Frankie wrote a review for Dark Eldar (Drukhari) over on the Warhammer-community site. Read it, here.
Wow, Drukhari sound bad ass! What do you all think?
About Reecius
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Man Frankie, this made me so happy to read today! awesome article – I’m so excited to get back to my dark eldar xD
can’t wait to see more (hopefully more models are coming for them this edition)
Dude, you have no idea, lol. Drukhari are going from zero to hero in a big way, lol
those new Dark Lance stats – make me weep tears of joy.
Yeah, they are savage weapons. The disintegrators are extremely good, too.
So this confirms that fact that vehicles too will get locked in combat. That should help melee armies.
But remember, everything can simply leave combat if they choose (and are able to due to model positioning, etc.).
Everything about this edition released so far makes me think I’ll be able to pull my hundreds of Gants/Gaunts/Gargoyles off the shelf and use them.
You can’t run away if I blanket the table around you hahahah!
Also: I forsee all the time saved by streamlined rules being lost again to how long it will take me to move all my gribblies XD
Movement trays will be your friend.
Not to mention the dark eldar transports will probably have the fly keyword so they will work like crisis suits. Should be hard to pin dark eldar down.
But most vehicles (presumably) won’t. Makes for an interesting anti-armor option.
It makes vehicles (or any unit, really) with the Fly keyword incredibly powerful, too.
I really wish that the dark eldar did improve as you say so. We ( whole dark eldar players in the entire multiverse wish that you had mentioned the movement rates of our vehicles and special rules)
They are fast. 😉
Make Dark Eldar great again! (sorry, can’t get onboard with this name change. At least Aeldari kind of rolls of the tongue)
Loved them in 5th edition but they got neutered something fierce in subsequent editions.
Yeah, I would argue they’re objectively the weakest codex in the game, right now.
You will be very pleased with what is to come, I think =)
I’m going to have to wait and see on the wyches because the issue was just partly an inability to do damage in melee but it was also GETTING to melee.
I’m sure there’s dark eldar strategems that will help or some such, but that’s going to make or break them.
Did you miss the part on the amazing DE transport vehicles? =P
Reece, I trust your evaluation, just need to see the whole picture. Transports alone seems like half the answer. Also seems to pigeonhole them into monobuild. Not sure how to balance them though. Low armor, not tough, fast but not cav fast, hit harder, but not crazy hard. Orks can rely on toughness and either numbers or transports, miss on numbers and presumably speed. Wyches always felt hard to balance.
Eh, we’ve said all we can. You guys will just have to wait and see =)
Again, I trust you, but I feel like the answers are not in this article.
One thing no one seems to be talking about is disintegrated doing a flat 2 damage. Very strong.
Fair enough, I have all the knowledge in my head, you all do not. But the issue is that the game has fundamentally changed. Things that look the same or similar function so much differently that now that same thing could be amazing but without context, seems to be less than exciting.
I’d have to spell out a lot of the core rules to communicate why these things are so exciting, but I cannot. So, we wait =)
I’m going to hope that with the changes to being able to charge coming in from reserves (unless that was a trygon only thing)
coupled with the vehicles still being open topped and a bit tankier
then finally with the wyches undoubtedly having more than 6″ movement
that all this together would help them to more reliably get into combat.
but I agree – getting them in will still be the most important thing. Though I do like how they seem to be really settling in on them being tarpits now personally, especially with the no escape rule. Setting units up for the incubi to come in and wreck face.
They get there juuuuuuust fine =)
Still a lot of the puzzle missing for you guys.
I’m hoping webway portals are part of that puzzle…
Great article. New rules look cool and I would love to see our friendly neibirhood sadists back on the table. But the new name is 100% stupid. Astra Militarium replacing IG was meerly bad. This is really aweful.
100% agree on the name. Sounds like a native tribe in a hidden jungle. Not grim dark or science fiction sounding at all.
Frankie- to be honest, Dark Eldar are such a hot mess right now that you would have had to have been a piss poor writer to make them sound worse! 😉 But with that said, I’m pretty stoked after reading this. I have Tyranids, Space Marines, and Chaos, Dark Eldar was the faction I always wanted to buy and never have!
By the way- the person writing the “Tyranid” and “Blood Angels” previews will be in a similar boat… i.e. it will be hard to make the army not sound better than now!
Thanks for all the previews you did.
Has anyone seen that How I Met Your Mother episode where the girl with the supposedly “redonkulous body” refused to take off her heavy winter jacket? That’s how I feel about 8th edition now, take off your damn coat!
