Drukhari FAQ

[jeremy1391]

“FAQ”

[Tokugawa]

Dallas Open. The biggest event since 2021, 170+ players.

 

Drukhari grabbed top #1-#5. Yeah, not one, not two, not three...

 

So the question is not whether, not when, nor how Drukhari would be FAQed. It's about how many times it need to be FAQed in 2021.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Tokugawa

[excelite]

Unpopular opinion:

 

Once, after all 9th ed codices are available… (aside from obvious errors like the ones that got fixed)

[SkimaskMohawk]

Unpopular opinion:

 

Once, after all 9th ed codices are available… (aside from obvious errors like the ones that got fixed)

Here's the issue, or rather two issues with that mindset.

 

The first is that dark eldar aren't the first codex of 9th. This isn't "let's see how the power level of the new editions codexes are before nerfing" ; we've had marines, necrons, BA, SW, DW, DA, death guard and now dark eldar. They're the eighth release and are by far the strongest among their peers, which ranged from "okay" up to "multiple tournament wins" .

 

That kind of dove tails into the second issue of relative power levels of 9th edition codexes. A lot of them were strong, but none of them were able to dislodge sororitas and harlequins from the top. In other words, 9th was trying to level the playing field while reigning in the power of previously busted codexes (look at marine tournament win rates pre and post 9th codex). Dark eldar instead just dominated; from goonhammer's data the win rate gap between DE and sob/harlies (1st and 2nd/3rd) is as much that between those two and gsc (2nd/3rd and 33rd/last). The closest comparable thing to dark eldar is og iron hands who had 78% win rate after the mirror match compared to dark eldar's 74.8%.

 

If any one was on the iron hand/marine nerf train, I better see them on this one too.

[WarriorFish]

As I've yet to delve into DE lists can someone provide a quick summary of what's in vogue for these top finishing lists to dominate so well? Hopefully there can be some correction soon, as I don't want to finally get my DE on the table with meaning only to have lopsided games (or people not want them). That said, this probably won't be for a while so I have time :P

[excelite]

 

Unpopular opinion:

 

Once, after all 9th ed codices are available… (aside from obvious errors like the ones that got fixed)

Here's the issue, or rather two issues with that mindset.

 

The first is that dark eldar aren't the first codex of 9th. This isn't "let's see how the power level of the new editions codexes are before nerfing" ; we've had marines, necrons, BA, SW, DW, DA, death guard and now dark eldar. They're the eighth release and are by far the strongest among their peers, which ranged from "okay" up to "multiple tournament wins" .

 

That kind of dove tails into the second issue of relative power levels of 9th edition codexes. A lot of them were strong, but none of them were able to dislodge sororitas and harlequins from the top. In other words, 9th was trying to level the playing field while reigning in the power of previously busted codexes (look at marine tournament win rates pre and post 9th codex). Dark eldar instead just dominated; from goonhammer's data the win rate gap between DE and sob/harlies (1st and 2nd/3rd) is as much that between those two and gsc (2nd/3rd and 33rd/last). The closest comparable thing to dark eldar is og iron hands who had 78% win rate after the mirror match compared to dark eldar's 74.8%.

 

If any one was on the iron hand/marine nerf train, I better see them on this one too.

Little disclaimer: I just rejoined a couple of months before 9th dropped.

 

While I‘m sure the numbers you quoted are correct, for me the issue is a little bit different.

 

The current 9th Edition armies seem to play quite similar and now a unique/different playstyle that feasts on the established Style got thrown into the mix.

 

To me it seems GW wants to diversify the core strategies/mechanics a faction is played with. This actually looks interesting to me and I’d like to see it play out fully before I‘d go in and nerf/buff anything in a big way.

 

But that‘s just my opinion, not that it really matters ;)

[SkimaskMohawk]

Well you're not exactly wrong. Out of the books releases, 6 are marine content in some way which is obviously a similar playstyle outside some fringe builds. Death guard and necrons can trend to slow moving bricks of infantry or fast multiwound melee units. Dark eldar do have a very unique playstyle compared to all of those, and I honestly enjoy playing against it a lot.

 

But, the faction is a little too undercosted. You get so much stuff that being kind of fragile doesn't matter; you send wave after wave of great damage dealers in and your opponent can't deal with it. That and the razorflail succubus and possibly the phantom grenade launcher trick are the only real problems imo, not the actual concept or play style.

[TrawlingCleaner]

Personally I don't think much needs to be changed to bring the down the rankings in a way that doesn't absolutely cripple them, it might need to be over a couple of FAQs to get them to the right spot. With 9th edition Points changes being free and more frequent (supposedly), I can see Dark Eldar getting slowed. As it is at the moment, it feels like DE lists have about 200 points spare, they can afford to trade units with no real downsides.

