Sunday, July 1, 2012

6th Ed Lovin' - Dark Eldar Edition

by Anonymous Foodie
Everyone needs a hobby outside of work, amirite??


After a breeze or two through the rulebook, it's time to take a look at how our armies are being effected.  Since the True Kin are the heralds of time immemorial and the rightful owners of all things to come, I thought I'd go first.

Night Fight is back, and it's back with a vengeance.
It's the only smart thing to do

Night Fight is basically standard for all missions now.  It's similar in practice to the Dusk til Dawn mission from 5th, except that this time around people are less likely to forget about it every time since it affects all of the missions.

Unlike previous incarnations where the chance was miniscule (if there was chance involved), it's a simple 50/50 on turn one.  If that roll is failed, you start rolling again on turn 5 (and every turn thereafter).  Same 50/50, but it lasts til the end of the game.

Now what Night Fighting does has changed drastically, and I'll let you check page 124 yourselves for the actual rule.  Night Vision (which is finally different from Acute Senses) allows you to see normally while these rules are in effect.

So what's this mean?  As an army with Night Vision on... well... everything, it's great to finally have these rules happen more than once in a blue moon.  At this point I see myself hoping for Night Fight during the first turn rather than later in the game to add some early survivability.  As an added bonus, you roll to see if Night Fight is in effect *before* rolling to see who deploys/goes first, so you can plan accordingly.

Feel No Pain changes
Tis only a scratch!
 So this one isn't necessarily a "Woohoo!" moment, so much as a lateral shift in effectiveness.  The standard Feel No Pain is downgraded to a 5+ (with room for special characters or powers to change the roll).  However, the only thing that ignores it is wounds that would cause insta-death.  Power weapons?  Meh.  AP1?  Who cares.  It's not like that stuff actually leaves a mark, right?  I'm sure you could mathhammer the actual effectiveness out to the thousandths, but I'm gonna just call this one a wash.

Vehicle changes
It's AV8 with only 1 HP, but the mileage is great!
 First and foremost, I want to say that I find the Hull Point system extremely intriguing.  I am entirely too excited to see how this plays on the table, and I think that it will play very well.  But how, you ask, does this influence Dark Eldar specifically?

Dark Lances, for starters, just became meaner.  The basic anti-tank weapon of the army has a 33% chance to cause a glancing hit.  Glances mean something - really mean something.  It's not just a chance to keep you from shooting back, it's real, stacking damage.  Also note that 22% of the above is the chance for a Pen, which adds even more fun (and carnage) to the mix.  Add to that AP2 guns now get +1 to the damage table, and start practicing your evil grin.

When a Glance becomes a set amount of (reasonable) damage, a weapon that can reliably glance poses a real threat.
I glance on a 2+?  Pew Pew!!

Skimmers in general get a couple of fun bonuses to boot, these being an extra 6" to the Flat Out move, and a 5+ Jink save if you move at all, or ye olde 4+ if you move Flat Out.

The extra movement mitigates the reduction to 6" of move-and-disembark (or embark, for that matter), in addition to leading to more overall movement for the purposes of actual transport and maintaining superior firing lanes.

Some DE players will have the kneejerk reaction that this new Jink save makes Flickerfields worthless, and perhaps invalidates Venoms.  They, however, are wrong.

Keep in mind that the Flickerfield is an Invulnerable save, which is dirty useful for close combat (which, as it turns out, is deadlier to vehicles of all sorts).
Further, now that the 'field is not a "mandatory" upgrade (though still useful) those same points may be spent on a Night Shield if you prefer, which combined with the new Night Fight rules, is a more viable option.

I think it's worth noting that I actually approve of the move of the Venom to "light Skimmer", in that it only has 2 Hull Points.  In truth, two glances were likely to crash one of our skimmers anyway... now the first one gets ignored completely.  Also, it goes another step to re-validating the Raider.  A shift occurred where min-sized warrior squads toting a Blaster took the place of any hope of seeing a full sized squad in a Raider.  The firepower of the twin Splinter Cannons with the still-viable anti-tank work of the Blaster out-shined the larger craft in about all respects. 

