Yeah, Okay, Dark Eldar.

Hola!

Its not all negative. Honest.




First things first, i'll start by saying i actually really want to get this army on the table for some games, which is more than i can say about where we'd got to with the last book during 7th.

So thats a plus.

Weirdly them nerfing infantry splinter cannons (and bumping the price) along with the warrior price drop has meant ive shaved 25 points per squad off my warriors in gunboats units now. This is nice.

The fast attack slot is now majorly stacked, so being able to field 6 fast attacks in a regular army now is nice (though losing objective secured to do so sucks.)

Grotesques were already good and are now better.

Reavers losing fly-by bladevanes blows, but i did often find using them i was torn between using them to shoot vehicles or fly-over infantry. Now they cant fly over im not going to struggle with that. The role of my reaver units is now clearly defined, shoot tank - is it dead? If yes, assault move into cover, if not, charge it.

Scourges are obviously better, 5 jump infantry with 4 haywire blasters (or heat lances i guess). This is how they should have been all along. And theyre down to 16 points a guy base.

The ravager got worse and more expensive. This seems really weird as i dont think the ravager has been very good since 5th. Im actually happy i never got around to getting more now as im looking at the razorwing as a better option for the same price. (of which i already have 2. so yay)

The bomber is poo.

I dont get what role archons fulfill now beyond going naked with a blaster as a cheap option or to unlock a court.

Wracks are in a totally weird place now, they arent troops in the main book, and the Haemonculous supplement has elites as core, so you can just take grotesques instead. What do wracks do that grotesques dont?

So once again we're in a position with a new book where people are suggesting the buffs and nerfs are designed to push certain kits. But i still dont buy that. If it was true, wracks and the bomber would be better. I think its just laziness or incompetence.

I'll just sign off by saying the thing that does really stand out to me is how obvious 'the chapterhouse effect' is in this book. Grotesques are single models that come with a liquifier, so all grots can have a liquifier.

The scourge kit (and only the scourge kit) comes with a power lance, so scourges are the only things in the book that can field a power lance.

Its very frustrating when you consider that GW have bigged up their standard practice of giving you loads of spare bits in kits to use elsewhere for ages (and charged a premium for doing so). Now it seems these spare bits cant be used on any other units going forward.