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| The gig is up. |
Despite all this, I still really like the army design and most of the lore behind it. This got me thinking: Maybe I should break out my Dark Eldar for a little bit and maybe mix it up with some Eldar. It's been a while since I've played and it will be my first game of 7th Ed., although I don't think much have changed. The big ones for me are the changes to Jink, all vehicles got more durable (mine and my opponents), and the fact that most of my army scores now, including my dedicated transports.
When I look over my Dark Eldar army, it's pretty clear to me that the book is starting to show its age pretty harshly. If you compare the Dark Eldar book to the Eldar book, you'll see that a lot of the units are overpriced in terms of cost and effectiveness. With the changes to how Psychic powers are executed in 7th, having a psyker in my army is also very desirable, especially since the DE book was made in 5th when things were a lot different. I think that overall, I need to re-purpose my army to fight the newer edition more than anything else. It's quite clear that we need a new book (rumors say by the end of the year).
Whatever the case is, it looks like I'll be adding more Eldar to my Dark Eldar forces.
Seems we're in something of a similar boat, ive played very little 40k for a while, my free times mostly gone into board games, x-wing and 30k (it IS different, honest).
ReplyDeleteHowever, i cracked out my dark eldar on saturday for the first time in at least a year (and it in fact was the first time id fielded them without allies since probably the first month or two of 6th edition).
I also really did feel like the army was showing its age, i will concede my model collection for them hasnt really changed since 5th so thats a big part of it, but i dont really see the point of investing in wholesale changes (and i do feel the changes would need to be really severe at this point, my force was quite mixed with 2 raiders, 3 venoms, hellions, reavers etc. my gut feeling for the book as it stands is you need to go all in with a particular strategy) when the next book could be out in a matter of weeks.
The big revelation for me was just how far the dark lance has fallen from grace. Back when a pen had a 50/50 chance of killing a vehicle outright my 1 each of a ravager, voidraven and razorwing was probably the bare minimum anti-tank, but i got by okay on it. now that i need a natural 6 or enough glances to wreck? blech.
In my game on saturday i managed to kill 2 chimeras and a leman russ in the 6 turns, none of the wrecks were caused by firing dark lances, all 3 wrecks were from grotesques or haywire grenades in assault.
And that still left a 3rd chimera, 4 leman russes and a vendetta effing up my christmas unmolested.
Needless to say, they went back into storage after that game.
Roll on the new book.
I think the book is in an decent enough spot, it's a far cry from the situation the previous book was in when it was re-made with one, or maybe two possible selections for any given slot.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem I see, is our book was designed with certain universal special rules in mind, and over the editions those specific rules have gotten changed. Feel no Pain, Furious Charge, Poison, are all weaker now, so the units that depended on them are weaker.
I think the biggest plus for us is the maelstrom of war means that we don't have to kill our enemy, just take advantage of our speed and be everywhere and grab objectives.
But like with most editions, a lot of people don't want to use all the rules that will balance the game. I'm still having problems getting people to use the random objectives that helped balance fliers.
Yes, it does seem that lances have fallen from grace quite a bit. Even when I'm packing the max amount of lances I want in each list, it still feels a little weak, especially when vehicles across the board has been buffed and ours are still paper thin.
ReplyDeleteI think aside from scenario play, it feels like the army is no longer the glass cannon that it was intended to be. It feels more like glass-run-away-and-cap-points army instead because there's just not enough bang for the buck. The codex aged poorly because while special rules have changed (like the ones you mentioned), armies also received a larger array of Ignore Cover and longer ranged weapons; making Jinking (even the new one), good cover play and Night Shields relatively useless.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can see the merit of Dark Eldar grabbing objectives with the OS special rule, they take games from hiding from the enemy, trying desperately to survive in the final moments of the game. I don't know about you, but this is not what I signed up for! We should be killing and enslaving, not running/hiding for our lives. It's the other way around!
I've played just enough games to realize that I still don't want to get back into 40k with any significant energy. My nothing but venoms and ravagers list still does really well... meh... I get frustrated with how flimsy the DE are despite being able to do well with them. The luck factor is high on dealing with armor and I find myself regretting that i'm playing 40k instead of my skorne in WM. I do think the new book will likely make them the new hotness again (because the last book made them balanced... which just kinda sucked as it didn't compete with the unbalanced codex meta) but i'm likely to pass. My necrons seem like I would have to buy a ton of models and could do well if I got them but...again... I could be playing my cryx and not waiting for my army to suck as the codex cycle churns.
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