Sneak Peek at New Drukhari Codex

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I'll confess I don't see the appeal of Murderous Descent.

"Murderous Descent (NEW) - the really, really neat one. Use it after a Transport is placed on the battlefield in the Reinforcment step. A unit in it can DISEMBARK LIKE NORMAL, but it must end it's disembarkment 9' away from enemies."

That just sounds like you're risking a very unlikely charge and are just asking for the unit in question to get obliterated in your opponent's turn.


Am I missing a rule or something here?

You can deepstrike a ten man unit and a character in a raider for 1cp? Or 2 5 mans. That's really about it, I don't think it's that exciting, nor will I likely be using it much.

Any details on objectives or secondaries in the book???

Cerve wrote:

DT now costs 2 Obsessions (so no more DT+anything, just DT).
It enanched guns precisely as before, +1 to wound and +1 Damages, ranged of course. But now is: "if you roll 1 or more 1s to HIT, and you CANNOT REROLL to HIT in no ways, the unit get 1 MW. If it is Veichle or Monster, unit get D3 MW".

Are you able to confirm the mortal wounds are suffered on a hit roll of '1' and not the wound roll? You can fit a lot of automatically hitting weapons into Coven units.

Oaka wrote:

Cerve wrote:

DT now costs 2 Obsessions (so no more DT+anything, just DT).
It enanched guns precisely as before, +1 to wound and +1 Damages, ranged of course. But now is: "if you roll 1 or more 1s to HIT, and you CANNOT REROLL to HIT in no ways, the unit get 1 MW. If it is Veichle or Monster, unit get D3 MW".

Are you able to confirm the mortal wounds are suffered on a hit roll of '1' and not the wound roll?  You can fit a lot of automatically hitting weapons into Coven units.

Confirm 1s on hit rolls. Yes, Liquefators and Cronos flamers are dope.


And my MISTAKE: Grotesques actually became +1A, Ap-2 Damage2 with their Monstrous Cleavers. +1 Damage straight foward.

You're telling me that a Dark Technomancer Talos with a twin liquifier can advance, get 2D6 shots that auto-hit with S4 +1 to wound, AP-2 and D2, then charge on turn 2? And it can fire this while in combat, and overwatch? And the Cronos does it with a S5 version that goes up to D3 on a roll of 6 to wound? Whoa.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Any details on objectives or secondaries in the book???

Nothing crazy good but neither too bad.

PURGE THE ENEMY
"Take them alive"
End of the round:
-3 VPs for almost 1 enemy CHARACTER or MONSTER killed by melee;
-1 VPs for almost 1 non-CHARACTER, non-MONSTER, non-VEICHLES enemy unit killed by melee.

"Beasts for the arenas"
End of the game:
-3 VPs for any MONSTER, BEAST, CAVALRY killed on melee by a WYCHCULT unit.
-5 Vps if it was TITAN.

NO MERCY, NO RESPITE
"Fear and terror"
End of the round:
-1 VPs for any MODEL that flees from enemy units during that round.

BATTLEFIELD SUPREMACY
"Call the prey" (ok my translate falls here, but you got the meaning lol):
This is LITERALLY the Necron's Vermin one, which is weird.
End of the round:
-2 VPs for every table quarter that contains no-whollywithin-enemy units (besides AIRCRAFT, they can stay we don't care). Can't score on first round.


That's it.

Oaka wrote:

You're telling me that a Dark Technomancer Talos with a twin liquifier can advance, get 2D6 shots that auto-hit with S4 +1 to wound, AP-2 and D2, then charge on turn 2?  And it can fire this while in combat, and overwatch?  And the Cronos does it with a S5 version that goes up to D3 on a roll of 6 to wound? Whoa.

Precisely.

As 5 Wracks w/2 Liquegun on Venoms can move 16"+12" range with no penalties.

Yeah GW killed DT veichles spam (because if you're VEICHLE you suffer D3 MWs instead of 1), but it buffed a lot any Coven flamers-like.

Anyway, DT now count as 2 Obsessions, so you can't mix it with a second one anymore.

Every Grotesque can take a Liquifier as well. I’m starting to see why they reduced the unit size from ten to six.

Is Black Cornucopians still a thing? It was my favourite strategem in 8th.

