7th Changes for Dark Eldar - a review

Dizzie wrote:

i still have not play tested it yet but in theory if you can lock an army down with blind grenades it could work very well. The general consensus i've been hearing is that our skimmers are gonna wreck the majority of the time, which makes this a very viable tactic. It makes sense to me to to add the extra points and keep the squads more survivable since area terrain is another nerf that's hurting us.

ooo

I hadn't considered that at all, considering im gona be running a duke raid force in which I wanted gunboats over wyches this could be such a blast! with a Allied autarch to make sure I bring in my raiders pretty much all same turn id love to drop them all in, give them a huge peppering of splinter rifles while blinding their counter

First turn barely anything on the board to shoot at
Second turn target saturation with BS1

Then hopefully turn 3 il still have plenty of dakka right in his face bringing the pain. Combined with the tantalus filled with 7 wraithguard a spiritseer and perhaps an archon for the 2+ (a very expensive combo pts and $$$, but oh so much fun!)

In regards to the cards, hopefully the games where you luck out isn't too often as its a little soul destroying when you lose purely because winning was almost impossible

Azdrubael wrote:

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But has anyone thought of the how this effects our kabalite squads?

No, as it costs 30 points...

On the bright side, you get Ld 9 into the bargain.

As long as we're wasting points, why not 5 Hellions with Helliarch and phantasm? Obviously, because they're 110 points and will never make it back, but Deep Striking and throwing blind around for kicks could be fun.

A pity (although completely fair and overdue) that Blind explicitly doesn't affect vehicles without an I value  . Land Raider giving you problems? Deep strike and phantasm! Oh well, not to be.

Also worth noting that Blind is only one test per phase now, so no spamming blind from twenty different squads to guarantee a fail. So it's awesome against Necrons and Orks, not so much against Space Marines, and almost useless against Eldar or ourselves. Cos seeing in the dark with our shadow attuned eyes makes us resistant to really bright light too... ? 

Creeping Darkness wrote:

Also worth noting that Blind is only one test per phase now, so no spamming blind from twenty different squads to guarantee a fail.

On the plus side, we won't get Skyblight Gargoyles spamming us with Blind attacks, forcing an I test for every hit.

fredpower wrote:

What you guys thinks about the new rule of flamers on open topped vehicles?
in may games thats the biggest problem with the new ed normaly they come in dreanoughts in drop pods i'm having trouble with this. if any of you have an ideia how can i work it out. ty
sry for my english im brazilian  

Here's a question I have about template rules now ... or rather want to know if I'm interpreting how this would work correctly.

Flamer hits the raider. You would do d6 hits against the passengers as well as the hit against the vehicle. The vehicle could then explode and anyone surviving the initial flame attack would then have to survive the S4 explosion. Is this correct? I have to assume so but I hadn't thought about having to survive potentially two wounds pools from the single attack until this morning.

AvInNebr wrote:

fredpower wrote:

What you guys thinks about the new rule of flamers on open topped vehicles?
in may games thats the biggest problem with the new ed normaly they come in dreanoughts in drop pods i'm having trouble with this. if any of you have an ideia how can i work it out. ty
sry for my english im brazilian  

Here's a question I have about template rules now ... or rather want to know if I'm interpreting how this would work correctly.

Flamer hits the raider.  You would do d6 hits against the passengers as well as the hit against the vehicle.  The vehicle could then explode and anyone surviving the initial flame attack would then have to survive the S4 explosion.  Is this correct?  I have to assume so but I hadn't thought about having to survive potentially two wounds pools from the single attack until this morning.

Flamer hits a raider and does D6 hits, only hits the vehicle once, so basically normal flamers no biggy, but the larger strength ones with ap2, then yeah expect a squad to die, you are on a fast skimmer it shouldn't be too hard to avoid flamers.