I’m getting a bad feeling about what will be revealed in the end. This whole thing sounds like any other article praising an army in White Dwarf and you’d probably find one that claims the same things for Incubi a few years back in about the same tone.
Except that it is Frankie writing the article and not the White Dwarf =)
Yes but clearly you have all been bought out by GW are are nothing more than mindless shills posting their propaganda. 🙂
(Blink twice if they are standing behind you)
I imagine this is a time to relax and ride the excitement. Nit picking rules when we only know less than half of them is only going to get your blood pressure up. Emperor knows I am sweating buckets over the fate of my 20 some drop pods. One the 8th edition drops we can start objectively analyzing units and gear.
Lol, right? People are arguing that we are wrong about rules we wrote about, hahaha. What dimension am I in, here? Lol, this has hapenned several times and I am like, we’ve played the new version of the game to death and I am telling you, point blank, they are good, but apparently reading portions of rules without context of the game as a whole and never having had played it gives one room to argue that stance, haha.
Oh well, it is what it is. It is just very funny.
Yes but I suspect they hollowed him out and replaced it with some filthy, like say British breakfast. Has he acted normal recently? Started to randomly eat insects? Watch telenovelas?
lolol, they’re on to me!
Hey! There’s a lot about my country that’s awful, BUT I WILL DEFEND OUR STODGY BREAKFAST TO THE DEATH!
Ytook we will have to fight over this! Now if only any of us knew some sort of say wargame..
Those copyrightable names though. Has no one told them yet that off-brand companies and just use the normal names and sound more like the original than their own stuff?
Intellectual Property is a big deal, and with them involved in video games and the like, it’s important.
I’m concerned. There was nothing new that was possitive in this article. Looks like darklances are shorter range weaker lascannons, previously they were better at cracking av14. Incubi are worst now. Previously terminators had no save against them now they have a 5+ and a 5++. Wyches still only get a 4++ in the fight subphase as stated in the article. Problem is that you can now shoot in close combat in the shooting phase with pistols. If Frankie wrote that rule down right then they don’t get a save against that.
Lol, huh? Nothing new that was positive? Did you read the same article I did? It was ALL positive =)
Same article. Just applying logic to it. Dark lances are objectively worst than lascannons now but they used to be they were better against AV14. Wyches can be shot by pistols in CC and don’t get a save against it and still don’t get any save against overwatch. The article said the dark eldar vehicles get a 5++ against shooting. In the current dex they get it against CC too. That’s an objective nerf. Incubi are flat worst against marines and terminators who get a 5+ and a 6+ now respectively where they didn’t get a save at all. I’m not saying they aren’t better. But its not shown in the article
How are Dark Lances “objectively worse” than lascannons?
Yes, they’re slightly worse against T8 and T9 models (~90-93.75% as many wounds). But against any other toughness their -4 rend is going to make it much better than a lalscannon (~120-125% as many wounds).
Ah was under the impression lascannons were ap-4 also. I retract that point then.
Yeah AP2 in the old edition roughly equates to AP -3 (which is what lascannons and disintegrators got from the profiles we have seen).
But I’m guessing dark lances got -4 to compensate for the fact there isn’t really a use for “lance” now that vehicles use toughness. Certainly the S8 isn’t fun but -4 rend is.
Woah, get out of here with your logic!
Plus, as stated, they do not suffer the -1 to hit when they move on Drukhari vehicles. So yeah, clearly worse…. =P
Lol, OK, way to see the glass half empty =P
I am telling you as someone who has played them and against them they are VASTLY improved. Dramatically. You’re reading it with a different perspective, which is fine, but trust me. They are so much better than they were that it is bananas.
I have 18 Grotesques that are chomping on their bits to see some competitive action. Hopefully they will get some sort of speed boost!
Dude same. Im hoping talos are faster. I have 6 of them.
Grotes will be very, very fun to use =)
WHAT ABOUT MY POOR HELLIONS??? They were so fun with the Prince…. now …. they have an inch of dust…. Great article Frankie I wish you would have kept on going!
I think you will be very pleased =)
We only had so much room to talk about all of the improvements they got in the article, haha. Ran out of room.
Yeah I can imagine with the majority of the current codex being less than… awesome. with only the coven units really shining – that just about everything in the book got big improvements that it would’ve been impossible to ‘tease’ the improvements on them all.
Yeah, I’d need 10,000 words to cover all the improvements. It’s all good though, time will vindicate all =)
Yeah, what’s positive about these changes?
