Goonhammer article - Are Drukhari Too Good?

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Personally I lean towards the 'powerful but not broken' viewpoint and that by the time the next 2 or 3 codexes are released we will be back under control, perhaps with a few point changes in CA.

The Codex is very very powerful. But the Razorflail Succubus is definetly broken.

News at 11: HERO was right by about 4 weeks.

I do want to call into attention one thing though:

Quote :

Richard Siegler: The Drukhari lists that we are currently seeing are largely MSU-based and do not have as much ranged anti-tank outside of a few dark lances and technomancer Wracks. As such they are not the best at destroying enemy transports, especially durable ones like Ghost Arks.

This is with the "standard" template of 6 BH Raiders netlists that I've seen DE take.

I have none of these same worries or matchup vulnerabilities with 13 BH Lances in my army and 6 Blasters. What scares those lists do not scare me, and I have the games to confirm that not only have the extra lances to +1 the mirror, but also it removes more difficult matchups such as vs. Harlequins (vs. bikes, you Vect Blur and cycle lances), Chaos/Tyranids, and other mech.

What I lose from that is the DT Wracks, but again, I don't take Wracks.

So TL;DR:

Because we are not W2 T4 dudes with -1 to damage our strength is difficult to quantify.
There are obvious issues which are unnecessarily oppressive such as DT Liquifiers or auto-wound Succubi. They likely skew our overall performance at least somewhat and this is likely being addressed in a future FAQ.

But since we only have 4 codices so far it's really difficult to tell and we need more data. We will have a better point of reference once more books are getting released.

We play the mission well and trade well, but the codex is not Iron Hands all over again. Apart from that we have a codex with good internal balance and Raiders in particular are an important component that are likely undercosted for their utility.


Imho, this is all pretty reasonable and I think many people feel this way. Knowing the 40k community I was expecting much more of an outrage, particularly on other forums and Reddit. But apart from obvious issues most seem pretty cool about our new codex.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

So TL;DR:

Because we are not W2 T4 dudes with -1 to damage our strength is difficult to quantify.
There are obvious issues which are unnecessarily oppressive such as DT Liquifiers or auto-wound Succubi. They likely skew our overall performance at least somewhat and this is likely being addressed in a future FAQ.

But since we only have 4 codices so far it's really difficult to tell and we need more data. We will have a better point of reference once more books are getting released.

We play the mission well and trade well, but the codex is not Iron Hands all over again. Apart from that we have a codex with good internal balance and Raiders in particular are an important component that are likely undercosted for their utility.


Imho, this is all pretty reasonable and I think many people feel this way. Knowing the 40k community I was expecting much more of an outrage, particularly on other forums and Reddit. But apart from obvious issues most seem pretty cool about our new codex.

Not sure why those stats (related to defense) are difficult to quantify when we can engineer stats from our offensive capabilities and quantify it by ppm pretty reliably.

Also, the outrage does exist, the nerd rage is real. I've literally silenced all my FB groups and other sites until more data/events happen.

I'd say, there needs to be a few months of learning curve before the dust settles and we can truly see. There's an adaptability window that needs to occur, much like a release of new DLC in an RTS, a new champion in a MOBA or anything else that changes the status-quo. Now, if 3 months for now and 1 new codex in and we're still seeing 70+% WR numbers, then we can have discussions.

The tears are strong in this article.....and delicious.  Yes nerf the c/e razorflail.  I dont really care much about DT either, if they nerf it ill just bring a different version of Coven or none at all.  Nerf the 14 point patrol thing too makes sense.  But rule of 3 for transports?  LOL wtf.  Also I don't think any of these guys have played Dark Eldar (not including soup) for as long as a lot of us.