Though remember this works for us too, rhinos and other vehicles have access points. there's no hiding in your tin can from wracks anymore and liquifier guns... people think wracks got worst i think they are a bit better than 6th.
also there's no reason to run heamoniculi with them now, due to the nerf on re-rolling against wounding for T4 or under with poisoned weapons, so  since wyches got a huge boost this edition they will be riding with them instead mostly...


Blind grenades are not game winning but they can be with a bit of luck, if they work they work well, its an added boost that will help in games if you have enough of them, yes its only one check per blind  grenades and an initiative check, the 35pts isn't mainly for blind grenades, its a deterrent for HTH..
Warriors want to be shooting in every scenario, but if you can get in cover, raider vehicle wreck, ruins etc. Then people are going to want to charge them over shooting. the venom blade speaks for it self, but the charging unit doesn't get their bonus attack for charging due to the PGL too, you get extra ldrship as mentioned before too... If raiders are  as survivable as people are saying then, it could very well be points well spent. much play testing will be required.
For me it means warriors no longer get walked over in HTH and can bog a unit down for a turn or two until help arrives..

EDIT: BTW small arms fire means squads have a hard time exploding our vehicles now, there's nothing to stop you from getting raiders close now and rapid firing a squad, waiting for the vehicle to wreck and keep going, its a raider after all no biggy, as long as the squad inside is intact this tactic with warriors works quite well, well in theory at least.. Also you still have a 4+ jink with the squad inside unaffected as normal able to shoot at full BS...

Wait- so a vehicle with Fire Points is considered the same as a building with Fire Points? I thought the wording would defeat the LG going into the Rhino.

sorry scratch that i re-read, its buildings fire points i said access points too, i meant fire points.
So i'm actually wrong, i could of sworn we could have flamed inside rhinos too. my bad

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Then people are going to want to charge them over shooting.

Thing is, though it does sound cynical and brutal, just as a Dark Eldar should sound...If your warrior squad get charged - it is in your best interests that they end in one combat phase, rather then 2.

Because then you could fire poor frakkers standing in the open, contrary to them being able to run, hide, pop into transport.

So no, warriors shouldnt get anything for CC. They were too weak and foolish being cauhgt like that.

Too Bad Warriors don' coat their Bayonets with Poison. I would pay a 1 point upgrade, if that was the case lol.

I play alot againt Blood Angels and Black Templars and both use Drop Pod Dreadnoughts packing flames and mech lists and they screw up me pretty big. They get to choose where they want to land and do some heavy damage. I then have to devote anti tank weapons to the Dread before it kills more things meaning I cant crack open their vehicles so my splinterfire sits around waiting for something to shoot at. If I leave the Dread alone and move away that dread can pretty much claim that part of the table as I dont really want to back over there.

i know what you feel Foostickens. i have this problem with blood angels but with me he focus in my anti tank stuff (i normaly use blaster born) and when he have the first turn i e normaly lose my big anti tank unit e only have few dark lances on raiders to put his vehicles open and that brokes my game hard.

Mandor wrote:

You can only manifest a psychic power once per unit. It it fails, you can not retry that power. And powers no longer stack with themselves. So if you fail that Fortune, too bad, no Fortune for you this turn. If you fail Conceal or Protect, no other Warlock is allowed to cast it.

There is some degree of debate as to whether or not this is the case, as a section of the book defining psykers says that an individual psyker model may be referred to as a "Psyker, psyker model, or psyker unit", meaning that this rule may be intended to be on a per model basis outside of brotherhood of psyker units.

Having read the book, I am of the opinion that this is the case, as it comes across that their intention was the same as it has been in prior editions, being that any given psyker cannot attempt to manifest the same power more than once in a single turn.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Mandor wrote:

You can only manifest a psychic power once per unit. It it fails, you can not retry that power. And powers no longer stack with themselves. So if you fail that Fortune, too bad, no Fortune for you this turn. If you fail Conceal or Protect, no other Warlock is allowed to cast it.

