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Post by mattblowers on Oct 8, 2014 15:32:26 GMT
Hello there false dichotomy Fair enough. What would you suggest? DE already bring a lot of firepower to the table. When I play them, I know I have to have to survive the first few rounds with my key components still in place or the game will be a real uphill battle. Hyperbole aside, it is a legitimate question for codex development. Do we want our armies to get better at what they are already good at, or do we want our weaknesses (by your own admission, staying power is a weak area for DE) addressed? I'd suggest that the former makes for codex power creep while the later brings more balance. For those that want the former, the dataslates and supplemental formations seem to do that.
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Post by coredump on Oct 8, 2014 16:09:53 GMT
Power From Pain now encourages a style of play which is wholly unsuitable for Dark Eldar. They are not a late-game army, a special rule causing them to get exponentially better each turn is not helpful. And the number of anti-tank solutions is pretty alarming. Dark lances are simply not that great. I have only skimmed the codex, but there seem to be a lot of ways for units, or the entire army, to treat the turn as 'one higher', and many of them stack. It seems one of the new keys will be learning to exploit these buffs so that turn 2 plays like turn 5.
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Post by chuckles on Oct 8, 2014 17:03:27 GMT
Power From Pain now encourages a style of play which is wholly unsuitable for Dark Eldar. They are not a late-game army, a special rule causing them to get exponentially better each turn is not helpful. And the number of anti-tank solutions is pretty alarming. Dark lances are simply not that great. I have only skimmed the codex, but there seem to be a lot of ways for units, or the entire army, to treat the turn as 'one higher', and many of them stack. It seems one of the new keys will be learning to exploit these buffs so that turn 2 plays like turn 5. I'm not aware of that being possible, I am under the impression that the rule cannot stack, so best you can manage is turn 2 playing like turn 3. I am open to correction if this is inaccurate though
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Post by Sensei on Oct 9, 2014 0:01:54 GMT
Power From Pain now encourages a style of play which is wholly unsuitable for Dark Eldar. They are not a late-game army, a special rule causing them to get exponentially better each turn is not helpful. And the number of anti-tank solutions is pretty alarming. Dark lances are simply not that great. I totally understand what you are saying and how on the surface it really does look like it favours siting around and waiting for PfP to kick in. I mean why wouldn't you want to wait till your army is stronger before you attack? I don't think that it will prove to be a viable tactic though and I think it will honestly keep Dark Eldar hitting hard and fast. My reasoning: First off, with the firepower some armies bring to the table, sitting around doing nothing just isn't an option. When it comes down to it, DE are just too fragile to withstand the amounts of firepower available and still be able to compete in later turns, even with PfP and even in cover. Waiting for PfP to kick in before attacking will definitely make your individual models stronger, but I think the added strength will be far outweighed by the casualties inflicted on your units while you were waiting. Sure, we can keep up to half in reserve, but there is only 1 warlord trait that allows reserve manipulation and it just isn't a reliable way of keeping units in reserve until you have PfP. So that means at least some of your army is coming in before PfP becomes optimized. They now have no-scatter DS, so could choose to drop in cover/away from enemies, but that only further disadvantages them as when they decide to strike, they still have to get to where they want to strike. That brings me to the no-scatter deep strike. It's expensive. But they can get it on a fair number of units. Further to that they can virtually get deepstrike on almost everything else. I think the no-scatter option really favours dropping in for rear armour shots, to flame a heavy weapons unit, to strike at a troublesome enemy unit and generally to get in your opponent's face fast and hard. I think using it otherwise is a waste of points and potential. No-scatter deepstriking units seem to be very well supported by the fast moving vehicles, reavers and scourges. A couple venoms or a fully loaded warrior/splinter wrack raider rushing forward firing, plus a couple back field deepstriking units present a lot of targets that pose serious threats to the enemy. Reavers can tie up a unit you don't want retaliating, and then hit and run to tie up another one next turn and scourges can hit just about anything with their special weapons options. Further to that, Dark Eldar have a fairly unique ability, due to their mobility (and only increased with no scatter DS) to very effectively focus the majority of their strength on very specific targets in the enemy army. PfP in the last codex was difficult to get - they had to wipe out a unit to get a pain token and there was no guarantee they would actually accomplish that. The turn based PfP is army wide, and guarantees your army will gain benefits as the battle goes on. DE are just as fragile as ever in the new codex. My perspective on the new turn based PfP rules does not view it as a sit and wait or motivation to turtle until they get stronger. I view the new rules as incentive to hit as fast and as hard as possible - knowing full well you will lose models. Throw caution to the wind because you no longer need to wipe out a weakened unit to get stronger. Now DE can confidently assault a unit, secure in the knowledge that on the next game round, not only the engaged units, but every unit in the army will become stronger. DE don't have to be as selective in their assaults because the PfP will help compensate for casualties. I see the new turn based rules as a way to account for casualty loss - we know we are going to take them, but now we also know my unit will get stronger next turn. Honestly I think the new PfP balances well - in my eyes it encourages aggressive tactics, and mitigates inevitable casualties. In late game, a lot of dark eldar units are down to only a few models because of their fragility; turn based PfP provides a little bit of staying power to weakened units on objectives, and also means a unit down to 2 or 3 models does not need to wipe out an entire unit in order to gain the PfP benefit. I completely understand why claiming the new PfP favours sitting and waiting; on paper it looks like it might work, but DE do not have power armour or mid to high value armoured vehicles. I honestly think in practice it will not work out that way for DE; they are just too fragile, in both unit and vehicle options. By sitting and waiting, DE are going to take casualties just as they will when they attack fast. The difference will be that by attacking fast, they inflict casualties as well, and then gain strength. Sitting and waiting may appear to make them stronger, but overall I think they will end up weaker - it will be a case of too little too late the majority of the time they sit and wait. That's my take on it, feel free to agree or disagree. Eventually we'll see how it affects games once people have played enough battles.