Sadly, I think it’s no longer a thing as the PoF strat is now rerolling hits for a Coven unit in melee, I believe.

Yeah, I think I have all the rules now with all the leaks from today. Onto list building!

My overall impression from everything is that the new book looks really good. There's nothing that stands out as broken and mostly everything got better and stayed the same for point costs. I'm talking specifically for weapon profiles and such, but also some armor saves or improved stats across the board.

The high-level overview is that, damage is up, durability is down (because FNP went away), but options went up. I am especially impressed with the +Master to HQs to unlock cool units like Trueborn, Bloodbrides and Chad-Wracks.

Oh, and one more thing: I don't see why we wouldn't build with 3 Patrols every single game. We essentially start off with 14 CP, spending 2 for another Warlord Trait and 1 more Relic, while still having the standard 12 that most Battalions get, but we get more options for list building.

HERO wrote:

Oh, and one more thing: I don't see why we wouldn't build with 3 Patrols every single game. We essentially start off with 14 CP, spending 2 for another Warlord Trait and 1 more Relic, while still having the standard 12 that most Battalions get, but we get more options for list building.

The Realspace Raid detachment gives some major benefits, particularly for mercenaries with Black Heart. It's not a must-take, though - depending on list three patrols are definitely preferable at times.

Koldan wrote:

Another trick is that Lelith seems to be good at catching heavy weapons in melee. Charge the screen, kill a model, move at least 12" closer, the consolidation moves from fighting twice. In you next turn you can switch to fallback and charge if you want to shoot whatever she tagged.

I might have misread the leaks and am off here but I think lelith can actually do this at 18" and not 12" if I understand the leaks right lelith is a master succubus so has the consolidate 6" in any direction but also has an additional +3 to consolidation distance ... so she consolidates 9" not 6" ... and if that's true she can basically move the same distance as a slower flyer with move + advance + charge + pile in + consolidate + pile in + consolidate (fight twice ... though I'm not quite sure how the order of things works with this)

Do we have stratagems in english somewhere? And warlord traits?

Ooof, did I just read that right? Beast master is slotless while beasts are fast attack? That really hurts. There is almost never a reason to take beasts over reavers or hellions.

My 2x reaver, 2xfiend patrol might have to become 2 patrols, a 2xreaver patrol and a 1xhellion, 1xfiend patrol. Looks like one of my archons is now a succi!

Luckily, my 2 kabal patrols are easily consolidated into 1. 4x5 kabalites becomes 2x10.

Murderous Descent is baller because there is a lot of charge buffs and re-roll options, so a charge from 9' is a pretty decent chance.

Oh no the imgur link is dead and I didn't save the pics ... How stupid I am. Has anyone got the points page ? I'd like to craft a few lists.

Cult of Strife extra stuff from Book of Rust:

Warlord traits:

gain one additional attack for every attack that didnt get to the inflicted damage stage

reroll wound rolls

-1 to hit and wound rolls

Relics:

relic agoniser: ap-3, d1, poisoned (4+), select one enemy unit within engagement range, that unit can’t fall back (no vehicles/monsters)

garland of spite: select one enemy model, halve the attacks characteristic of that model until end of fight phase. Additionally autohits that model.

relic glaive: s+2, ap-5, d2 - gain +1 to wound against units with a leadership of 8 or more. Suffer 1 mortal wound if you didnt target any models with leadership 8+

dark lotus toxin: +1 to S and D characteristics of all weapons of this model

Stratagems:

2/3cp reroll wounds for cult of strife unit (3cp if 11+ models)

dance of death 1cp - use in movement/charge phase. models can move horizontally through terrain or other models for movement, advance, fall back and charging until end of turn

invigorated by evisceration 1cp - use this when a cult of strife unit destroys an enemy unit. That unit gains a 4+ invuln until start of your next turn.

Blade well placed 2cp - additional -1AP until end of fight phase

Deadly Exemplar 1cp - when succubus unit destroys character/monster unit, brides of death ability becomes board wide reroll 1’s to hit

Flawless approach 1cp - enemy units cannot fire overwatch or set to defend against this unit

Pick them apart 2cp - fall back shoot and charge.

hekatrix of the crucible 1cp - basically give a hekatrix one of several relics!

