6th edition not lookin good for dark eldar

I don't think we got worse, rather our focus got narrowed a bit and units got shifted.

Wyches are really only good for killing vehicles now, tossing five of them with haywires at a tank will basically guarantee you take out two hull points at least, maybe even the full 3. Overwatch and not being able to move 12" and assault wrecked their use as a reliable assault unit.

Warriors just got much, much better. Being able to move and shoot now makes warriors in raiders with splinter racks much, much more effective ( I actually tested this out yesterday at my LGS, managed to take a unit of 10 Necron Immortals in two tuns, twice.) Venom spam will be just as good as always, and the constant 5+ jink (Unless you aren't moving, in which case you're probably either trying to rush an objective with people or are playing the wrong army) gives us ten points to free up for Night shields or other goodies.

Jetfighters and Void ravens got much better, and we'll probably need to take at least one for AA duty.

The Duke, Baron, Vect, Malys and Urien are just as good as before, if not better, though Vect is a bit less useful against terminators.

Ravagers are still gravy.

Beasts got a solid buff.

Harlequins are now much better, IMO. The Eldar FAQ gives them Shrouded and Stealth instead of 2d6x3 to see if you can shoot them, so they'll have a constant 4+ cover save minimum, even if they are out of cover (Shrouded grants a 5+ save even if not in cover, Stealth gives the +1, and it says in the Shrouded rules that it stacks with Stealth.) Though we may have to use the Eldar version of Harlequins untill they add it to OUR FAQ as well.

Jetbikes are just as good as before, Hellions are now good choice for assault armies, as they have Hammer of Wrath.

Most armies having vehicles with 3 Hull points and glancing hits getting rid of HP's just made Scourges vehicle killing machines, plus our DL spam got more effective with the +1 to the damage roll.

Coven units got a good boost now the Fleet only lets you reroll charge, I imagine we'll be seeing more of them as they can both survive being shot at more and throw around pain tokens like fairy dust.

Incubi are now only good for killing 3+ saves, but in my experience tossing a squad of Incubi at terminators tended to get them killed rather quickly.

Over all I think we stayed more or less the same, vehicles getting more fragile actually helps us out quite a bit, as we are already paper, so while everyone else is getting worse, we are laughing.

Plus we can take Farseers now

im skeptical to pass judgement till i hold the book in my hands and read it all... then i will cast my judgement.

There's a reason to take a klavex now... Though I wouldn't have not taken one before... And Drazhar got pretty boss with the slight change to his darting strike rule. He probably just became the best "sniper" in the game.

Though webway portals got nerfed all to hell and back... there is really no reason to consider using them at all now... esp since allies cant make use of them.

The FAQ confirms AP values, and the long and short of it is that the following melee attacks are AP2 or "ignore armor saves"

Lelith Hesperax
Duke Slicus (on to wound rolls of 5+)
Drazhar (when wielding his demiklaives clasped together)
Incubus Klaivex (as Drazhar)
Beastmaster Razorwing Flocks (with Rending)
Harlequins with Kisses (with Rending)
Talos (with Smash)
Cronos (with Smash)

That's it. With Space Marine characters running about with 2+ saves, the Archon with Huskblade/Soul Trap is pretty much non-viable.

For what we hoped? For GW giving us some love when they are boosting Imperium to the stars?

6th Ed is incomplete crap imo. Just look at the Guard's Vendetta Spam - and it's obviosly broken.

then - at allocating armor saves in mixed group. huge indep w/ 2+ stays in front of bunch of his units and takes all "normal" shot, redirecting ap1-2 and ones who can instakill him via Look Out to ordinary models. It's like entire unit having his armor save (but this abuse is counterable atlest...)

Looks like they released it in hurry for selling more brillant flyer and termie miniatures.

Hmmm reading the book I feel it to be possible to invest new tactics. For instance, bladevane reavers pinning the enemy and then declaring a charge with wyches is bye bye enemy. I think we will just need to reconsider how we play this game.

Having units that can assault is all well and good. Just remember that we have to get them into assault in the first place.

Webway, raiders, fnp and cover all got crimped so delivering an intact wych squad just got really tricky.

Tiresias wrote:

Hmmm reading the book I feel it to be possible to invest new tactics. For instance, bladevane reavers pinning the enemy and then declaring a charge with wyches is bye bye enemy. I think we will just need to reconsider how we play this game.

A unit that has been pinned and gone to ground can still perform Overwatch fire.

Page 18, "Go to Ground" Box, third paragraph:

"A unit that has gone to ground cannot move, Run, or charge. It can only fire Snap Shots when it wishes to shoot, and can fire Overwatch."

So far, it looks like protecting a unit from Overwatch fire is done by using multiple units.

Charges are declared and resolved one at a time. If there is any restriction affecting charging a unit with multiple units, I haven;t found it. A unit can only fire Overwatch once per turn, and cannot fire Overwatch once it has been locked in combat.