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Post by Hive Bahamut on Oct 9, 2014 4:02:05 GMT
I actually like the general direction of this book. That being said I think Dark Eldar should be grossly overpowered in terms of damage output. THIS is the glass cannon army. Hit like a ton of bricks then shatter under the first poke. The new PTP actually helps ALL models instead of just the lucky squad that mangled those 2 remaining scouts.
That being said, why do they still think Lances are appropriate AV busters? These guys should have haywire all over the place too, because they like Nids, don't enjoy completely destroying their target. If they can capture slaves from the APC isn't that 1000% more fluff oriented and suitable than blowing them all up? I mean this army gets off to watching people writhe in pain. I don't think crispy marines make good slaves.
I still need to get more info, but I'm not nearly as taken back as initially. They have some goodies in there.
PS: GW YOU NEED TO FIRE YOUR WARLORD TRAITS DRAFTER. THIS GUY IS A MORON, AND NO ONE FROM 6TH ONWARDS USES THEIR CODEX TRAITS. STRATEGIC OR BUST.
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Post by Sensei on Oct 9, 2014 5:40:12 GMT
Haha, agree completely about the warlord traits (although, there are a few I'm interested in from the upcoming Coven Supplement). As far as slaves go - they get off on the pain they inflict during battle and then abduct all of the civilians the army was trying to protect But you're right, fluff or not, dark lances are poop. Especially now that they are added costs to vehicles. I used to use the ones on my raiders for lucky pot shots or to try and ID a character/sarge if I was lined up right and they would take the wound. Now, anti-armour is all about scourges. 4 Haywire blasters or heatlances in a unit of 5, with up to 9 FA in a double FOC makes me smile.
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Post by coredump on Oct 9, 2014 6:26:47 GMT
I have only skimmed the codex, but there seem to be a lot of ways for units, or the entire army, to treat the turn as 'one higher', and many of them stack. It seems one of the new keys will be learning to exploit these buffs so that turn 2 plays like turn 5. I'm not aware of that being possible, I am under the impression that the rule cannot stack, so best you can manage is turn 2 playing like turn 3. I am open to correction if this is inaccurate though Check out the Animus Vitae, it talks about stacking with Master of Pain and or architect of agony. I saw other things do it also... but may have been one of those two. Urien has Father of Pain A of A is from the formation.
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Post by vectron on Oct 9, 2014 8:51:33 GMT
Honestly I think the new PfP balances well - in my eyes it encourages aggressive tactics, and mitigates inevitable casualties. In late game, a lot of dark eldar units are down to only a few models because of their fragility; turn based PfP provides a little bit of staying power to weakened units on objectives, and also means a unit down to 2 or 3 models does not need to wipe out an entire unit in order to gain the PfP benefit. That was my initial reaction too; you alpha strike like you would expect to, reducing the amount of fire directed at you, then PfP is an added bonus that helps mitigate any losses. And as someone else mentioned, we'd love for something like this for Instinctive Behaviour. Imagine a simple thing like getting +1 to the IB roll for every turn passed (+1 on turn 2 etc. 6+ counting as 6). By turn 4 we would not suffer any self desctructive behaviour, Can.Hunger/Burrow/Survive; and should the game continue to round 6 it would be all Kill/Destroy/Stalk. Almost OP at first glance, in fact, but we'd still have to worry about Dakkafexes rolling Devour, and such. Flavourwise it would be the individual creatures in an adrenaline fueled battle-rage.
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Post by gigasnail on Oct 14, 2014 4:52:22 GMT
mother of christ, have you guys seen the new nurgle units for fantasy? i'm going to be (please do not swear) broke forever. with the new IA book about to drop, i might actually get some chaos action in.
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Post by WestRider on Oct 14, 2014 5:32:39 GMT
I know! I really want to get some of those Blightkings as Spawn and conversion bits. So freakin' cool.
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Post by gigasnail on Oct 14, 2014 5:41:41 GMT
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Post by WestRider on Oct 14, 2014 6:07:21 GMT
Oh, woah. No, I hadn't seen that. Not entirely sure what I'd use it for, but I want one.
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Post by gigasnail on Oct 14, 2014 6:22:19 GMT
i don't think they're as big as they look; there's a pic of one standing in front of a pile of nurglings. i think they're just a little bigger than a dreadnaught though it's h ard to say for sure. all kinds of uses. be a great stand in daemon prince/GUO, nurgle bike lord w/ those other new nurgle knights as spawn, etc.
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Post by WestRider on Oct 14, 2014 6:29:25 GMT
If it's Daemon Prince sized, I'm all over it. I was guessing more MaulerFiend size, and that's harder to find a use for now that I've got three of those.
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Post by macdaddyt on Oct 14, 2014 17:58:06 GMT
Holy mother of goodness....those things are flipping awesome... I'm gonna say the mounts are gonna be taller than mauler fiends.
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