 

Dark Technomancers - Remove the interaction with auto hit weapons, even taking wounds on a roll of one won't matter and isn't enough of a change, IMO. There's a reason they're in every comp list

 

Razorflail Succubus - Just a clarification on how the warlord trait interacts with weapons, it probably isn't intended to allow failed wounds to duplicate hits

 

Points changes across the board - The majority of the book is undercosted, plain and simple. Wyches, Succubus, Archon, Incubi, Raiders, Dark Lances are the main ones that need an increase. I would also say that Phantasm Grenade launchers also need a slight points increase, they're taken in every list on most vehicles/units that can take them as they're essentially a free smite

 

I do think that DE are overtuned and undercosted which make them overpowered, but not inherently overpowered, the book is relatively balanced with the above tweaks made would ,IMO, sort them entirely. Even after FAQs and points changes I think they'll still hard counter Marines of all colours, which they should. Of course, GW could smack them with the balance mallet and ruin them entirely but only time will tell

Edited May 4, 2021 by TrawlingCleaner

[Bung]

Its just a turney problem.

Most people play Marines with small multiwound Squads but the Dark Eldar armies play with bigger single wound squads.

So stuff that works against Marines doesnt work that good against Dark Eldar.

But if you tailor your list against Dark Eldar you lose against other Marines.

But its easier for Dark Eldar to specialise against Marines as there are not enough other factions.

 

To much Marines and similar armies and one that plays different will lead to something like that.

 

Would there be more different armies this wouldn happen.

Edited May 4, 2021 by Bung

[TrawlingCleaner]

I agree that it's a larger problem in Tournaments to a certain extent but this is definitely an issue in all games. They're too cheap with only one army that can counter them consistently well (Admech) where they counter pretty much every other army and play the objectives better than nearly all other armies. When in beer and pretzels game with unoptimised lists, most armies will struggle. With a points increase across the board you sort most of the casual player's issues, IMO

[SkimaskMohawk]

Its just a turney problem.

Most people play Marines with small multiwound Squads but the Dark Eldar armies play with bigger single wound squads.

So stuff that works against Marines doesnt work that good against Dark Eldar.

But if you tailor your list against Dark Eldar you lose against other Marines.

But its easier for Dark Eldar to specialise against Marines as there are not enough other factions.

 

To much Marines and similar armies and one that plays different will lead to something like that.

 

Would there be more different armies this wouldn happen.

Most lists don't build to specifically counter marines. Marines were underrepresented compared to their codex saturation and haven't been the faction to beat for a while. It was still harlequins and sororitas with the runner ups being custodes, necrons, daemons, death guard and then black templars.

[G8Keeper]

It will be interesting to see the results of a few later tournaments after people have seen the winning lists and built counters into their own.

[Snazzy]

The Raider is a huge problem.  It should start at 110-120 for what it does.  Being T6 was a change that had more consequences than people initially noticed.  It is the best transport by a mile.

[Angel of Death]

so, are dark eldar good or 'underwhealming' now?

Ive seen lots of different opinions in this thread, but most seem to be

of the opinion that DE are broken and op now?

[SpiritFox22]

so, are dark eldar good or 'underwhealming' now?

Ive seen lots of different opinions in this thread, but most seem to be

of the opinion that DE are broken and op now?

Honestly DE are strong, but the majority of the hate is they're basically nightmares for SM armies.  DE bring plenty of quality weapons that straight nuke and overwhelm SM armies with little effort. 

 

Honestly I've been nuking my friends RG and IH armies just from my ability to T1-2 charge phases.  However inversely any army that doesn't care about quality and brings Quantity Guard/Nids/Orks I struggle far more against.

 

Honestly the two tweaks for DE imo are simple.  Raiders need a point increase at the base to 120-130pts, Ravagers 20-30pt increase.  The other is Fixing Dark Technomancers to not work on Liquifiers or make them deal MW's on the 1 for Shots/Wounds.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

so, are dark eldar good or 'underwhealming' now?

Ive seen lots of different opinions in this thread, but most seem to be

of the opinion that DE are broken and op now?

Honestly DE are strong, but the majority of the hate is they're basically nightmares for SM armies.  DE bring plenty of quality weapons that straight nuke and overwhelm SM armies with little effort. 

 

Honestly I've been nuking my friends RG and IH armies just from my ability to T1-2 charge phases.  However inversely any army that doesn't care about quality and brings Quantity Guard/Nids/Orks I struggle far more against.

 

Honestly the two tweaks for DE imo are simple.  Raiders need a point increase at the base to 120-130pts, Ravagers 20-30pt increase.  The other is Fixing Dark Technomancers to not work on Liquifiers or make them deal MW's on the 1 for Shots/Wounds.