Here is what happened.  A super niche army played by some good players came out and face stomped some tournaments.  Most of their opponents probably had no freakin clue how to take on this army yet it's playstyle hasn't changed since 6th edition (God I miss webway portals).  Hell our point costs didnt really change in the new codex.  We could literally field the same amount of units for months, but we just hit harder now.  Sure Covid suppressed that but thems are the breaks.  I agree with Siegler's changes, I think those would be just fine except maybe DT.  Id even accept the 5 point raider increase. I just feel the DT nerf would basically cause us to quit covens.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

So TL;DR:

Because we are not W2 T4 dudes with -1 to damage our strength is difficult to quantify.
There are obvious issues which are unnecessarily oppressive such as DT Liquifiers or auto-wound Succubi. They likely skew our overall performance at least somewhat and this is likely being addressed in a future FAQ.

But since we only have 4 codices so far it's really difficult to tell and we need more data. We will have a better point of reference once more books are getting released.

We play the mission well and trade well, but the codex is not Iron Hands all over again. Apart from that we have a codex with good internal balance and Raiders in particular are an important component that are likely undercosted for their utility.


Imho, this is all pretty reasonable and I think many people feel this way. Knowing the 40k community I was expecting much more of an outrage, particularly on other forums and Reddit. But apart from obvious issues most seem pretty cool about our new codex.

Ya this is where I hope the devs do not cave in and listen to the nerd rage because honestly this is the way DE should play. Fast and hard hitting. Iron Hands had some legitimately broken math with the way Dreads and Look out Sir worked. I do not see us having anything too crazy except that Succubus and maybe DT liquifiers. Id be ok with a raider bump of 5 points. Might make some lists take a venom.

There is really onl 3 things that are strong and 1 of them isn't being played how GW meant it to be played. Comp Edge Succubus, DT flamers, and Fly-by.

Comp Edge will be fixed for sure
DT flamers will now be fixed (hopefully only DT changes and not Wracks or LG changes)
Flyby should be 3 instead for the over 10 models as it can kill characters without trying

Other than that the Goon hammer guys are Hyperbolizing out their asses, a lot of their "games" were on TTS and being playing with some broken mechanics that the normal player doesn't understand for 1 example, Hellions can be stacks in 20mans in the same size space as a 10man, so they can hide them in cover and behind obscuring when normally they can not. Also the Tournaments if you look at who DE fought it all was old meta lists, no one even tried to counter DE. Goon guys says they tried but gave no lists for revive and instead just complained (some of them were "DE is strong but not broken, so it wasn't all of them) without a Batrep or list its hard to say if they even tried, Suppressors, Hammerstrike, LSS's and many other units easily counter DE, if they are not trying those units out then are they really trying to counter DE?

Which leads me to my last point, and the point i hate the most. a LOT of people are asking for DE to "change and be nerf" b.c it "changes the meta and makes it hard to build a TAC list to fight DE and DG"... seriously are you for real? You literally have 200 units to pick from and you want me a army with 27 highly restricted units to change? Why don't you make a TAC that works vs most armies and not a Tailored list to fight just Marines, DG, or just DE.

I have a few players that play me all the time (I play every week and sometimes multiple times a week) they have learn how to deal with my DE and does really well, even though i have not lost with my new DE yet, that is only b.c I have years of experience (even higher level tournaments I do travel for events time to time) while they have a few years of experience, but with just 1 or 2 less mistakes they EASILY could have won.

From years of experience, teaching people how t play, teaching and taking people to events, playing most armies to learn them, i can safety say we are A tier but not S tier once those 3 things change as we have 1 extremely strong weakness, anti-vehicle spam guns. Anything with lots of str 6/7 -1, 1D or 2D guns in any good amount of value will rip us apart (looking at your Tau, Scions, Admech, and some marines lists).

This article reads more like a hate letter than "Hey meta you should change how you play". Grant I had to stop reading some parts of it b.c I got annoyed, but reading about 70% of it most of it wasn't helpful at all and just crying.

DE is the Hit hard and Hit fast, with transports, thats literally DE and the problem isn't DE is strong its that players don't want to counter that meta, its players used to pseudo castling with elite units and they don't want to change so they want us to change, how dreadfully dull and sour of themt o keep this stupid fixed meta.

Goonhammer can go to Hades and kiss the Furies.