Lance weapons got a little better than they were before I suppose, but not really. Vehicles previously didn’t get an armor save so the “rend” keeps things the way they were. Dark lances bs lascannons are still the same: better at some things, not as good in other ways. Same same.
Vehicles having toughness values is great, so yes Deldar vehicles got a little totally hurt, but still fragile. Improvement? Yes, but as a result of core rules changings, not as a result of any Deldar changes.
5+ invulnerable against shooting but no Jink? Worse against everything except Tau ignores cover shenanigans. They could have just eliminated all that Ignores Cover and it would’ve been the same. As any DEldar player will tell you, the 5+ flicker field was ocassionally useful but not something that made Venoms tough. If Jink is gone and not replaced with anything, this is objectively worse.
Incubi have always had +1S, only now their weapons allow marines to take a save. Objectively worse. The bonus damage (and only on 6 to wound) means they might still kill terminators or other 2 wound units in a swing. This is also worse! I see no positive change at all. Incubi are nerfed, and Frankie says they’re great? I’m really curious why.
Wych cult weapons getting -1 rend. Ok, a buff overall. Marines save on 4+ now while stuff that was previously 5+ save get a 6+ where previously they got none, as wych weapons were AP5. On the whole this is more useful. Finally something positive! Hopefully there’s a hidden strength bonus in there.
Wyches keep 4+ invul in CC. Great, but no change.
No escape: so there’s a chance to actually keep a unit locked. Ok this is fine, but objectively worse than before due to core rules changes. It should have been a roll off to see if we just sweeping advance the whole unit to death! Unless there are other things related to this rule we haven’t seen yet, core rules changes have made wyches weaker.
So yeah, tell me about how DEldar got better again based on this little snippet?
I trust you guys when you say they’re better (hard to be worse!) but nothing revealed today is evidence of that. Of course we don’t know everything but how about a rules reveal that shows how a piece of crap like Hellions got useful? Or how Wyches won’t die in droves to flamer overwatch? Cause if they still do, then thanks but no thanks. Every sarge in the game is gonna have a combi flamer now.
What is this, lol? We wrote an article to get you fired up about your army being relevant again, and multiple folks are saying we’re wrong?
Hahaha, ok, lol, if you say so. This is comedy gold, though. Perhaps you are still just missing too much of the big picture to connect the dots.
This is a new game, fellas. Trying to compare any of this to what you have now is a fallacy. You’re comparing apples and oranges. Just trust us on this, you are going to be STOKED as a Dark Eldar player, just be patient a while longer.
But Reece… if I extrapolate 1,000 assumptions out of the 5 or so facts you gave me in this article I can clearly see that Dark Eldar are going to be terrible.
I don’t know why you think the fact that you’ve actually played this army and can attest to the fact it isn’t garbage is more important than my completely unfounded, but totally reasonable and objective assumptions that say they are going to be garbage!
Gah, I can’t argue that logic, guess you are right and I am wrong =P
After reading the T’au article and the ending bit about ‘next up will be drakhari’
I got super hyped, but then got very nervous and went into todays article expecting to be dissapointed – and even with that, I loved everything I read – I’m not sure where all the negativity is coming from tbh. If the rest of the book is anything like these teases I’d say DE players can only be happy about it.
I have faith in you and Frankie and new GW as well. So many people are caught up in 7th while not even realizing how much has changed. For example with the AP change, witches still get their 6+ save against most of the weapons we’ve seen so far from shooting. IS their save even a 6+ anymore? We don’t know… if you guys say get excited, I trust you. Been listening to you guys critique the game for 3+ years.
Thank you for the vote of confidence. DE will be super solid, and time will show that.
Lance weapons got better, way better. The old lance rule only mattered against a couple of tanks, and for many it depended on the facing. The extra rend is a way better signature boost, cause now it matters against most everything. Riptides, Land Raiders, marines. Huge improvement.
Incubi are not nerfed by my reading of all the info so far. You have to take the whole game changes in not just what they did in 7ed and try and plug that into 8ed. Not having grenades is no longer a crippling, defining issue for them – they were pretty trash because of it. Also, sure marines get a save now, also means incubi also get a save vs similar weapons and shooting. So more chance they will make it to use those fancy blades, less chance they have to take a morale check, etc.
No escape in the context of 8ed is an awesome ability. Even looking at 7ed, if you could stop a unit from doing hit and run or failing morale and falling back on your turn – would you want that? Cause that is what this basically is.
