Get ready for the nerfhammer!

I don't know if people are just jealous, jaded, or good old trolling but whenever I talk to people at the LGS or online about the upcoming DE codex "Get ready for the nerfhammer" is the consensus. Followed by "If your lucky u'll get a decent supplement."

I just thought I'd see if you guys hear the same thing and if so why do you think that is?

Anyhow I think its best we get used to the idea some of our units will get nerfed (maybe BMs?), that way when it happens we can just deal with it and adapt with minimal raging. Although when it happens I know ill probable be the first one screaming the sky has fallen.  

I don't really see where our under-powered codex is going to get nerfed all that hard.

They may slow down Beasts like reduce composition down to 1-3 BMs, or nerf Baron so he can only join Hellions (or drop him all together as he has no model).

They'll probably remove the Venoms built in FF but leave the pts cost the same.

I think we will see things changed around a bit; like Flyers moved to Fast, Wracks moved to Troops as examples.

I sincerely hope we don't receive any sort of nerf. Given that Dark Eldar as a standalone army is virtually non-existent in the tournament scene these days and that we're almost always seen with Eldar allies or as allies to Eldar I really think we need a buff rather than a nerf. Of course, this is GW and they look at things a bit...differently to most folk!

They haven't 'nerfed' any army yet, and I doubt that they're going to start with ours. There isn't a guy sitting in an office somewhere inside GW going, 'Oh, no! Dark Eldar are selling too well! Quick, nerf them, before we make too much money!'

I am surprised Beast Masters get all this press.  Its the Eldar powering them that are the problem.  Lol.  And Eldar can be used to power anything beyond its intended limits.  Nerfing beasts themselves doesn't make sense.  None of the unit is so good on its own that you'd need to.

The Baron never had a model.  So the "nerf" if there is one, would be him.  but then you're screwing hellions for no reason and they were already in need of an UNscrewing.  Hellions need a price reduction.  they work great as is, as long as you don't feel like you're overpaying.  But you really do feel that way and a tax character to make them troops isn't helping to sell the value proposition on them.

I have very much enjoyed the dark Eldar codex.  It resurrected a DEAD franchise.  DEAD.  More dead than Necrons had gotten.

And if someone can PLEASE explain to me why the Archon has ONE Poison weapon available to him and its a Venom Blade?  Anyone?  Why is the Agonized not poison.  WHY!  Side note.  The dude needs to be given a way to take better advantage of Lhamaeans!

And speaking of nerfs, for the price, does anyone have a problem with 4 wound Talos?  Do you think a Talos, same price, same everything but with 4 wounds would sell some models.  I think it would.  They have less toughness than Wraithlords and can be instant killed just like one.  But with more wounds it could compensate somewhat, make it a more common choice.

Wyches are fine but give them scout.

mandrakes:  I LOVED their old rules, with the sneaky counters that had to pop up by round 3 (I think it was).  Bring those back!  those were great.

Charging from the webway.  DUH.  You can charge out of a building. The Dark City is described as realities stitched together and passing between them almost unnoticed.  Walkin out the webway should be like putting one foot in front of the other.  No jarring impacts, no nothing.  Webway charging!

And to make Webway charging make sense, give them some way to withold reserves like a Comms Relay type upgrade or something.

I think the rest of it is pretty sound as a pound.

They can make brides worth taking. WS 5 maybe? All poison 4+? Mandrakes worth taking?

But as stated, it would be hard to nerf what the rules already did in 6th ed and didn't get fixed in 7th. I give the vehicle damage table a bit of love with some of my other armies but our raiders/skimmers got hit hard by jink (a little with this and snap shots for doing so) and open topped and being able to hurt what's riding on them now with more then just blowing them up.

I'm waiting for DE to get their PURE army back to the standards we had when the dex came out. No allies needed. But this is all just my humble opinion.

The trends from Tyranids and Orks that may pertain to us:

If there was an outstanding HQ model that was yet to be made, consider it dead. Evidence: Wazdakka is gone, so warbikers can't be made troops for the orks. The Doom of Malantai gone from the Nid dex.

If a HQ made a certain choice into troops, or benefitted troops in some way consider that quality dead or damaged. Evidence- warboss can no longer make Nobz into troops. The Kustom Force Field of the Big Mek cannot be made into a big bubble like before. A tervigon now must pay the full squad tax of termagants to be fielded as a troops choice. Therefore, the Baron, if he remains alive, may well only be able to be fielded with Hellions. Sliscus if he remains, will probably lose an ability like universal deepstrike or poison 3+.