A number of things make the full-sized squad in a Raider more of an option.  Rapid Fire weapons can fire at full range on the move - given that the 36" range of the Cannons were one of the biggest boons, the Raider-Squad's 30" effective range.  To take this point even further, you can still fire if the transport Cruised, though at a handicapped BS.  Luckily, Splinter Racks let you re-roll to hit, giving you an effective BS of 2.5 (ish).  It's not amazing, but it's better than not being able to fire at all.  And, of course, the extra Hull Point can come in handy (though being open-topped still adds a +1 to the damage chart).

Jetbikes

This guy came up on google images.  I'm famous now.

So Eldar Jebikes (Dark included) can move 48" now?  Cool.
Oh, Reavers completely ignore dangerous terrain instead of just getting a re-roll?  Nice.
What's that?  Bikes of all sorts get the Hammer of Wrath attack in CC?  Lovely.
Come again?  Reavers have a 4+ jink if they move at all, and a 3+ after a turbo?  Aww yeeeaaah.

Yeah... I'm excited.

9 comments:

  1. I think the fact that nearly every blog or forum that has done one of these "Faction X in Sixth Edition" analysis articles has come to the same conclusion of "Hell Yes! This is gunna be awesome!" should tell the doubters all they need to know.

    Sixth is gunna rock. \m/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Nice points, and i'm really hyped about the new ed. But there is one thing that i fear -since Klaives became AP3 in the FaQ. The same thing will probably happen to Huskblades and Agonisers. Previouslu i never had trouble running my Archon and Incubi into 5 assault termies. Now i begin to fear

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Any "fancy" power weapon basically becomes AP3, and follows its own rules... so yes, agonisers and all else will have some trouble vs Termies.

      That said, for the most part throwing things at termies was not going to end horribly well, unless you had enough back-up attacks to get through one or two of those 2+'s anyway. At least in my experience (terminator blocks, rather than odd 5-man units).

      On the plus side, and something I forgot to add, is that the Klaivex is starting to see a purpose now, given that his fancy weapon can opt to be a S5 AP2 power weapon. If you want to add in that extra-extra armor punch, throw one of these guys in.

      Or just shoot them with big guns. Big guns always work.

      Delete
    2. I agree, Incubi sucked vs terminators. They do an average of one wound each to an MEQ on the charge. When THSS termiantors can negate 2/3 of those that means you need a LOT of incubi to wipe out termiantors. They are a power armour killing machine and I don't think anything's really changed there.

      Killing terminators is a matter of wound saturation and what's nice is that wyches now can do that a fair bit better thanks to the FNP changes. Sanguinary priests etc. are that much worse while the wyches' own FNP will kick in against lightning claws and so on making them pretty tough against those guys.

      I favour the venom blade to the agoniser and its advantages are more pronounced in 6th ed.

      Delete
  3. One thing that makes night fighting easier to deal with is that you don't have to roll to see because it just gives a cover save now. Under 12" nothing, 12" to 24" stealth +1 to save, over 24" stealth and shrouding +2 cover save.

    This edition is interesting. I see a fun change. Except charging flamers of tzeentch is a big NONO!!!!!!

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  4. I think my Duke with 9 Trueborn in Raider just got more BOSS!

    Can I get a woop woop!?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Congrats on the biker turning up on Google!
    and I just have to say, that pic at the top is COOL!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Haha, thanks... that's actually an older version from when you could take a Lord on a reaver (oh how I miss those days even now...). The model is slightly different - head and sword-swap - and was featured as part of a DE article on another blog some time ago.

      There was a time when a full-army pic was the third image result for "dark eldar army"... no idea where it falls now... and for that matter I really should get some fresh pictures with my venom conversions and the court of the archon that I'm building. Ah well, tack it onto the "stuff to do" list.

      Delete
  6. I totally agree with Brinks! That top pic is sweet!

    6th ed looks like it will be a lot of fun to play! I can't wait to get some games in. :)

    ReplyDelete

out dang bot!

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