You mention about how the vehicles got better through core rules changes rather than dark eldar changes – I’m wondering, why does that matter? the end result is that they are clearly improved. Which only bodes well for us in delivering the important units to where they need to be.
Yeah, exactly. Folks are comparing what is in the article to what they have now on a straight 1 to 1 comparison but that really falls short due to the fact that the game itself is changing. You can’t compare a unit in 7th to NewHammer any more than you can to the same unit in 2nd edition. Folks will just have to wait and see.
Cautiously optimistic. Was hoping to see if they spoiled the new iteration of Power From Pain and more army-wide USRs or wargear options rather than just “Oh, these units are slightly better now and this gun is pretty decent”. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see something positive, but this was an agonizing tease.
And yeah, I gotta agree with most everyone else, the new name is pretty stupid. It doesn’t help that I keep reading it “Drew Carey”. Ugh. Dark Eldar for life.
Haha, I suppose you DE players have some serious Stockholm syndrome going on to explain this total lack of trust! The article was saying that your transport vehicles are AMAZING. Like, seriously outstandingly good. Stop thinking about things as they are now, that is what is tripping you all up. NewHammer fundamentally changes the way your army plays. You’re comparing things we say are good to what you know now but that is like comparing a rule in 7th ed 40k to something in a different game: it’s silly and not at all informative nor useful in any way. There are rules interactions we can’t talk about yet that will make your eyes go wide when you can put all this information in context. Just a tad more patience =)
I mean, this is actually funny, Frankie and I are laughing our asses off at some of these comments. However, you all are working with what you have, which is an incomplete picture.
Just trust us. If you play Dark Eldar, you are going to be over the moon stoked at how much your army has improved. I will leave it at that. =)
Lol, it’s true. Can you blame us though? This is the same company that just a few years ago tried to sell to us that the “Most powerful and devastating weapon in the entire arsenal of the Webway” was a S9 AP2 large blast bomb attached to a ramshackle airplane made of tissue paper. So yeah, when you come out and tell us that DE are going to go from being the worst ‘Dex in 7E to topping tables in 8th, we kind of can’t help but raise an eyebrow.
I’m psyched, I really am, but I just have so many questions that this article doesn’t answer (and that I probably won’t get an answer for until the edition drops). Will there be a viable covens force to make up for them getting snubbed in the Ynnari book? Will the Archon return to being a combat monster and force multiplier again? Will we see the return of Arcane Tech like the Dark Gate or the Shattershard? How will the changes to cover affect units like Mandrakes? Can I put my Voidraven on the table without getting laughed out of my LGS in shame? I MUST KNOW THESE THINGS!
Very well. I have waited many hundreds of times your pathetic human life in countless eons for this moment. What is a few weeks longer? Dracon, ready my barque. We make for realspace…
Haha, all fair questions. We just have a limited amount of space to cover things and try to give concrete information but there’s only so much we can say =)
But, hang in there. All of your questions will be answered in good time.
I think you’re on to something with the lack of trust. But to be fair, how should they have any? Dark Eldar have gotten the short end of the stick ever since they were released. Yay hype for the new edition. But trust has to be earned.
Fair enough. It’s just funny seeing people compare things to 7th, when that is like comparing a unit in 7th to the same unit in 2nd. It just doesn’t work. In the context of NewHammer, they ROCK. But, hey, no sense in arguing about it, lol, people need to understand that this is an entirely new game and that their old paradigms are no longer valid. That will take time and experience.
Lance weapons have lower str than a lascannon but have a better AP.
Most vehicles will not get a save vs a Lance as -4 negates the 3+.
lascannon is only AP -3 so a 3+ gets a 6+ save.
In the context of a vehicle mounted weapon, the Dark Lance is far superior, IMO.
But hey, what do I know? =P
Mad Reece is best Reece 😛
Lol, just frustrated. It’s like me arguing with a engineer about how fast a rocket ship will go just by looking at the fin, lol. So silly.
It’s ok, we’re here for you
Thank you, much appreciated =P
I understand that we don’t have even half the picture yet BUT If these are the really big buffs and changes that Frankie thought worthy of mentioning im not impressed.
Will DE hit hard enough to compensate for the fact they will be shot to pieces the following turn or the first turn if they get alpha struck?
Lol, well, then you aren’t impressed I guess. I just hope you can understand how absurd your argument is when you have so little information and have never played the new game. It is an exceedingly silly stance to take.
