Changes for 8th Edition Druchii Army Book

Overmind · Post by **Overmind** » Sat Jul 16, 2011 12:29 am

We strike from the seas, launch shades and corasirs. That is a lightning fast raid, not an ambush. We're slavers remember? We go after villages.

Anchanrogar · Post by **Anchanrogar** » Sat Jul 23, 2011 3:26 pm

60pt bolt throwers?
I dont think GW know quite what to do with skirmishers, neither O&Gs or TKs have any... shades are one of the few functional skirmish units left in game.. no change?
repeater crossbows should probably be toned down assuming the missile troops of other races arnt toned up? A lot of changes boil down to this.

magic item wise the 8:
2-4 entirely new items are probable.. (sword of HE smashing or somesuch no doubt) maybe return of the dimesional cube of death from 6th ed
keep ring of hotek (equivalent to enkils kanopi) significant re-design here I think, focus on magical armour?

Avaer · Post by **Avaer** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 8:43 pm

Why not change the way COK works? i mean reading the malus books etc leads you to believe they are roughly 30ft+ in length which kinda seems out of character with the models. Why not beef them up to monstrous cavalry sort of like Bloodcrushers for DoC? fits with the taming monsters, the fluff and adds a new dimension/new life to COK and tactics surrounding them in general

Tethlis · Post by **Tethlis** » Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:02 pm

It would be fun to see COK as monstrous cavalry, but I doubt it would happen. There are existing COK, available in plastic, and GW doesn't seem that inclined to replace existing plastic kits no matter how old they are (look at our warriors, HE spearmen, Orc Boyz/Goblins, Tomb King warriors/archers.) Also, the problem with Cold Ones is that they also exist as a unit in the Lizardmen army, as well as in Storm of Magic. If you change one book, it throws the stat line for the other armies out of synch.

Avaer · Post by **Avaer** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 7:13 am

Yeahhh i know Teth

i just thought it would be a cool idea that kinda makes COK different from all the other heavy cavalry in the world but it would be something they'd have to change alot for so it ont happen. Just my crazy musings lol

Tethlis · Post by **Tethlis** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 7:34 am

Not crazy at all... It would be excellent to see the Cold Ones achieve more than their riders. A brutal predatory dinosaur should certainly do more than a miserable lousy Strength 4 hit at low Weapon Skill, and they don't even get the benefit of Hatred like they did last edition.

Saintofm · Post by **Saintofm** » Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:13 am

No, but we still suffer stupidity.

I'd also like to see harpies take up the strom of chaos states, as this would toughen them up a bit. I'd also be happy if they at least gave us more beast master units (I'm thinking of them goading all kinds of critters to the for front like Dark Eldar or Clan Moulder).

Bring back that one enchanted item that gave the bearer a 4+ ward save and imunity to light and high magic.

Wolfrahm · Post by **Wolfrahm** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 11:08 am

I 2nd that item saintofm, would love to see it.

Malus99 · Post by **Malus99** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 1:33 pm

Two things I expect to see beyond what everyone has so far discussed are the animated statues of Khaine mentioned in the BRB as our new humongous monster and some form of sea creature, I noticed the special rule for sea creatures in the BRB and seeing how we have entire corsair fleets on the backs of sea dragons I expect we will be seeing some form of sea creature, probably sea serpents or krakens. I too would like to see an upgrade for Cold ones but sadly I doubt we'll get it.

Avaer · Post by **Avaer** » Tue Aug 09, 2011 2:43 pm

Animated statues would be too close to ushabti or the avatar in 40k for them to do it i believe :/ ethereal monsters like the maelithi from the malus books? yes please and also very khainite but i can see them more going the route of monsters with beastmasters similar to salamanders for lizardmen or rat ogres etc etc. chariot pulled by something big? new cavalry like Malus99 was saying with sea serpents? all sounds good to me

Allhailthemachine · Post by **Allhailthemachine** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:21 am

With any new army book GW will want to be promoting new models as well ass adressing issues by a bit of give and take. They dont want to turn you off with nerfs across the board. For this reason I think the following are either likely or have been considered:-

A nice new plastic war hydra that is bigger and can be alternatively be assembled as a sea dragon with corsair howda. The rules could be reworked putting it about sphynx power level and points. Not great as we all love the hydra as it is but GW could use the opportunity to give us somethinv different which gets some of the more set in their ways players trying something different rather than a simple 50 points increace (i can always find 50 points if I want to).