So when you charge a unit, it can fire Overwatch at the charging unit. After this, it is either locked in combat (if the charge succeeded) or cannot fire Overwatch again (if the charge failed).

So they way to protect a vulnerable unit (such as wyches) is to have another, tougher unit charge your target first in the same assault phase.

If your target decides to fire Overwatch at this unit, they will do less damage, and be unable to fire Overwatch at your wyches even if this first charge fails.

If they hold off on firing Overwatch in the hopes of using it on the wyches, a successful charge by the first unit will lock them in combat and prevent them from firing Overwatch at all.

Venkh wrote:

, raiders

I disagree with you on these two. Our raiders can now flat out 30" and still have their 4+ flat out, and they now share the same 3 HP as most other vehicles. They're just as good if not better than before.

If you where refering to them as a vehicle for getting wyches to their target I do agree that as a whole we got nerfed pretty bad.

Quote :

If you where refering to them as a vehicle for getting wyches to their target I do agree that as a whole we got nerfed pretty bad.

Yep, that was it.

My general idea at this point - above half into the rulebook, is this:

YES GW has done it again, take a perfectly gritty game and turned it into 'high fantasy', even if we could now call it 'high SF' or some such. And YES the bias is towards uber-characters and Space Marines and psychers. Lastly, YES, overwatch s*cks, especially if your wyches are fired at by flamers (D3 auto hits).

So NO I don't really like that, but I expected it, as I have seen GW over the years first simplifying hardcore rules towards ease-of-use, and now bending those rules towards... how to call it... 'commercialism x childish = happy shareholders' (just shoot me if you don't like me saying that, playing WFB 21 years in a row gives me some say)

I don't think that many can really say the rules have been cleaned up. Here and there, unnecessary complications have been added just to support characters and challenges and so on. On the other hand, a 'peril of the warp' roll could have been something like in WFB, where magic can be very dangerous, here it is only 'lose one wound', where gods like Slaanesh are always on the prowl to claim souls and travelling through the Warp itself can be like living in 'Event Horizon'...

Anyway, we HAVE to accept that the world will now move on and choose to play this 6th edition, so it is adapt or perish.

I do NOT think that the DE have just lost their merit, not at all, it just needs to be reconsidered. Hull points, for instance, are our friend - glance them to death, it won't even take too long...

So, here is my temporary call:

- The GW staff has been very biased and not really interested in all Xenos players out there. The end result is indeed a move towards Space Marines and the Imperium in general. OK, let's play: this is all the motivation we need to retalliate and grind the Imperium to dust, if it was only to take these overconfident Imperial commanders a peg or two down. Heck, it is really all the motivation needed to INDEED ally with the Eldar, for I think our hatred for the Imperium might be the only thing we have in common...

- Some stuff will work, some stuff won't. I at least have decided to work towards numbers/speed/psychology. So my growing Wych tactica is: pin them down with Reavers, get your Raiders closer to get the wych charge in, seep away their psychology with the Torment Grenade Launcher standard on Raiders, then tarpit or kill the enemy in close combat. The idea at this point is: take the initiative and never ever leave it, disrupt whatever you can, send them weeping back to their parents. Take a soldier and break his/her soul. Likewise, try to scare their commander (the player) into responding in panic. For that I will me massing out on psychological warfare.

Will this work? I don't know. But I do know that it is not the right path to aim our anger at each other or at GW. It should be aimed at the opponent instead...

Hijallo wrote:

6th Ed is incomplete crap imo. Just look at the Guard's Vendetta Spam - and it's obviosly broken.

That's the fault of the IG codex, not the rulebook. I can see the IG being toned far, far down in the future.

What's this about flickerfields being nerfed on Venoms? could someone explain this to me.

I'n really glad are 12 shot Venoms can still move and shoot this means Venom spam is still viable

Farmer: fast skimmers that move 6" or more gain a 5+ jink save (a type of cover save) vs shooting which, with the exception of some things (flamers etc), means it is effectively the same as Venom's flickerfields - thus the inclusion of FFs on the Venoms price means that they are a little overcosted. Probably. I think time will really tell about whether this is true or not...

To be honest, it's not even the uber terminator characters that are the problem, it's basic TH/SS termies. Our uber chracters can still kill other uber chracters in cc. Drazhar especially has a good chanse of killing even SM chapter masters with 2+/3++ and thunder hammer, at least provided he has one pain token for fnp (which he will never lose since he cannot be IDd). It's a pretty close fight, but while Drazhar has worse save, he has more attacks, has a lot better chanse of hitting (3+ and reroll 1s opposed to 4+) and even a better chanse of wounding (2+ with reroll 1s). Most special charactes, like Draigo are pretty dead againt him, lacking eighter a 3++ save or a ap2 weapon (or both).