There is some degree of debate as to whether or not this is the case, as a section of the book defining psykers says that an individual psyker model may be referred to as a "Psyker, psyker model, or psyker unit", meaning that this rule may be intended to be on a per model basis outside of brotherhood of psyker units.

To be honest, that interpretation really doesn't cut it and smacks of people trying to circumvent a very clear ruling. The relevant sections of the rules are:

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For the purposes of all rules, the term ‘Psyker’ and ‘Psyker unit’ refers to any unit with
the Psyker, Psychic Pilot or Brotherhood of Psykers/Sorcerers special rules

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no unit can attempt to manifest the same psychic power more than once per Psychic phase

Note that the second quote says 'unit, not 'psyker unit'. To my mind it's 100% clear that no unit can attempt to use the same power more than once.

For what it's worth I think Adhemar's interpretation is correct.

Count Adhemar wrote:

To be honest, that interpretation really doesn't cut it and smacks of people trying to circumvent a very clear ruling.

The problem with that is, that is a very significant difference from all previous versions of 40k, and goes against the core philosophy of the "narrative driven" game style that Games Workshop constantly strives to promote. There is almost no reason at all that makes sense for 2 Librarians that only know 1 power each to not each be able to cast their power just because they have joined a unit together.

While firmly following rules as written, I would agree with you and concede your point. However, I believe that the intended rule was to be on a per model basis with the exception of brotherhood of psykers units. They likely simply didn't think about multiple independant character psykers that joined together in a single unit and how this wording effects them. Perhaps we'll see a FAQ, perhaps not, but in the meantime, I've seen this argument unfold on a few sites already.

But as I said, RAW, I agree with you. RAI, I think it was an oversight.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

To be honest, that interpretation really doesn't cut it and smacks of people trying to circumvent a very clear ruling.  

The problem with that is, that is a very significant difference from all previous versions of 40k, and goes against the core philosophy of the "narrative driven" game style that Games Workshop constantly strives to promote. There is almost no reason at all that makes sense for 2 Librarians that only know 1 power each to not each be able to cast their power just because they have joined a unit together.

It is a significant difference from previous editions but then the psychic phase itself is a significant difference to (most) previous editions. I suspect it is a deliberate change in order to prevent things like Warlock Councils where every member has Conceal from simply throwing one dice at it from each Warlock until it goes off, then doing the same with Protect etc.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I suspect it is a deliberate change in order to prevent things like Warlock Councils where every member has Conceal from simply throwing one dice at it from each Warlock until it goes off, then doing the same with Protect etc.

See, this is where you and I differ in opinion, then. Because to me, in order for those warlocks to be worth their points, they SHOULD each be an individual psyker, capable of TRYING to invoke their own powers. That is, in my opinion, reflected in their points cost as compared to brotherhood of psyker units from other codices.

If they wanted warlocks to be limited from doing things like that, all they'd have had to do was give them the "brotherhood of psykers" rule while in a council, and say that their mastery level as a unit was equal to the number of warlocks in that unit.

Instead, you and I are discussing a rule that I suspect was poorly written, and that you suspect is a blanket statement barring independent characters from their own powers just because another independent character happens to roll the same power. It's silly.

Point is, this new psychic system is resolved around countering psychic powers.

To do a meaningfull counter you need to cap each type of power to a quantity of 1, so that it becomes a decision. What powers to use first, which to hold on for later etc...

All of the FAQs that will appear will support this general principle. Rock - Paper - Scissors from the Warp.

Azdrubael wrote:

Point is, this new psychic system is resolved around countering psychic powers.

To do a meaningfull counter you need to cap each type of power to a quantity of 1, so that it becomes a decision. What powers to use first, which to hold on for later etc...

All of the FAQs that will appear will support this general principle. Rock - Paper - Scissors from the Warp.

I think you're giving too much credence to the idea of countering psychic powers. All things being equal, if I have 6 dice to cast spells on a 4+, and you have 6 dice to counter on a 6+, you're not going to be countering many psychic powers. You have to roll equivalent 6's to my 4+'s to counter, so a single 6 doesn't do it if I have 2 successes.

