Summary of Dark Eldar in 6th edition

I believe it may be worth while to start a summary of what changes to expect in 6th edition given the new rumours and to work on what will affect the Dark Eldar.

Please note that although the rumours have been assumed to be very accurate, they should still be seen as speculation and taken with a pinch of salt. Add your thoughts below and I will compile the summary.

No more Defensive Weapons: Looks like those dual Splinter Cannon Venoms may take a nerf though we do not know how many weapons they will be able to fire.

Pistols can fire in combat: Models will be able to use their pistols in combat, losing their additional attack but using the strength of the pistol; AP 1,2 and 3 will count as rending. Wyches will be able to gain a 4+ poison attack, useful for taking down anything T5 or above; I'm sure someone good with mathhammer can work out the values of 2 S3 attacks or 1 4+ against T4. Blast Pistols may become more of an option. Personally I'd still rather have an Agoniser though Duke Sliscus will have the opportunity to instant death Tyranid Warriors and Space Marine heroes.

assuming parity on WS, and MEQ target.

2 S3 will hit 50% of the time. that one hit will wound 33.3% of the time, giving a 16.7% chance to wound over all. against a MEQ that's saved 66.7% of the time. leading to approx 5.7% chance of killing the MEQ.

1 poisoned(4+) on the same target, hits 50% of the time, wounds 50% of the time it hits, leading to a 25% chance to wound overall. throwing the 3+ save in means that one attack will kill 8.3% of the time.

think these are about right.

Blast pistol ftw!

Things that ring alarm bells for me:

Defensive weapons gone = not good for venoms
Overwatch blasting our assault units before they can engage
FNP keping wracks and wyches alive in combat - I bet we end up with the 5+ version.
Less softening up if assaulting units engage in the movement phase
No more cover saves on vehicles

Hopefully 6th wont be another move to make imperial armies better, i have to say that it looks like it at the moment.

Very early days so i am not in a panic yet

Dito

Baron Tordeck wrote:

Personally I will worry bout 6th when it hits the shelves. Until then its just baseless, useless speculation IMHO

I agree. I don't see the point about this at all, especially since it sounds like a bunch of hogwash.

What Tordeck said.

I thought i'd start a thread on how 6th edition will affect us budding Archons. Some rumours, mainly the flier rules and vehicle rules, seem to work in our favour.

link to the roundup;

6th edition collected wishlist

For starters, vehicles moving 12" are hit on a 6+, this will make Raiders a little less fragile, but it will also lead to a reduction in slower heavy tanks, like Russes and will probably result in more transports that can move and shoot one gun. The ability to move 12" and shoot from fire points makes a gunboat army fearsome. Being restricted to 12" with all guns is no big issue (this is my normal playstyle) but tere is no more save from moving flat out with Skimmers. Squad leaders actually play a role in how a squad acts in the game, if they are close enough (12" from the rumours) the squad hits its target easier.

Everything can wound everything on a 6+ now, this isn't a big one for Dark Eldar to be honest. Move/Assault/Shoot is a huge change. This will make Wracks a little less effective as the pre-assault liquifier is a sound way of weakening a squad.

The abandon rule will make units like Nob Bikers and Paladin deathstars alot less resilient, but it also makes Grotesques and Clawed Fiends alot less viable, multi wound units are designed to take a beating, now they are going to be alot less durable. I really hope this isn't true, it goes against the whole point of multi wound units.

Possibly the coolest thing is the strategms chart. Best thing for Dark Eldar is to bid low just to get Nightfight for turn 1, or if your opponent bids high, use the points to get Night Fight the whole game. Combined with Night Shields, this could shut down the enemy shooting completely.

So if anyone has any thoughts based on the rumours, post it. It'd be handy to edition proof an army before the new edition comes out.

Thanks, didn't notice this thread. With these rumours, Dark Eldar have been handed a mixed bunch of good and bad. We'll have to see how it affects Venoms, i'll be sad if I have to drop my 2, love those little blighters.

Rabid Bunny wrote:

The abandon rule will make units like Nob Bikers and Paladin deathstars alot less resilient, but it also makes Grotesques and Clawed Fiends alot less viable, multi wound units are designed to take a beating, now they are going to be alot less durable. I really hope this isn't true, it goes against the whole point of multi wound units.

This is not true in terms of units like Grotesques and Clawed Fiends that cannot be tricked for wound Allocation, at least given the current language of the rumor:

Some BOLS guy wrote:

Abandon: If there is more than one model with less than its initial wounds in an unit in the consolidation phase, the owning player must remove all but one as casualty ( ID(3) ). Independent characters are ignored.

Note that it is "if there is more than one model with less than its initial wounds". In a unit like Grotesques, you'll never be able to be in a situation like this. The rumors also state that wounds are allocated by "save group", and in the case of Grotesques, they all have the same save group.