Changing the cauldron to make it a rare slot warmachine without a full death hag as crew. This creates more rare competition and in smallergames would prevent hydra and cauldron. The rules could be tidied up and re-worked or even a simple pointsreductionto reflect no death hag. 150pts?

Witch elves almost certainly will get new plastics, but despite being an iconic part of Dark Elf imagery are rarely favoured. They might recieve some lovewith points changes or something more interesting. This could be a made to measure magic banner, non khainites being able to join them or even better death hags that synergise with them. Im thinking the possibility of a few of the kainite rules being part of the standard death hag and her deing able to take magic items.

Allhailthemachine · Post by **Allhailthemachine** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 9:22 am

With any new army book GW will want to be promoting new models as well ass adressing issues by a bit of give and take. They dont want to turn you off with nerfs across the board. For this reason I think the following are either likely or have been considered:-

A nice new plastic war hydra that is bigger and can be alternatively be assembled as a sea dragon with corsair howda. The rules could be reworked putting it about sphynx power level and points. Not great as we all love the hydra as it is but GW could use the opportunity to give us somethinv different which gets some of the more set in their ways players trying something different rather than a simple 50 points increace (i can always find 50 points if I want to).

Changing the cauldron to make it a rare slot warmachine without a full death hag as crew. This creates more rare competition and in smallergames would prevent hydra and cauldron. The rules could be tidied up and re-worked or even a simple pointsreductionto reflect no death hag. 150pts?

Witch elves almost certainly will get new plastics, but despite being an iconic part of Dark Elf imagery are rarely favoured. They might recieve some lovewith points changes or something more interesting. This could be a made to measure magic banner, non khainites being able to join them or even better death hags that synergise with them. Im thinking the possibility of a few of the kainite rules being part of the standard death hag and her deing able to take magic items.

Kold · Post by **Kold** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:43 am

I love our army as is now, for me is great
Maybe fix cult of khaine enviroment (fix khainite characters survival problems, review cult of khaine rewards....) I'd like to see the possibility of able the cauldron to be carried by a unit of witches...
The hydra and the possibility of a new monster or monstruous troops I'd like to see it as a corsair themed point of view.
Otherwise, for me our army don't suffer the edition change

Allhailthemachine · Post by **Allhailthemachine** » Thu Aug 25, 2011 5:27 pm

A cauldron that gets carried round by the witches would be good and very fluffy, and I can certainly see how that could be a very interesting mount for a death hag. Something like the plague furnace would be great. If the effects were good I would not even mind it if it just worked with the unit it was in.
Either way it would make sense that if you fetch a cauldron to the battlefield it should certainly be powered by sacrifice and who would be better place to hunt down sacrifices than the witch elves. Awesomeness. If that doesnt make it to the rules I might make something for a legendary battles that does just that!

Dante valentine · Post by **Dante valentine** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:52 pm

I think the biggest question to ask is what do we really need in a new army book?

For one, I don't think that the DE book is "missing" anything. It has already been said that the reason we have and continue to be a very competitive list is that we can perform well in EVERY phase in the game!

Of course certain things need tweeking - i would like to see a point or two decrease in the cost of Executioners (to bring them in line with other races) and the 20 man unit limit removed on Blackguard - maybe something introduced so that they are still limited, though i'm not sure how that would work exactly.

I'm torn about CoK's - in my opinion they represent some of the most effective cavalry in the game based on ability-point ratio. That said, 8th edition has changed the way cavalry is being used so maybe a few points off the top of them wouldn't be too bad (yet being careful enough not to make them too cheap so that you can just spam huge units of the nasty men!).

New units? Something like a beastmaster and swarms/animals would be nice, similar to the beastmasters in the 40k Dark Eldar book. But what else?

I know some people want a heavy infantry unit but imho i don't think that this would work well in the army list - it is after all the only thing we don't really have. We are not sluggers like WoC's, and i think our army list atm reflect;s that very nicely. it would be a shame to lose that.

Although its very unlikely to happen, i would like to see the reemergence of the Druchii anointed. I had so much success with these bad boys - like almost single handed slaying Tyrion and his bodyguard of DragonPrinces - i would be ecstatic if they returned!