I followed their advice a few months ago when I started playing Necromunda. Oh, Escher are very powerful, they said. You will rock the game, they said. They're perfectly capable of playing against the Van Saar and winning, they said. Oh, what's that? They have 2+ saves, and multi-meltas, and all plasmas and bionic eyes? Ah, but you have a bow and arrow, and some cats.

Clearly their articles are intended to deceive naive and trusting innocents like myself into a world of unfairness and despair, which they probably feed on, the scum. And now that my beloved Drukhari are at last an army to be feared, they must put an end to my joy, which probably burns them like holy water.

Well I won't have it! If they really cared so much about things being 'overpowered', why didn't they bother to warn me about the Van Saar? Why didn't they mention that my Death Maiden would be next to useless against Enforcers? And if it's all about 40K, where was this concern for the Drukhari when everyone else was kicking MY arse? That never bothered them, did it?

Lying degenerates, the lot of them. I hope their chicken nuggets turn to ashes in their mouths!

I totally agree with the article, nothing more to say.

Cerve wrote:

I totally agree with the article, nothing more to say.

Which bit? The bit that says we're broken or the bit that says we're not?  

Cerve wrote:

I totally agree with the article, nothing more to say.

Is this sarcasm?

Barking Agatha wrote:

Goonhammer can go to Hades and kiss the Furies.

I followed their advice a few months ago when I started playing Necromunda. Oh, Escher are very powerful, they said. You will rock the game, they said. They're perfectly capable of playing against the Van Saar and winning, they said. Oh, what's that? They have 2+ saves, and multi-meltas, and all plasmas and bionic eyes? Ah, but you have a bow and arrow, and some cats.

Clearly their articles are intended to deceive naive and trusting innocents like myself into a world of unfairness and despair, which they probably feed on, the scum. And now that my beloved Drukhari are at last an army to be feared, they must put an end to my joy, which probably burns them like holy water.

Well I won't have it! If they really cared so much about things being 'overpowered', why didn't they bother to warn me about the Van Saar? Why didn't they mention that my Death Maiden would be next to useless against Enforcers? And if it's all about 40K, where was this concern for the Drukhari when everyone else was kicking MY arse? That never bothered them, did it?

Lying degenerates, the lot of them. I hope their chicken nuggets turn to ashes in their mouths!

I stopped reading them (only read this one b.c its DE and there was a lot of controversy around it) when they did some AoS armies (Mainly my main army) and they said to bring not 1 but 2 of literally the worst unit in the army and one of the worst units in the entire game, they talked up the worst unit in the game. Every newIsh AoS/BoC player knows how bad this unit is. The BoC community laughed at their lists for weeks b.c they were so bad and they all basically said "This is why 40k players suck at AoS, they can't even tell what is good was terrible" and other quotes a like.

There has been many articles that were flat out wrong about many things, IDK if it is malice or just the rush to get content out, but I see Goon just as Clickbait bullshit now.

amishprn86 wrote:

Cerve wrote:

I totally agree with the article, nothing more to say.

Is this sarcasm?

No, I really agree with the article. I'm not always with Goonhammer, but in this case I'm ok with them.

We're not broken in rules like IH, but we cost a bit too less than we should.
Raiders are the key unit for us, the only real multiplier of the army.
Nerfing us will be fine, but GW must be carefull doing that, and it's true that bumping up every "famous" unit in the Codex will be too much.
It is true that, while the numbers sounds bad, a LOT of people is not ready to fight us for now. It is true that only top players will change the meta, while the majority of players just copycat their lists and still lose with them. Because people don't want to learn HOW to play against Drukhari, they only want "a list". That's true that sometimes the meta doesn't evolve at all for the majority of players, or it evolve in the measure that they copy 1-2 top lists ignoring the toughts behind them. So against Drukhari, which are the FIRST Codex that offer a different playstile over the "take the middle and stay alive" 9th common tactics, a lot of people struggling for their mindset. Not for the lists of the Codex.
Nontheless, it is true that we ARE undercosted. But againt, I belive that they key is the Raider. It is THE force multiplier that brings Drukhari to "fragile" into "stupidly tought AND fast".
And I agree that 1) Razor Succubus, 2) DT Liquefiers, 3) 14 CP Patrols are three "bugs" that GW should fix.