So, given this: You will allocate the wounds to the Grotesque save group(because you won't want the Haemonculus to take em if he doesn't have to!), roll your saves, and then you'll remove the wounds from one Grotesque until it dies, and then move onto the next. In this case, you'll never end up with more than one model below its maximum wounds, and thus will never be forced to abandon a grotesque.

The rumor implies that you will be given the option of spreading the wounds around, but there really wouldn't be any reason to do so. Units like Nob Bikers and Paladins will work the same way. Sure, they can spread the wounds out so everyone survives that round, but then every model beyond the first one to take a wound is going to disappear.

The only way I could see Grotesques being affected by Abandon would be if a "directed wound" were placed on an undamaged grotesque, then the directed wounds leave another one damaged, you would be forced to remove one. But in this case, I'm kind of wondering if the directed wounds wouldn't have to go on a model in a specific save group.

Anyhow, it could be interesting!

Seeing as everything is speculative now, the only rule i am looking forward to is the possibility of including the Flyer rules into the main book. It might make my small horde of razor wings a lot more fun to use, and somewhat more believable ala "suspense of disbelief" (i.e., jets screaming by instead of hovering like Banshees from the Halo series)

Everybody seems to be focussing on the negative aspects, but if the rumours are true, there are also a lot of things that benefit us. For example:

*Lances would go from mediocre to totally awesome. The rumours claim the new Lance rule would not just count the target's armour as 12, but would also ignore all negative modifiers for damage roll (effectively making Lances ap1 and also making all glancing hits into penetrating hits). I also get a feeling the Voidraven may have it's lance buffed to Lance (3) (counts target armour as 11).
*Flyer rules. Probably make flyers a bit more cost-effective.
*Changes in reserves would make reserve lists more reliable. Nice since our units are fragile but we don't have reserve acceleration.
*Deepstrike not scattering if you DS more than 18'' away. Duke gives all skimmers DS for free, and unless they change the way disembarking after DS works, you can disembark after DS. In other words, we can safely DS all our Ravagers and Blasterborn and blow up enemy tanks before they have a chanse to shoot back.
*Units in vehicles coutn as Relentless. Altho shooting from vehicles has only 12'' max range, it would make Dark Lances a bit more useful for warriors.
*Pinning becoming a lot better, since while pinning is still hard, supressing the enemy is relatively easy. I hope they might make things like Vexator Masks and Archangel of Pain work a bit like pinning. In any case, it would make things like Necrotoxin Missiles, Mandrakes and Hexrifles more useful.
*Ability to "snipe" enemy models with sniper weapons and characters/squadleaders, while obviously also treathening to us, would make Hexrifles and combat characters more useful.
*The new objective holding rules might be mostly a bad thing (since we don't really have the staying power to just sit on objectives all day. On the other hand we're pretty good at getting victory points by killing things. Note that apparently only tanks give VPs, so we can spam our skimmers with no worries), but it would actually make Mandrakes and Harlequins useful, as both are actually really good at sitting on objectives (Mandrakes still need a Haemonculus to shoot, so infilitrating them is still of limited use).

there seems to be a lot of amazing rumors for the dark eldar, my fav one is the blast pistol in the wytch squads. no need for agonizers anymore as str 8 with rending is plenty to cut through most things.

i also think that the the multiple saves on a archon is going to make him really hard to kill!

The rumour that a moving target will be harder to hit sounds very good for the dark kin. I see more hellion based armies with supporting reavers in the future.

I am currently starting to put together a Dark Eldar army and hearing about a 6th Edition sends chills through me.

My wish list for 6th Edition would be the inclusion of Flyers in the rules (I believe that Sedarofe also mentioned this).

I would also really like to see the return of Grenades as an offensive and defensive weapon. I don't see why a soldier would not be able to lob a grenade over a wall or something like that. I remember in the "old days" a grenade could be used as a weapon in the shooting phase. It could be thrown a short distance and had a small blast template. ( I think about 2" ). It makes sense to me.....

Venkh wrote:

Things that ring alarm bells for me:

Defensive weapons gone = not good for venoms
Overwatch blasting our assault units before they can engage
FNP keping wracks and wyches alive in combat - I bet we end up with the 5+ version.
Less softening up if assaulting units engage in the movement phase
No more cover saves on vehicles

Hopefully 6th wont be another move to make imperial armies better, i have to say that it looks like it at the moment.

Very early days so i am not in a panic yet

I've heard 6th ed is the "Xeno's Edition" which means it can only (probably) help us. But in terms of what I've read here, so far it's a mixed bag of good and bad.

"Xenos Edition"?

Meh, I'll believe that when I see it. Since it goes against the last 20 years of GW marketing I'm banking on 'rumor'.

I'm seeing an interesting move back towards 2nd ed, there; especially in the using of pistols in CC and assaulting in the movement phase. I don't know whether to hope or dread the return of Herohammer 40k. If they tilt even more towards 2nd ed CC, DE will be insanely good.

If these rumors are indeed true and the phases are going to be shuffled, does anyone have any ideas on how they will rework "Fleet"?

I would guess you get an extra d6 on your move/charge, but can't shoot.