General DE Wishlist

I have to say though, Hijallo, that I doubt the premise that if we wish for a list of things GW might just give in and give some of them to us. Sure, they might come across a good idea that fits into their design and put it in, but it's more likely that some ideas are just obvious and they occur to them as easily as they do to us.

The way they design rules is to fit their own vision of what the army should be and how it should perform, not to popular demand. And a good thing too, I think.

On the other hand, just in case...

Avatar of Azathoth
Monstruous Creature, Slow and Purposeful, Daemon, Eternal Warrior, It Will Not Die
T10, S10, A3, WS2, I2, W10
Counts as 2 Heavy Support slots

- Immune to all harm except from psychic powers

- When it is deployed, all enemy psykers instantly die, with no armour save of any kind allowed.

- Gaze of Azathoth: In the shooting phase, choose any model within 60" regardless of LoS. On a roll of 2+, that model is removed from the game with no save of any kind or 'look out, Sir!' roll allowed, and made to spend the rest of eternity suffering agonising horror in the madness dimension of Azathoth. If a vehicle is chosen, any passengers are sent to the madness dimension also.

- Fury of Azathoth: At the end of the assault phase, all enemy models within 6" of the Avatar of Azathoth instantly die, even if they have Eternal Warrior.

- Madness of Azathoth: At the beginning of their turn, all enemy units within 24" of the Avatar of Azathoth must pass a Ld test on 6 dice. If failed, they can neither shoot, nor move, nor assault in that turn, and must instead resolve a close combat against themselves in the assault phase.

- Summoning of Azathoth: The Avatar of Azathoth is not deployed normally. Instead, it appears anywhere on the table that you want on any turn that you like. Wherever it appears, it also leaves a WWP, and you can assault from it.

Completely nerfed by 7th edition WH40K.

Well. If that doesn't make us popular I don't know what will!

I bet one day someone would unleash the beast Agatha has created on us!

Point is not to appeal to "GW as a company", but to a one particular person - Phil Kelly. It's fact that some rules and concepts which ended up in the Codex has appeared first at giant thread on Warseer, named "Eldar wishlist".

Well, that may be coincidence. Great minds think alike and so on, but another explanation works as well. After Vetock and his Tau it's hard to create something TRULY overpowered.

I want better Hellions, because, they need a points drop and some better guns attatched to their boards

I don't think low costs are Eldar way. Our way is better special rules. Remember how bad guardians were under 4E CWE codex? And now they're more efficient than SM point-for-point. Way more efficient, due to some tweaks in stats (+1 BS) and new SR (Bladestorm, Battle Focus)

I am still a bit bitter at that. Now Kabalite Warriors arent any different from them other than shuriken vs. splinter.
A nicer solution I would have made would have been Guardian Defenders with WS3 BS4 and Storm Guardians WS4 BS3.

Power creep goes higher. DE were quite good at the times of 5E, even with gay knights and necron around. Nowadays, we have 3-4 2+/(3++)5++ T6 W5 MC casually walking around shooting cover ignoring armor ignoring pieplates, one should hardly argue about Guardians being too good.

I'd bet Kabalites might get easier acess to fnp and more CC-oriented stuff. If Guardians have grenades, i'm almost sure we'll have 'em too. Poisoned knives or kroot-stile spear-rifles may be.

Some musings on flyers...

Razorwing and Voidraven both gain Vector Dancer
Voidraven gains Strafing Run

Razorwing can choose Haywire Missiles (48", S4, AP4, Haywire, One Shot) - 5 points each
Razorwing replaces Dark Lances with Void Lances
Razorwing and Voidraven gain a targeting array which makes the void lances or disintegrators twin-linked
Voidraven can fire a single void mine each turn not just once per game

Count Adhemar wrote:

Some musings on flyers...

Razorwing and Voidraven both gain Vector Dancer
Voidraven gains Strafing Run

Razorwing can choose Haywire Missiles (48", S4, AP4, Haywire, One Shot) - 5 points each
Razorwing replaces Dark Lances with Void Lances
Razorwing and Voidraven gain a targeting array which makes the void lances or disintegrators twin-linked
Voidraven can fire a single void mine each turn not just once per game

XD just my thought that our discussion should end here ;-)

I'm liking your ideas really well, especially the targeting array!

I'd rather see Razorwing as more light and mobile flyer with something like Heavy Disintegrators - say Str7 Ap2 Heavy4, or may be 8 shots are too much for those players who rely on their 2+ saves... and anti-air missiles as standart, which could be replaced with Monoscythes for free. It'll be our strike fighter with some options (alternative guns/missiles for better AA or better ground pounding). Steal Shrouded and Vector Dancer from IA Nightwing Interceptor.

Bomber - AV12, powerful short-ranged weaponry, baseline Flickerfield. No vector dancer, Strafing Run instead. Well, that'll sound like a bomber.

And his frak mine should be used every turn or be much more powerful. Say, S10 Ap1 Ignores Cover Lance Large Blast One Shot. It's frak a-bomb! (a stands for antimatter).

I've read the posts in this thread and I've read some really cool ideas.