Basically, the only way this is rock/paper/scissors is if the aggressor's rock beats the defender's rock AND scissors, and the defender has to win ALL of a series of concurrent challenges with this being the case. A far cry from the rock/paper/scissors that I know.

Each success that the aggressor makes, makes countering the psychic power exponentially more difficult.

To put it another way, if I use 6 dice to manifest a warp charge 3 power, I have roughly a 66% chance to succeed. If you then use 6 dice to deny the witch, you have roughly 5% chance of successfully denying my power.

With fewer dice/successes required, it becomes easier to deny, but also easier for me to succeed to begin with.

Warp charge 2 power, manifested using 4 dice = 69 % chance of success
Deny using 4 dice = 13% chance to deny

Warp charge 1 power, using 2 dice = 75% chance of success (50% 1 success, 25% 2 success)
Deny using 2 dice = 27% chance if only 1 success scored, but only 2% if they score 2 successes.

As you can see, the math heavily favors the aggressor with equal dice, especially if they throw an extra die or two at a power.

The way I see the mechanic designed is that you are not expected to deny every power, you are expected to know your opponents army and the powers they have drawn and then tactically choose which powers to throw your deny dice behind.

That crucial fortune on that deathstar? Save all your deny dice for that! Or chance denying a couple of others he only just succeeded with.

I think though you make a good point above it kind of misses that tactical element that you might (reluctantly) allow all bar one powers to go off so as to gamble on stop that crucial one, which your opponent may have only left enough dice to just pass on thus increasing your chance of denying it if you still have 10 dice vs his 3 just for example.

Just my opinion

Dragontree wrote:

I think, though you make a good point above, it kind of misses that tactical element that you might (reluctantly) allow all bar one powers to go off so as to gamble on stop that crucial one, which your opponent may have only left enough dice to just pass on thus increasing your chance of denying it if you still have 10 dice vs his 3 just for example.

No, I get that tactical element. I was just trying to demonstrate how difficult it is to actually deny the witch in this system. In the example you gave, in attempting to deny fortune, let's assume fortune was manifested with the minimum successes. In order to reliably deny the witch, you'd have to throw 12 dice at those 2 successes, and that only gets you roughly a 61% chance to deny. 10 Dice would be about 50%.

And all of this is sort of a moot point when talking about any armies that aren't psyker heavy. With most standard armies that I've seen, they'd have maybe 1 mastery level 2 psyker, and so would have a maximum of 8 dice to deny on any given turn anyhow. More likely to have 5 deny dice, which doesn't do much. DE get shafted in the whole deny arena, only being able to generate 1-6 deny dice per turn, with an average of 3.5.

The mean chance for pure DE to deny a manifestation of fortune on any given turn would be roughly 13% if they dedicated all their dice to it.

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And all of this is sort of a moot point when talking about any armies that aren't psyker heavy.

Psyker light armies arent very good at nullifying psyker powers, as it should be. Psyker light armies should shoot the bloody psykers in the first place, to counter any power. Or failing that shoot the battery psykers, who are only there to feed Warp Charge.

Eldar, Grey Knights, Daemons, AM, Inquistion have a very potent deny the witch possibilites. Thats not a short list, many of them can have about 20 deny the witch dices.

One thing to be certain, new Psychic Phase have put a cross on a single prescience-bot. You will likely either see psyker heavy armies, or none at all.

Azdrubael wrote:

One thing to be certain, new Psychic Phase have put a cross on a single prescience-bot. You will likely either see psyker heavy armies, or none at all.

Not necessarily. Because there are going to be people out there with your philosophy, by having a single psyker in an army, you'll still be able to have a psychic advantage against the "none at all" armies, but will simply have a tough time manifesting anything against the psyker heavy armies. But the latter is ok, since you haven't put all your eggs in the psychic phase basket.