I do expect Hydra's to increase in points (rather than decrease in efficiency) and something to happen with our Bolt throwers (which i expect to decrease in points rather than increase in efficiency)!

Our characters could do with some working over as well - Ol Malk is massively overpriced and significantly underpowered - i would really like to field him but unless someone can loan me their dark elf models to field a 25k match i think its unlikely i will ever bother!

That said, the 8th edition books seem to be very nice - O&G & TK seem to be good lists, containing a nice mix of powerful units and monsters with infantry and cavalry that acts like infantry and cavalry should.

Just my opinion anyway!

Regards

Dante

P.S. What do people think about the points of spearmen - i am expecting a massive decrease in points cost. My reasoning:

In the old TK book undead spearmen were 8pts a model, the same price as vampire counts undead (without upgrades etc). This is roughly the same points cost as our spearmen (give or take)

In the new book, the EXACT same option is 4 points (before upgrades etc).
Now DE spearmen are obviously better than both VC and TK spearmen but to see the reduction in points cost of this stereotypical unit leads me to believe we may be seeing 4 or 5 point naked spearmen?

(It would also mean that GW makes lots of money as all of a sudden DE players rush out to buy more spearmen!)

Anyway...enough of my ramblings.

Svarthofthi · Post by **Svarthofthi** » Sat Aug 27, 2011 7:32 pm

Our spearmen are pretty cheap, still, for elves anyways. I actually enjoy the spears, though the option for hand weapons should exist. In horde formation spears rockzilla.

My hopes for a new codex are to keep the flavor of the three sides of the Druchii, the militant raiding, the interesting sorcery, and the intricate stylized khainite fluff particularly their penchant for execution. However that is translated should be fine as long as Mat Ward has nothing to do with it.

Omnichron · Post by **Omnichron** » Mon Aug 29, 2011 12:22 pm

Dante Valentine wrote:(It would also mean that GW makes lots of money as all of a sudden DE players rush out to buy more spearmen!)

Which is exactly why I think that we will see a new line of dark elven spearmen which will be slightly better than they are today somehow (having something cool with same or higher points).

GW is all about the money, and they will "decrease" the value of other options like Corsairs, Cold one Knights and so on, and improve the rules for the new releases of miniatures (Yes, I make GW sound really greedy with that statement, but I've seen it before).

I really look forward to new minis though, and the only reason I don't buy lots of Dark Elf miniatures now to complete my army, is that I wait for the new plastics. I REALLY hope that we will see new:

- Dark Elf Spearmen
- Dark Riders
- Witch Elves
- Executioners
- Black Guard
- Shades
- Cold one Chariot

When it comes to the rules, I just hope it'll be a very balanced book, where all choices would be good for their job. Especially the Hag and Assassin would need updates so that they could be useful (like, both being able to survive one round of close combat).

Texhnology · Post by **Texhnology** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:29 pm

I really like the book, and don't think we need a new one based on its performance.

But I do think, and hope that there will be some new releases for dark elves, mainly because we still got a lot of metal only units, and it seams like they are trying to move away from that.

Metal units:
Executioners
black guard
witch elves
Dark riders (well not the horses)
Shades

Also we got no masters/dreadlords on foot that can be bought in a regular gw store. (they are all online order only)

Phierlihy · Post by **Phierlihy** » Wed Aug 31, 2011 10:01 pm

I've been browsing this topic for a while. I've seen some interesting ideas but I think a lot of folks are in for a big disappointment whenever the year rolls around that GW prints a new Dark Elf army book. Black Guard WILL go up in price. Spearmen probably will too. Hydras will get a massive price increase. Bolt throwers *may* come down in price but they've been the same point cost for so long I'm betting they won't. And I really doubt Repeater Crossbows will keep their Armour Piercing ability. All that is assuming the rules for these units don't change as they probably will. So suffice to say, anyone who isn't expecting a large and overall power decrease I suspect is in for a rude shock. We're 7th edition's Demons folks.

Allhailthemachine · Post by **Allhailthemachine** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:21 am

I guess one of the big determining factors of what an 8thed Army Book may include will really change about the list will be determined by when it comes and how the existing one works along side the army books out at the time. It could easily be possible that our army book will remain unchanged for many years to the point where we face a long period of playing an army that feels obselete and increacingly dependant on the same old tricks to compete.