 

 

Gonna answer you both here, but it's not really just "opinion" that DE are strong, its the data from a huge tournament win rate.

 

It's also not just "good vs SM"; they're very good against a lot of things and the tournament lists that inevitably have to build for the mirror need to deal with chaf statlines when the raiders get popped/ passengers go too deep.

 

Technomancers lists have an 86.5% win rate in tournament. They have something like a 74% win rate overall. It's not one matchup or popular faction that's pushing that .

[Snazzy]

Could have avoided so much pain by making Liquifier Guns Heavy.

[TrawlingCleaner]

 

It's also not just "good vs SM"; they're very good against a lot of things and the tournament lists that inevitably have to build for the mirror need to deal with chaf statlines when the raiders get popped/ passengers go too deep.

 

 

Technomancers lists have an 86.5% win rate in tournament. They have something like a 74% win rate overall. It's not one matchup or popular faction that's pushing that .

 

 

To add to this, they hard counter all variations of Marines (loyalist and traitors) and counter everything else as well. Admech seem to be the only outlier in that they can win against DE somewhat consistently.

If a specifc sub-faction of an army has a 86.5 win rate, they're broken IMO. Even at a beer and pretzels level, that's still broken. IIRC, Iron Hands had a higher winrate than 74% in their hayday which is bonkers considering everyone and their dog has space marines, but a 74% winrate is still a big problem even with so few DE competitive players.

 

I can't remember if they mentioned when the Munutorum would be coming out (I can't remember if it's quarterly or just "reguarly" tm), but this could address at least the points issues that DE have.

[G8Keeper]

They do need a tone down most will agree.  It seems to me that there is a bit less of an uproar than there was for IH, there could be a number of reasons for this:

• They aren't marines
• There hasn't been that many tournaments run with the new codex yet
• There are several smaller issues to address rather than one huge broken advantage to the army (relative I know)

I'm going to come out and say it, I think going really massively silly with points increases on the base cost of raiders is wrong, having said that, 85pts is too cheap.  I think a moderate 95-100pts price tag is warranted and still allows their mass deployment (as it should be), whilst offering the Venom as a decently cheaper alternative.  I would tweak the weapons prices so there is more of a dilemma between the Disi and Dark Lance though, perhaps making the Disi free with the points increase and the Dark Lance +5, meaning 100-105pt Dark Lance Raiders.  That's an increase on the army of around 90-100pts if you're taking 6, I think that's fine.

 

Ravagers are an interesting one, the changes need to be reflected but not so much that people no longer field them, D3+3 damage on the Dark Lance should ensure they stay in the meta, but we don't want to make them a "tax" so to speak.  If we reflected the same changes as the Raider as discussed above a single Ravager with 3 x Dark Lances would be 165-170pts, how would we feel about that?

 

As for Dark Technomancer and Liquifier guns.... There has to be a way to apply the downside of the Coven Obsession, whether it be a caveat that wound rolls of 1 cause a mortal wound on the bearer (yes, like plasma does but on wounds) for auto-hit weaponry, or a flat d6 roll like plasma cannons used to be when generating random shots.  In my head it's silly that plasma supercharge death kills the bearer but Dark Technomancer's enhancement can be taken on chaff.

Edited May 21, 2021 by G8Keeper

[Snazzy]

I'm skeptical about the point increase of Raiders.  Dark Eldar were created to sell mandatory transports.  But, they may be forced to, because point changes are easier to execute than rewritting rules for Liquifier Guns or unit profiles.

[Angel of Death]

 

so, are dark eldar good or 'underwhealming' now?

Ive seen lots of different opinions in this thread, but most seem to be

of the opinion that DE are broken and op now?

Honestly DE are strong, but the majority of the hate is they're basically nightmares for SM armies.  DE bring plenty of quality weapons that straight nuke and overwhelm SM armies with little effort. 

 

Honestly I've been nuking my friends RG and IH armies just from my ability to T1-2 charge phases.  However inversely any army that doesn't care about quality and brings Quantity Guard/Nids/Orks I struggle far more against.

 

Honestly the two tweaks for DE imo are simple.  Raiders need a point increase at the base to 120-130pts, Ravagers 20-30pt increase.  The other is Fixing Dark Technomancers to not work on Liquifiers or make them deal MW's on the 1 for Shots/Wounds.

 

hey there!

sorry for the late reply, I havent been online that much lately.

yeah, DE have always been a threat to SM and CSM armies.

I remember back in 6:th or was it 7:th when wyches could take 3 agonisers per 10 man squad.

and they would just plow through csm and sm. but not anymore!

but yeah, the majority of people here seems to be of the opinion that DE are OP now.

so Im just gonna chime in the yes-choir and ride the lightning!

I always show up exactly when a new codex releases! haha :)