If there was an outstanding flyer, consider it made! Evidence: The Space wolves have now got their own flying brick and the nids got 2 as well- Harpy and offical winged Hive Tyrant.

Something for the big oval base is in the pipeline- the Castigator! Evidence- Haruspex, Riptide, Wraithknight, Imperial Knight, Gorkanaut/Morkanaut.

If there was an outstanding elite/troop choice model yet to be made, consider it done! Evidence- Flash gitz, Dark Elf box sets. Bloodbrides may get combined with wyches or Kabalites combined with trueborn.

The codex will feature dataslates and pics of models rather than artwork.

making things troops hardly matters. everything scores. Objective secured is nice but would you really take a character JUST for that quality now? Probably not.

I'm more concerned about the removal of characters for which there are no models, as that's a pretty long list for us, including 3 that I use frequently (Sliscus, Vect and Baron).

I see and Understand that. Vect is safe. I'd bet on it. I think Sliscus is safe too. But I dont know bout the Baron.

There is also always dataslates - Wazzdakka kind of feels like a dataslate in the making, really.

Archons on jetbikes. I don't care what else they do, I just want that to be a thing again. I've started building one out of a Cold One Knight already. Not holding my breath though haha!

Painjunky wrote:

I don't know if people are just jealous, jaded, or good old trolling but whenever I talk to people at the LGS or online about the upcoming DE codex "Get ready for the nerfhammer" is the consensus. Followed by "If your lucky u'll get a decent supplement."

I just thought I'd see if you guys hear the same thing and if so why do you think that is?

The current codex is kinda like the nerfed version of the old 3rd edition codex. Now the current dex is MUCH more versatile, but the old dex had one extremely effective strategy that was nerfed with the current dex: Darklance spamming. Darklances use to be 10 points to stick in a warrior squad, and a squad without a raider could take two dark lances in a 10 man squad. Disintegrators were also plasma cannons that didn't overheat.

I can't see a 7e codex nerfing anything though as the current DE dex isn't tournament dominant or anything.

Personally, I don't think new codex will make Dark Eldar much worse.  I worry that it just won't make them much better.  As someone already mentioned, maybe it will be just a lateral move.

With that said, I've been thinking of what relatively minor tweaks GW could make to the army to make it more stronger.  One of the ones I thought might work would be to give more units access to cheap haywire grenades, like Hellions and Incubi.  Or to allow Trueborn access to all special shooting weapons like haywire blasters and heat lances.  I'm resigned to the fact that our armor saves and AVs will remain practically non-existent, but I think those two relatively simple tweaks could help the Dark Eldar keep pace with some of the stronger books out there.

Looking at current trends, I can see a bit of nerfing, or at least what we would call nerfing. Orks and Tyranids weren;t necessarily nerfed, but their army composition was changed enough to make everyone think that way. The reason you took things and in what number shifted dramatically. I can;t say I see that happening too much for Dark Eldar, though if anything I see covens taking a hit if the leaning moves more heavily towards fast moving fun.

I can see Razorwings moving to Fast Attack, but not Voidravens (to line up with Eldar flyers), and based on Gazghul and the rumours on Logan Grimnar, I can see Vect becoming a Lord of War (on dias).
I can see the Flickerfield being newrfed to be honest, which is a shame because I love it. It'll probably become a cover save, though in my heart of hearts I'm praying for it to become a "Jinking doesn't cause you to snap-shoot" device. I could about stand that, though template weapons (read: Doomscythes) would be our absolute killer.

Nerfhammer implies Games Workshop intends to balance the overpowered parts of the codex to get it more in line with the balance of the game and make the game fair.

But.

Considering they don't playtest anything, write up rules however they feel, arbitrarily attach point costs to things, currently rush there products to meet deadlines and sales goals, and remove entire ideas to prevent future failed law suits....

No, I don't see them nerfing us. I do, however see them making a mess of things, potentially making things worse, potentially making them better. Unfortunately, their current track record is sketchy.

Squidmaster wrote:

I can see the Flickerfield being newrfed to be honest, which is a shame because I love it. It'll probably become a cover save, though in my heart of hearts I'm praying for it to become a "Jinking doesn't cause you to snap-shoot" device.

