage but it not being reliable.
I'd maybe give it a rule that says "if a wound is lost by an infantry model as a result of an attack made by this weapon roll a d6, on a 6 that model is killed, regardless of how many wounds they have remaining or any other defensive abilities they might have (FNP etc)"

This would make it scary enough that a marine character might not want to take the risk but not reliable enough to make the archon a beatstick.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I had an idea a while back for the Huskblade along the lines of:

S:User AP-2 D1d3 Reroll failed to-wound rolls against non-Vehicle, non-Titanic units. If a natural 6 is rolled to wound, the Huskblade does d3 Mortal wounds instead of its normal damage. Wounds caused by the Huskblade cannot be prevented by FNP effects.

The idea was to make it a risky weapon but one with the potential for a very high payoff.

(As a preface to anything I'm saying in regards to mechanics, I first want to point out that I have almost no insight into the codexes that has been released for 9ed so far, so my conception of what is the normal level of poer for the editon is likely to be completely off.) THat being said!

I think this feel too restrained, to me.
I don't believe anything that triggers mortal wounds (currently) does so at the expense of its normal damage, only adds to it.

It's very interesting! I just wish that drukhari could get to be the ones to push the limits of how powerful something can be. It feels, to me, like they haven't gotten to be that in any field since 5ed.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

The Electrocorrosive Whip is currently just an Agoniser+1, so I'm going to suggest something a little different:

S:+1 AP-1 D2 Haywire.

I really love this.
I really like the idea of the drukhari weapons being different tools for specific circumstances*. And having a haywire melee weapon would be such a fun use of that design idea! It would also make the wielder a great threat toward vehicles (especially if succubi would be able to take it again). It also should be made availible to more characters.

(*though the current way our poison weaponry works, where everything i nerfed/doesn't function against vehicles, irks me a great deal, as I don't see the point of it, and it becomes an arbitrary division in service of a design-philosophy that "vehicles should need different tools to deal with" that was a thing for everyone pre 8ed, that now only applys to drukhari)

@GreyArea

What about something like: 'At the end of any round in which a Character suffered wounds from a Huskblade but didn't die, roll 1d6. If the number exceeds that character's remaining wounds, it is slain outright.'

ursvamp wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I had an idea a while back for the Huskblade along the lines of:

S:User AP-2 D1d3 Reroll failed to-wound rolls against non-Vehicle, non-Titanic units. If a natural 6 is rolled to wound, the Huskblade does d3 Mortal wounds instead of its normal damage. Wounds caused by the Huskblade cannot be prevented by FNP effects.

The idea was to make it a risky weapon but one with the potential for a very high payoff.

(As a preface to anything I'm saying in regards to mechanics, I first want to point out that I have almost no insight into the codexes that has been released for 9ed so far, so my conception of what is the normal level of poer for the editon is likely to be completely off.) THat being said!

I think this feel to restrained.
I don't believe anything that triggers mortal wounds (currently) does so at the expense of its normal damage, only adds to it.

It's very interesting! I just wish that drukhari could get to be the ones to push the limits of how powerful something can be. It feels, to me, like they haven't gotten to be that in any field since 5ed.

No, that's fair. And I know exactly what you mean. I try to err on the side of caution with homebrew stuff, but I'd be happy to try and tweak the above.

Could have the Mortal Wounds effect trigger on a 5+ or have it work in addition to the weapon's normal damage?

ursvamp wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

The Electrocorrosive Whip is currently just an Agoniser+1, so I'm going to suggest something a little different:

S:+1 AP-1 D2 Haywire.

I really love this.
I really like the idea of the drukhari weapons being different tools for specific circumstances. And having a haywire melee weapon would be such a fun use of that design idea! It would also make the wielder a great threat toward vehicles (especially if succubi would be able to take it again). It also should be made availible to more characters.

Thanks.

I'll admit I was struggling a little with the overall profile. I was trying to avoid it being complete garbage against non-vehicles, but I also don't want it to be as good (or almost as good) as other weapons against infantry, whilst also being much better against vehicles. I ended up settling for something very similar to the ranged Haywire profile, just with D2.

But yeah, especially since DE don't have stuff like Power Fists, it seemed appropriate that they should have some weapons more suited to taking down vehicles.

There are too many practical thoughts in this thread, and not enough wild and outlandish ideas.

My crazy idea today: Command points. Lots of them. Starting the game with 20+ command points.
So instead of trying to play the game profile against profile (my t3 vs your t4, my s3 gun vs your s4 gun), DE can overwhelm their opponents through tricks and strategies.

You have a bigger suit of armour and a longer gun than me? Cool, here are all my bonkers strategems and I will be using 8 every turn.

AlCorps wrote:

There are too many practical thoughts in this thread, and not enough wild and outlandish ideas.

That is a good point.

Double the amount of shots on all heavy weapons!
(If everyone with twin-linked stuff can, so can we!=) )

I've always thought that Mandrake were an untapped well of deployment shenanigans.

As such, I propose the following rule that would probably be the source of endless salt on forums.

Mandrakes lose the ability to deploy in the typical deep strike fashion. Instead, they have the ability to deploy from reserves directly into combat with an enemy unit, literally crawling out of their shadows. This could only be done if the enemy unit had an equal or greater number of models as the attacking Mandrakes. This prevents some more egregious uses of the rule, i.e. dogpiling twenty Mandrakes into the back lines of an army by squeezing out of a particularly heavy set Commissar's shadow. This would also present an interesting choice for the player. Either take a large squad that possesses a lot of offensive potential, but can only be used in limited circumstances, or an MSU approach where 5 man squads act as a scalpel /harassment unit against a large variety of targets.

Also, give them access to a Stratagem for 1-2CP where Mandrakes can redeploy from one combat into another during the movement phase or after squadwiping a unit in melee, again using the same rules. This would basically allow a strong unit to abandon their decimated prey for their next morsel of prey, or the last survivor of an ill fated ambush making a final desperate play for that portly commissar mentioned earlier.

Since it'll be impossible for this to work against some lists (knights, some Custodes, etc.), they should also be able to phase into cover of sufficient density.

A pipe dream, I know, but I'd love to see maneuverability in our army independent of the movement stat.

AlCorps wrote:

There are too many practical thoughts in this thread, and not enough wild and outlandish ideas.

Well, if it would make you happy, I suppose I could dig out the overly complicated nonsense idea I had for a Mandrake Lord several months ago.


Otherwise, I fear I tend to be a tiresomely practical individual.