So basically, I agree with all the article

I really hate the idea of changing DT to trigger on 1s to wound. Such a bad solution. It nerfs Talos and Chronos and that's it. Those don't need nerfs. People will still use it on wracks because it won't kill the models using the liquifiers, just naked wracks.

It is a "solution" that takes the least possible amount of effort to come up with and won't have the desired effect. Changing liqs to S3 addresses the efficiency without randomly nerfing units that don't need it.

So, to sum it up: There are 3 bugs to fix and a little point adjustment to make.
Im sure, most ESE-Players could live with that. I definetly could.
The question to ask is another: Can other Players adjust to that? It is, after all, a new playstyle.
Of course, Im nowhere near the top players, I play for fun and fluff, so maybe I am missing something.

sekac wrote:

I really hate the idea of changing DT to trigger on 1s to wound. Such a bad solution. It nerfs Talos and Chronos and that's it. Those don't need nerfs. People will still use it on wracks because it won't kill the models using the liquifiers, just naked wracks.

It is a "solution" that takes the least possible amount of effort to come up with and won't have the desired effect. Changing liqs to S3 addresses the efficiency without randomly nerfing units that don't need it.

There was a solution suggested that, for liquifiers, DT should trigger if you roll a 1 on the number of attacks. Frankly,  I think that for autohit weapons, just rolling a D6 and triggering on a 1 would be fine.

There are some valid points made in the article, but some of the comments were not productive at all. The guy who suggested 'there should be a rule of 3 for transports' is a good example of an idiotic comment from someone who has no interest in DE playing as they are supposed to. I'm also not fond of the suggestions that we get more restrictions on detachment composition. I think that our current level of flexibility is warranted, considering how relatively few units we have in our toolbox.

At least one person in the roundtable had a 'wait and see' approach, which is probably the best idea, considering the state of the codex release schedule. I cannot agree to immediate calls for nerfs until players have had time to try to figure out counters to a different play style. When your immediate response to a new army is "we need to nerf this army now", rather than "let's try to figure out how to counter this army first", then you sound more like "I'm too lazy to change up my anti-marine meta playstyle" to me.

(Note: When I refer to nerfs, I'm not referring to 20 pt reavers or clarifying the Competitive Edge/Razorflail interaction - I think that it's a given that these things will, and should be, clarified)

sekac wrote:

I really hate the idea of changing DT to trigger on 1s to wound. Such a bad solution. It nerfs Talos and Chronos and that's it. Those don't need nerfs. People will still use it on wracks because it won't kill the models using the liquifiers, just naked wracks.

It is a "solution" that takes the least possible amount of effort to come up with and won't have the desired effect. Changing liqs to S3 addresses the efficiency without randomly nerfing units that don't need it.

How about let's not go back to 7th edition stats? Liquifiers were S4 from 3rd-5th ed. They became unuseable in 7th with the switch to S3. Having a reason to take them in non-DT detachments would be nice.

So I just listened to the Art of War Down Under podcast that I linked in the Tiers thread. At the end of the podcast Adam asked Peter an interesting question. "Could we be playing with to much terrain". His thought process was that since the beginning of 9th there has been a put more terrain on the table mentality because with only the Crons and Marines only playing against 8th ed. Codices the GW suggested terrain was seen as to sparse and not playable. Now Our book comes out and we can Mech up everything and almost everything can be hidden turn 1 where as on GW terrain setup maybe 3 things on the board can be protected turn 1.

Just some food for thought.

krayd wrote:

sekac wrote:

I really hate the idea of changing DT to trigger on 1s to wound. Such a bad solution. It nerfs Talos and Chronos and that's it. Those don't need nerfs. People will still use it on wracks because it won't kill the models using the liquifiers, just naked wracks.

It is a "solution" that takes the least possible amount of effort to come up with and won't have the desired effect. Changing liqs to S3 addresses the efficiency without randomly nerfing units that don't need it.