I have a feeling the CWE Crystal Targeting Matrix will wind up doing that.

GW is pretty haphazard with balance though, it's debatable how much they . They'll even release brand new models you'd think would have pumped up stats to increase sales, but they'll wind up being overcosted and underperforming (looking at you centurion)

HokutoAndy wrote:

GW is pretty haphazard with balance though, it's debatable how much they . They'll even release brand new models you'd think would have pumped up stats to increase sales, but they'll wind up being overcosted and underperforming (looking at you centurion)

Ever faced invisible centurionstar that has the gate?  

I don't think we're going to get nerfed.

If anything I can only see them doing to our Codex what they did to CWE. They'll add a few little tiny bits of fluff, a new unit possibly and update rules so that they're in line with the current edition.

One word: vectordancer (perhaps that's two words).

yeah i agree, supersonic is a great fluff rule but translates poorly on the table top, either fix it up or give us vectordancer

Amen! Can I get another?! The way I see it, I think we will get it. I'm anxiously awaithing the book release, I hope that it fixes a lot of our problems, I really want to use my army again.

All new armies got streamlined. We will get streamlined. That might or might not be a nerf. Well perhaps I should say it might be a bigger or smaller nerf. Sups are supposed to make the flavour. I dont have high hopes for the new dex. BUT... there is always the possibility that we will get streamlined in the way of Eldar, which is a good dex with good internal balance.

Where are the rules rumours being posted? I found this:

Rule changes:

- Huskblades are ap3, cheaper, not a relic
- Racks now work on all Splinter weapons
- Wych weapons nerfed. Hydras confer Shred, Razors reroll To Hit, Shardnet/Impaler reroll 1s on To Hit and To Wound
- Stun Claw is +1S, ap6, confers ID in challenge
- Shadow Field is more expensive
- Incubi are still ap2
- Torment Gren. Launchers can now be fired, 24", blast, s1, unit hit tests Ld, takes a wound for each point it failed, no armor or cover saves, doesnt work against ATSKNF
- Night Shield confers Stealth
- Hex Rifle inflicts ID on Precision Hits
- Soul Trap gives +1s for each usnaved wound inflicted in a challenge
- Reavers no longer attack while moving, now bladevanes are improved HoW. Caltrops inflict D6 rending HoWs, Gravs inflict Concussive
- Spirit Probe now improves FnP of all Deldar in 6" by 1 to a max od 4+
- Phantasm works like TGL, shorter range
- Ossefactor is assault 1, fleshbane, ap2. If something is killed then the victims unit get d6 hits with s equal to t of the victim, ap-, ignores cover
- Liquifier is now s3
- Implosion Msls are s6 ap2 blast
- Chain Flails now only give Shred
- Talos has 3 attacks, same as Cronos
- Borh Haemy and Archon improve PfP, they let a unit add a 1 to the turn number for PrP, this stacks
- Warlord traits are bad, one gives the warlord +1 ws...
- Artefacts look average too, there is the old Djinn blade which works almost the same, a helmet that gives adamantium will in 12" and perils on any double, a terrible pistol, an ghostplate that gives -2 Ld in 6" and Fear, also one of the items does not work against atsknf. There is also Animus Vitae which is a one use, assault 1, s4 ap2, 8" that if a unsaved wound is inflicted lets all Deldar add 1 to the turn number for PfP effects until the end of the game
- it says that Dodge now works against any wounds inflicted in fight sub phase, I am nit sure if overwatch counts or not
- bomber is 10 av on all sides
- it looks like Venom Blade can only be taken by the Acothyst now
- no flickerfields for anything other than venoms
- sails let a vehicle flat out 24"
- lances on infantry are a bit cheaper

I have edited out swearing from your post. Please stick to forum rules. Thanks you - Cavash

awesome. you now need two talos's to be as effective as they used to be. Our really cool signature reaver attacks... gone. The voidraven now AV 10 all round. Unless our troops can shoot from raider's moving 12".. meh.

This is the final nail in the coffin for me. Over 20 years of playing GW games in one form or another to come down to this. "I think it's time we see other gaming companies. It's not me it's YOU." "Ive been seeing spartan games for several months now." Maybe instead of spending millions on lawsuits you lose, you could have spent the money on Making the awesome special character models for the armies.