The problem comes when you have to fight a bunch of those 2+/3++ models. Drazhar and 5 Incubi (including Klaivex) charging 5 TH/SS terminators will on average lose the combat since they simply can't inflict enough wounds to wipe out all the termies, and will get no saves (aside from Draz if he has fnp). Same holds true for other armies supposed termie killers. Tyranid warriors and Necron Praetorians both have ccws that ignore all armour, but are still unlikely to win since the termies still get 3++ against their attacks, while they get nothing agaisnt the termies' attacks (warriors at least hit before termies so they can hope for some very lucky rolls. Praetorians strike at i1 so realistically the best they can do is kill the termies and die in the process).

If GW would actually bother trying to balance things, they'd nerf storm shields. Now that the 2+ save is enough to make termies extremely durable, the 3++ is just overkill (and while they're at it, they should remove the ability to wield 9 Vendettas in a list. That was clearly written for when they were just skimmers).

EDIT: I noticed something important in the rulebook, that kinda nerfs Vendettazilla: vehicles in squadrons must still fire at one target. So 9 Vendettas will destoy 3 vehicles a turn. Powerful, but you're paying over 1000 points for that so it's not exactly cost effective. Necrons are probably the better flyer spam army (just give every troop Scythes as transports. The can even drop units on objectives while zooming).

Quote :

To be honest, it's not even the uber terminator characters that are the problem, it's basic TH/SS termies.

This was always so though wasnt it.

Maased Venom splinter fire and dozens of attacks fom Beasts or boosted Hellions will sort those guys out.

Normal termies die horribly to massed lance attacks.

The other nice thing we have in our arsenal is the shattershard. Inv save? What inv save!

What depresses me the most about the changes, aren't really the changes themselves. Regardless of which way you look at it, we got nerfed in some form or another. However, when I go to my club, and I beat my opponents with the new, nerfed DE, they will still cry that I'm overpowered. The running argument of "Well I don't want to play like that." to which I reply "Then don't expect to win." is just going to frustrate me even further.

IASGATG wrote:

What depresses me the most about the changes, aren't really the changes themselves. Regardless of which way you look at it, we got nerfed in some form or another. However, when I go to my club, and I beat my opponents with the new, nerfed DE, they will still cry that I'm overpowered. The running argument of "Well I don't want to play like that." to which I reply "Then don't expect to win." is just going to frustrate me even further.

Ow? And here I was thinking it was all about Space Marines, Grey Knights especially.

Well you were wrong. It's all about Necrons, baby. Guess which army has tons of AP2 melee attacks? Guess which army can drown everyone in a mass of glances? Guess which army loves the new Rapid Fire the most? Guess which army can move their flyer transport 36" and toss out it's payload while doing so? Yep. Necrons. Forget Grey Knights, even they won't get through the 2+/3++ saves of a Overlord with Mindshackle Scarabs (hey, I see you got that cool powerfist, mind bashing yourself in the face with it D3 times?), of course obligatory Resurrection Orb, Phase Shifter and Voidblade (if he fancies striking before Powerfists) or Warscythe (+2S and AP1 for everything else). Toss in Tesseract Labyrinth and Tachyon Arrow in there for good measure and nothing will stand in their way.

This is the true enemy. Our ancient enemy. This is the reason Eldar and Dark Eldar are brothers in arms. Because we will need everything to force these ancient horrors off the table. So quit whining about your pansy Assault Termies that will be footslogging across the table from turn two.

Blasts do not ignore cover saves. And wyches now have a potential 24 inch assault! Move six with your vehicle get out six and then assault a possilbe 12! Re-rollable!? Nice. Dark lances are BEAST!! now I think with the plus on the damage chart for ap 2? Awesome. Im bummed about our flyers tho. We can never hover, only shoot 2 missiles, then one gun and the other snap shot. But the bomber is better now when you can zoom across the board drop a mine a zoom off the board to come back in later, way cool. And with on going reserves you dont have to roll to come back in the next turn. ZOOM drop the mine leave then come back for some missiles and void lances. Im excited to write some new lists.


edit - AND HAYWIRE BLASTERS!! HOLY CRAP!


Double post merged - Baron T

Iirc, can't flyers shoot 4 weapons while moving (missiles limited to 2 a turn, tho)?. So we could still fire both lances.

You can fire both lances but only one at your BS and 1 as a crack shot.

Loubaddon wrote:

You can fire both lances but only one at your BS and 1 as a crack shot.

You mean snap shot, right?

I don't think you have that right Loubaddon - can you quote a reference from the BRB? Or if not, can someone with a BRB clarify this please? A pretty darned major change if its true... I thought it was 4 weapons per turn...

Loubaddon wrote:

You can fire both lances but only one at your BS and 1 as a crack shot.

Check the FAQ. you will be pleased ;-)