How about let's not go back to 7th edition stats? Liquifiers were S4 from 3rd-5th ed. They became unuseable in 7th with the switch to S3. Having a reason to take them in non-DT detachments would be nice.

I think the change back to DT doing damage on 1's to wound is the most likely, and most undesirable, 'fix' that GW would implement for the problem of DT liquifiers. I remain of the opinion however that this cannot possibly be an unintended situation. If this got past the playtest process without it being intended then you might as well not bother playtesting at all. I would also not put it past GW to have this as a sales incentive to buy Covens stuff which will then be nerfed in a classic bait and switch move.

If a change is needed then just make autohit weapons inflict damage if you roll a 1 for the number of hits.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I think the change back to DT doing damage on 1's to wound is the most likely, and most undesirable, 'fix' that GW would implement for the problem of DT liquifiers. I remain of the opinion however that this cannot possibly be an unintended situation. If this got past the playtest process without it being intended then you might as well not bother playtesting at all. I would also not put it past GW to have this as a sales incentive to buy Covens stuff which will then be nerfed in a classic bait and switch move.

If a change is needed then just make autohit weapons inflict damage if you roll a 1 for the number of hits.

I'm of a similar mind - there is no way that this wasn't foreseen/intended by the codex designers. I'm on the side of minimal changes if at all to DT - at least if they're going to keep DT as an all-consuming obsession.

It was intended. But they completely misjudge the effectiveness of that on embarked Wracks.

1s on number of shots still too less dangerous for not trigger that. DT should be something that you should think twice before triggering it. Not something you're going to use every time you shoot with.
1s on wounds is the most likely nerf, for me. You SHOULD take casualties AND shredding enemy models with them. It's not about avoiding the 1s, it's about a kamikaze effect that you have to trigger carefully.
+1 to wound and +1 dmg together. Guys...damn, BA were broken with just half of the effect, on melee. DT Wracks embarked on Raiders are completely no-sense right now.

Cerve wrote:

It was intended. But they completely misjudge the effectiveness of that on embarked Wracks.

1s on number of shots still too less dangerous for not trigger that. DT should be something that you should think twice before triggering it. Not something you're going to use every time you shoot with.
1s on wounds is the most likely nerf, for me. You SHOULD take casualties AND shredding enemy models with them. It's not about avoiding the 1s, it's about a kamikaze effect that you have to trigger carefully.
+1 to wound and +1 dmg together. Guys...damn, BA were broken with just half of the effect, on melee. DT Wracks embarked on Raiders are completely no-sense right now.

Agreed. It's a cool gimmick and it might have been the intention, but the effect is way over the top.
Doing the math, receiving a Mortal Wound on a 1 to wound doesn't even hurt us that bad. With a 5+ FNP it would be 0.3 Mortal Wounds per attack. Considering how powerful the effect is, it's only fair and doesn't make the weapon unusable.

Dalamar wrote:

So I just listened to the Art of War Down Under podcast that I linked in the Tiers thread.  At the end of the podcast Adam asked Peter an interesting question.  "Could we be playing with to much terrain".  His thought process was that since the beginning of 9th there has been a put more terrain on the table mentality because with only the Crons and Marines only playing against 8th ed. Codices the GW suggested terrain was seen as to sparse and not playable.  Now Our book comes out and we can Mech up everything and almost everything can be hidden turn 1 where as on GW terrain setup maybe 3 things on the board can be protected turn 1.

Just some food for thought.

Thanks for sharing, that is actually very good thinking.

I don't think they misjudged the effectiveness of wracks on boats. I think the assume (and have to) that we are playing on their or close to their standard terrain amount and setup. They limited how many Vehicles we can put in deep strike in the new codex. Look back at the example board layouts GW gave us at the beginning of 9th. At most you could deep strike one boat and hide 2-3 more, unless you play poison tongue. If you don't go first you are losing many boats before you go. If you go second you will hit hard but more of your army will be exposed for the counter.

Conclusion, with current tournament terrain It is to easy to hide your boats turn 1 and makes them too efficient with their speed and fly to line up shots and deliver their payloads with the current amount of terrain on the table.

just my 2 cents.