Here's my two cents:
I'm not too familiar with rules-development to come up with any real changes to weapons or moving units from one slot in the FOC to another, however I do feel that the army has fallen behind since sixth edition came along.

I feel like a lot of units are broken, whilst some other units are no-brainers.
Some units have gotten significantly worse since the introduction of sixth edition and I believe some were next-to-unplayed even before that. Units like the Mandrakes, Hellions and to a lesser degree, Wyches, aren't doing what they are supposed to do.
Coming from Tyranids myself I see a lot of similarities which are going to be addressed in the new Tyranids codex, so I feel the same will be true for Dark Elves.
Wyches suffer from the same problem as Genestealer: they can't charge when they come on anymore, suffer from random charge distance and overwatch and have become a subpar choice where they used to be awesome. I feel this will be addressed.

However, the other units (and some of the characters) áre a problem. I don't see myself fielding a lot of the Dark Eldar army because its usually a combination of lackluster and non-scoring.
I am the kind of player that wants to play all the units, but it's really hard for me to justify playing a unit that is a pain to play and then also doesn't count as a scoring unit. This limits armybuilding potential.

If GW fixes this, I'll be a happy camper.

To do this, I feel like they should give us more options of 'styles' to build our army. Similar to what we have with the Haemy now (Wracks become Troops) I feel like they could give us the option to stylize more. I've seen people suggest characters on bikes making bikes Troops. I feel this is a great idea. The same could be done for Hellions (without taking a special char), or having a Succubus as Warlord makes Brides scoring, etc.
Imho, WWPs used to be an incredibly awesome way to stylize your army because WWP armies worked completely differently from other DE armies. Stuff like that makes me happy.

On the other hand, I don't expect Incubi to get grenades, like I have seen a lot of people say. If you give them grenades, Blood Brides and Harlequins becomes even more marginal than they already are because a change in one unit affects others. Give me strategies where I can effectively play Blood Brides and won't want Incubi and visa versa. That would be cool.

Here's my idea to make Wyches a viable troop choice, without making them too uber.

4+ poisoned weapons. (This solves their primary issue- wounding their targets)

Blinding Speed: The enemy must re-roll all successful Overwatch hits. They may also declare a charge after running, and may charge out of an assault vehicle that has moved in Cruising Speed. (This solves the problem of Overwatch-based casualties and getting them into the combat they want to be)

Haywire Grenades options removed. (Non-fluffy. Prevents them from being used in a role they were not intended to be in)

The rest of the Dark Eldar options

5 man warriors should really be allowed to have access to Splinter Cannon/Disintegrator Cannon/Dark Lance. Additional 5 allows an extra weapon (increases their considerable threat, whilst also opening up new builds and augmenting existing builds).

C. Caltrops down from 20 to 15 (Reduces the expense for such a unit with a singular focus)

Archon needs access to some of the artifacts Haemonculi could use. (Currently Archons are too much of a combat beatstick, whilst their fluff depicts them as devious, cunning, wizened figures, in addition to being skilled)

Here are some ideas for Mandrakes I put in another post, but since the goal seems to be to have Mr. Kelly look at this page for ideas I thought I'd move it here.

From the shadows: Mandrakes leap from the shadows of their prey, not bothering with the intervening space. At the beginning of an assault phase instead of assaulting mandrakes may make a special From the Shadows move. Select an enemy nonvehical unit in line of sight and role 3d6. If the total number is equal to or greater than the distance to their target place the mandrakes into base contact with the target unit. The mandrakes and their target are locked in combat. From The Darkness doesn't count as charging for the purpose of firing overwatch or generating extra attacks.

Icy Aura: When mandrakes rip their way out of the shadow dimension they are accompanied by a bitter cold that seems to freeze reality itself and then shatter it: on the turn a unit of mandrakes makes a successful From the Shadows move the mandrakes have the rending special rule.

One mandrake may be upgraded to a Nightfiend for ten points. The Nightfiend may take any of the following powers.

Altered physic : 10 points: The Nightfiend is an older mandrake who has fed freely over the year: the night fiend starts with a pain token.

Not of This World: 10 points: All mortal things wither at the Nightfiend's touch: the Nightfiend has the flesh bane special rule.

Nightmare Made Manifest: 25 points The Nightfiend is a demon ripped straight from the nightmare of all thinking things so that no living being will turn his gaze upon his terrible visage of their own free will: Nightfiend grants the shrouded special rule.

I spent quite some time thinking about how to fix DE in 6th. This led to a kind of obsession actually. So much so that I avoided this site for a few months so that I wouldn't be overly influenced by what I read here while making a full Fandex. It's a bit wordy, but I hope you enjoy.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28953002/DE_6th_Fandex_V1_1.pdf

Animus12 wrote:

I spent quite some time thinking about how to fix DE in 6th. This led to a kind of obsession actually. So much so that I avoided this site for a few months so that I wouldn't be overly influenced by what I read here while making a full Fandex. It's a bit wordy, but I hope you enjoy.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/28953002/DE_6th_Fandex_V1_1.pdf

The new pain tokens there sound pretty good, and the "vicious assault" is exactly what I have been thinking for a while!
But... but... he wants to take heatlances away from reavers!  
Hmm... but he added a reaver special character... hmm...
I'm going to spend some time at this.