This is a new game, you are comparing what we are saying to a 7th ed context (which I understand as it is all you have to go on) but for reals, you don’t have any ground to stand on to argue a point. You don’t have enough information yet. So, just have to play the waiting game a bit longer and hopefully take our word for it. If not, oh well.
Fair enough.
I’m so jaded.
Power from pain! =P
I am looking forward to actually being able to use the Incubi that I painted up as a display piece with the Visarch when he was released. I’m hoping that the combination of the two of them will be pretty awesome.
Reecius,
First off, I greatly appreciate the enthusiasm, Frankie’s article was good, but I am placing more stock in your enthusiasm. Dark Eldar have always been my first love and I’m excited to use them again in some positive capacity.
Understanding you can’t say much…one of my biggest concerns is how Drukhari are going to handle the psyker phase given their lack thereof.
Legitimate concern or is there room for optimism on this front as well?
The psychic phase is so different now that honestly I couldn’t say anything of value on it without spilling the beans beyond what I am allowed to to. Let me just say that no army needs psykers to win, and therefore, no army needs psyker defense to win.
Cryptic I know, but hopefully that helps.
Just about all I was hoping to get! Thanks!
The fact that splinter spam can kill vehicles is already a massive buff to Dark Eldar.
Drukhari is a wierd name they should have just went with Druchii from WHFB
The Dark Eldar range of models are fantastic, so I’m definitely excited that it won’t be a handicap to play them in a matched play setting. Looking forward to 8th edition release date!
Really hoping that Reece’s opinion of the Dark Eldar is close to reality. Would be nice to pick a DE unit for my army without thinking I was handicapping myself by not picking the Craftworld equivalent instead.
Well, considering we’ve played dozens of games with them vs. most other armies in the game…I’d say the odds of our opinions on them being close to accurate are pretty dang high, lol.
Wow, the mistrust among the DE players is crazy! Just be patient, gang. You will be quite pleased when your day comes.
That is some next level paranoia going on with DE players for sure. But can you blame them really?
If I were to be cynical about it I would follow this reasoning:
“You mean we should trust the people that took away half our special characters and left us in the power level gutter for three years while they continued to pump out free transports and scatbikes, to be good to us?
That we should trust the people that wrote the rules for the ‘orbs of despair’ and Wyches, to make decent data sheets?
The only thing I trust GW to do, is to let DE players down.
I paid actual money for the 7th ed DE codex for crying out loud! That is borderline fraud as far as I am concerned.
I need my money back and a written apology before I will even consider trusting those hustling scoundrels again.”
As you can see from this comment section GW may have done some real mental damage to the DE player base. Better to declare that everything is garbage right away, than to get you hopes up and end up getting hurt yet another time. Survival mechanisms for coping with abuse 101. 😉
That said, I DO trust you and your life partner and manservant Francois to be honest AND to know what you are talking about. So if you say 8th ed DE are going to rock my socks off, I’ll start painting up some Wyches right away.
I think some of these posts show a basic fundamental of how players gravitate towards factions that are similar to their personalities. People joke about how us Chaos players whine about the Imperium, and I always joke about how most Eldar players are jerks!
Wow DE players, way to give us all a bad name and start whining over everything(with 0.0 context) Seriously, please stop. No other race has had this much whining. Even freaking CSM that had 0 actual rules had less moaning than this. Fine, enjoy your crappy 7th ed army.
Sincerely: A DE player who recognises that I know nothing
I am so incredibly excited to see what is in store for Dark Eldar.
TL DR: I love the smell of DE players tears in the mornin’. So much complain on dark lances.
Dude u got the fastest vehicles in the game cos you’re eldar, you can stick them on those and on units inside them that do not get -1 to shoot when moving because reasons…
I used to play 2 stormtalons just to have a lascannon wherever i needed it on the table, and in was 1 twin linked shot! you can do it BETTER.
is Vect back in 8th?
Glad to see this was all a load of bollocks then. DE are worse than they have ever been in the latest version. What a bag of shit.
I can’t believe I’m the one saying this but let’s see how they do in their first few games at least.
Just don’t buy into the “it will all be fixed in the codex” nonsense after that.
Well and don’t go and expect more than mediocraty. They did not release those new Primaris Marines to not have a new favorite pet army. But if it’s at least a fair chance I’m happy enough.
“Just wait until they get their codex” will be the new refrain, and set the stage for the final nail in the coffin of dissapointment. If you want to play competitively, at least you have Ynnari.
Are we in that phase already? I thought we’re still in the blind hype stage. At this rate we’ll be in the “okay it’s all crap but next edition will be great!” stage before the end of the year.