Right now it does certainly feel we have a lot to lose, the armour peircing of crossbows, cheap spearmen, under priced hydra, the sheer awesomeness of the black guard and the cauldron. However these can mitigated by new armies with fresh tricks and good generals.

To me it is almost certain that we will have to wait a while for GW to get round to us and our army may start to look increacingly stale. In this regard it is my most sincere hope that whatever the army book contains there are a few nice surprises beyond tinkering with what we already have. More interesting rare options, a big beastie, some spicing up of the khainite side of life would all be great for me and more than enough to keep things fun even if more traditional options are made more expensive or less effective.

This said 'fortunately' for us we do have a lot of old metal models still in our range. The dark riders, shades, executioners, black guard, witch elves,cauldron and bolt throwers are all over 10 years old now and besides Dwarfs (and maybe Bretonnians and Wood Elves) cannot think of another force with as many metals as us. Because of this fact we will most likely are on the GW hit list for either a wave of plastics or something more in the next 2 years.

Allhailthemachine · Post by **Allhailthemachine** » Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:22 am

I guess one of the big determining factors of what an 8thed Army Book may include will really change about the list will be determined by when it comes and how the existing one works along side the army books out at the time. It could easily be possible that our army book will remain unchanged for many years to the point where we face a long period of playing an army that feels obselete and increacingly dependant on the same old tricks to compete.

Right now it does certainly feel we have a lot to lose, the armour peircing of crossbows, cheap spearmen, under priced hydra, the sheer awesomeness of the black guard and the cauldron. However these can mitigated by new armies with fresh tricks and good generals.

To me it is almost certain that we will have to wait a while for GW to get round to us and our army may start to look increacingly stale. In this regard it is my most sincere hope that whatever the army book contains there are a few nice surprises beyond tinkering with what we already have. More interesting rare options, a big beastie, some spicing up of the khainite side of life would all be great for me and more than enough to keep things fun even if more traditional options are made more expensive or less effective.

This said 'fortunately' for us we do have a lot of old metal models still in our range. The dark riders, shades, executioners, black guard, witch elves,cauldron and bolt throwers are all over 10 years old now and besides Dwarfs (and maybe Bretonnians and Wood Elves) cannot think of another force with as many metals as us. Because of this fact we will most likely are on the GW hit list for either a wave of plastics or something more in the next 2 years.

Dante valentine · Post by **Dante valentine** » Mon Sep 05, 2011 9:45 am

@ phierlihy

Just out of interest what makes you so certain that these point increases for Spearmen and Blackguard will happen. I can see a certain argument as to why people would consider this necessary but blackguard for example are not *that* good under 8th edition. With a max unit size and the step up rule, their only real use in any decent sized game is an anvil on a unit that realistically is not going to kill 20 of them.

Again, spearmen are questionable in price range when compared to other armies core infantry.

Now don't get me wrong, i do think the Hydra is underpriced and the Bolt thrower over priced,

The more i see with new armies from GW the more they are trying to encourage large infantry/cavalry units. While they may say this makes the game more epic it also pockets them a lot of money in the process.

That's why i believe we are much more likely to see a point reduction or a point freeze on our infantry rather than an increase.

Regards

D

Phierlihy · Post by **Phierlihy** » Tue Sep 06, 2011 8:29 pm

SInce you asked... Black Guard in previous editions were 18 points a piece if I remember correctly and Rare. For the damage they can do and with more special rules than almost any other unit out there, I expect they will move back to being a Rare slot and be more expensive. Everyone bought Black Guard back in 7th edition. This move would give people more reasons to field Executioners which got very little love in 8th edition.

Spearmen will likely jump by 1 (2??) point(s) ASSUMING Dark Elves keep tricksy things like the Cauldron of Blood to buff them with. Killing-Blow on Core troops at 7 points a model isn't going to stay.

Repeater Crossbows will definitley lose their Armour Piercing rule. Why? Because right now Druchii arguably have the best shooting phase in the game. We're not Wood Elves. That's their niche. That and Armour Piercing Repeater Crossbows have made Reaper Bolt Throwers obsolete. This will give people reason to field RBTs again and, hence, buy those models.

We'll see in five or so years if I'm right...