Is it just me or do these rules (9th ed codices in general) seem really convoluted?

They remind me of 7th ed in terms of the quantity of rules, but with none of the finesse and/ or broken stuff

hello i have read online various rumors even completed with all our army new buff yeah.
The only main question is: someone have read someting about army composition? we can add a beast master to a kabalite detachment and mantain the kabalite obsession as example?
the only option seems the 3 patrol way..but i have ever dislike this they force me to bring 3 different HQ and 3 different troops ...so if I want to include drazar...the HQ count increase to 4.
The pirate detachment is interesting but seem still suffer this problem
I think this mechanics limit our already small roster...uff

https://www.goonhammer.com/codex-drukhari-9th-edition-the-goonhammer-review/?fbclid=IwAR07lLoPxvzdm5YaoqjgKmJVIwuLw2OpYIK737w7MGW6GRl7tV-MeLfAOIQ

A new codex appears!

Let's check the list, shall we?

0 new models. Check.

0 New HQs. Check. (No, I don't count the new "Master" HQs because all they do is make the non-Master HQs completely redundant to the point where you could remove them and no one would notice or care. But apparently people are tripping over one another to kiss GW's feet for this complete lack of innovation.)

0 Mobility options for HQs. Check.  

"But, Shredder, HQs can now fit into transports with their troops."

Cool. That is indeed an improvement. So tell me, when I put my archon- sorry, I of course meant my Master Archon (TM) into a raider with a squad of trueborn, what exactly can he do? His aura still doesn't function so he can't actually perform the function of a leader (and changing the aura to something that would work would require GW to put a modicum of thought into the book). And his Blaster was removed somewhere along the way so he can't add to the squad's firepower. Unless you consider a BS2+ splinter pistol to worth ~90pts, I guess.

Existing wargear options removed. Check.

0 new wargear options added. Check.

Necrons got a slew of 'invisible' wargear which could be taken in addition to artefacts and wargear. Dark Eldar... didn't.

And no, once again, I don't count the "Master" upgrades because there are no options to speak of. A Master archon is only ever good at one thing (and by 'good' I mean 'terrible' because his melee weapons are all abysmal, with the only half-decent one having been hammered into absolute oblivion). Oh but don't worry - Masters also get extra warlord traits and artefacts to pick from. Because apparently DE HQs weren't reliant enough on artefacts and warlord traits already.

Anyway, returning to the list:

Army still pointlessly shoehorned into three subfactions? Check. Because it makes complete sense for one of the smallest, most neglected armies in the game to have this sort of split.

Still naff-all choice within the respective subfactions? Check. Apparently if you put a haemonculus with a squad of wyches, all those millennia of fleshcrafting just fall right out of his brain and all he can do is stand around gormlessly, wielding his massive stack of... no wargear. Yes, the characters known for bringing vast arrays of artefacts and eldritch devices get 0 wargear. And as I listen to the bleats of praise for GW, I understand why our army will never, ever improve.


I'm going to make a prediction here - people will be all over this book for the next few months, with the usual suspects building alters that they can worship GW for delivering unto them the greatest codex in the history of humankind. Then, after the excitement wears off, they'll finally start to acknowledge that this book is just the old book with a fresh coat of paint. And in fact, almost everything that made the old book a pain in the arse to play (e.g. limited army-building because of subfactions, restrictive character options because HQs are locked into specific artefact/warlord trait combinations in order to be even vaguely competent at their intended roles etc.) are all still present. And the few that were addressed were simply replaced with new ones.

However, I'm also aware that this opinion is one no one wants to hear whilst they're busy deluding themselves that GW actually cares about their army (hint: they don't).

So if you'll excuse me, I'll retire back into my coffin and wait for 10th edition.

Those are really good stratagems for Wych Cult!

Have there been any buffs revealed so far that affect Mandrakes?

Or are GW still determined that no one be allowed an army with a Mandrake theme?

Mandrakes lost native deep strike in favor of native infiltrate. Much like many people around here hoped they can hop into the shadows and deepstrike once per game. They're also quite cheap at min size.

Basically they look like they'll be extremely good at counter-scout stuff, and are probably our best deep-field Scramblers option, etc. Expect to see them around in quite a few lists, but I doubt you'll see a lot of people bringing 30.