I don't wan't to take heatlances from reavers. Oh, no. Where something didn't change, I either marked it with ellipses (...) or left it out entirely. In this case, I must have left it out. My bad.

I also like pain tokens and warlord traits from here. But adding and removing units from the codex is more that just a fix or update. Not everyone will agree with it.
I think what realyy should be done is the repricing according to the mathhammer. It was widely discussed in tactical topics, that most of the weapons are not as effective as they cost.
By the way I also think that there should be a handheld desintegrator cannon!

I like the pain tokens to a point but I think 3+FnP is a bit excessive, particularly when one of our favorite homunculi likes to give out pain tokens like candy. With him it would be too easy to get grotz with T6 FnP 3+ and fearless. My suggestion..
First token: 5+ Fnp
Second token: 4+ FnP and +1 Str
Third token: 4+ FnP, 2+ Str and fearless
This way each new token grants a new ability and improves the ability immediately before it by one.
The + to strength instead of furious charge is because furious charge is worst than it used to be so this evens it out.

Fantastic fandex, I read from start to finish. Nothing screamed OTT and I believe you achieved the balancing act that the current codex once achieved. Phil Kelly would be proud. GW will come calling.

animus you beat me to the punch, im currently working on my own "homebrew" codex lol im about 1/4 of the way done typing it up. i liked your codex alot when im done typing up my codex ill post it here, although i dont think my codex will be as balanced as yours

the pain tokens were painfully over the top its just too easy to abuse with haemonculi especially with the change to how you take haemonculi(which i agree with it works really well like that) but 3+ fnp and the toughness boost is too much

otherwise i really like the changes you have made i like the idea of the anti air venom is good

Thanks everyone for the positive comments so far. Making a homebrew fandex is much harder than it looks. Please, tear it to shreds (constructively, of course). The goal here is to make something that might actually see play -- assuming GW doesn't release another Codex first.

@Humnhapymeal: looking forward to seeing you dex soon.

@bacon and helvexis: you are both right, of course. Changing to a 3+ was the last change made and didn't properly account for grots. Even making one unit overpowered is too much. The change doesn't seem to be too powerful for most other units, even wracks or the talos though they are borderline cases. So the question now becomes what to change.

Bacon's suggestion seems good. It would lead to a S8 charging Baron and potentially S6 wytches though. Changing Urien would do no good. As has been pointed out, putting 2 heamies with grots does much the same thing. Changing grots seems like the least amount of work, initially. Altering the stats or cost just puts them back in Ogryn territory. Limiting the benefit they get from tokens is unnecessarily complicating matters.

After several experiments, it looks like the only reasonable course is either make FnP 4+ all the time or on the second token. Both seem a little lackluster, but fair. What say you?

Animus12 wrote:

Thanks everyone for the positive comments so far. Making a homebrew fandex is much harder than it looks. Please, tear it to shreds (constructively, of course). The goal here is to make something that might actually see play -- assuming GW doesn't release another Codex first.

@Humnhapymeal: looking forward to seeing you dex soon.

@bacon and helvexis: you are both right, of course. Changing to a 3+ was the last change made and didn't properly account for grots. Even making one unit overpowered is too much. The change doesn't seem to be too powerful for most other units, even wracks or the talos though they are borderline cases. So the question now becomes what to change.

Bacon's suggestion seems good. It would lead to a S8 charging Baron and potentially S6 wytches though. Changing Urien would do no good. As has been pointed out, putting 2 heamies with grots does much the same thing. Changing grots seems like the least amount of work, initially. Altering the stats or cost just puts them back in Ogryn territory. Limiting the benefit they get from tokens is unnecessarily complicating matters.

After several experiments, it looks like the only reasonable course is either make FnP 4+ all the time or on the second token. Both seem a little lackluster, but fair. What say you?

I think that FnP 5+ on first token is good, and 4+ on the ones after that, but thats it.
The toughness boost is also something that could stay, maybe coming at the third one.
Or... it could go even further and the toughness boost could be at the fourth token?
Maybe also go crazy and lets say... you could get FnP 3+ on the fifth token!
...and that you automatically win the game at the 99th token...

Hmm... I would think that this is a good moment to consider how much pain tokens a unit can get? Most units dont even survive to the third token!

Keeping the +1T is fun and fluffy but would mean we would have to move FC and Fearless up a slot for simplicity. What would this do to grots? They could potentially start with FnP 4+, FC, Fearless, and T6 with a re-roll to FnP for 1 player turn. And there gould potentially be 3 units like this, all at the same cost as now. Would you call that overpowered? Given that we then couldn't take trueborn, incubi, or drakes it might balance out, but it's pushing it.

You are right about the the Str +2 being too much Animus. Maybe give them hatred (everything) instead on the second token? It would add a lot of punch to the charge and would fit the fluff of getting high on suffering which then drives them into a frenzy. Maybe a rule that combines furious charge and hatred?