40K: What The 3 New Codices Need To Fix
We’ve got three new xenos Codices coming out soon, here’s what they need to fix to make their armies powerhouses.
Everyone is pretty excited about the upcoming Dark Eldar, T’au and Necron books. Each represents a unique army that has a large following. Given that, we have some high hopes for these new books. However these books represent some of the lowest powered armies in the game, so they will take some work to bring these factions up to snuff.
Lets take a look at the three biggest issues each faction has that GW is going to have to address.
Dark Eldar
Horrible HQ Choices
The Drukhari are severely hampered by their lack of good HQ choices. The classic Archon can take some good short ranged shooting, but though supposedly a combat character can’t get more than a S3 attack. Neither of the other two generic choices nor any of the named characters really stand out as being really good in combat or shooting. Nor do they offer any good army support, being hampered with limited or bad aura abilities. To be competitive the Dark Eldar need some leaders they can count on.
Fractured Keywords
Most factions find themselves unified by their keywords, and great army wide rules. The Dark Eldar on the other hand are divided by theirs. Instead of sharing a < > key word, the Dark Eldar list is divided into <Kabal> <Haemonculus Coven> and <Wych Cult> units. With some units not even belonging to any of the three. With abilities only affecting one of those keywords you are either forced to build an army form a small faction of the Dark Eldar forces or go out of your way to take leaders from each group and keep small detachments here and there. Overall the keywords serve to divide and complicate the army.
A Reason Not To Take Ynnari
Currently there is no reason (beyond fluff) to not include some Ynnari in your army. Adding Ynnari will make your list better with no downside. If Drukhari want to stand on their own we need good reason to not take allies.
T’au
Poor Shooting
T’au are supposed to be the best shooting army in the game. However the reality is that they are actually very bad at it. While they have access to a number of high S weapons, they tend have both bad AP and bad BS. In particular the almost army wide BS 4 on expensive units is a real killer for the army. The widespread negative to hit modifiers in the game now, either from army rules or things like moving all to often leave T’au forces hitting on 5s or 6s, without the massed volume of fire needed to make that work.
A Way to Deal With First Turn Charges
Since they first joined 40K T’au have upheld a proud tradition of being the worst close combat army in the game. While this has always been their weakness they have made up for it in past with shooting, In most games the T’au would get at least one turn of good shooting to try to kill their attackers before it came down to close combat. Now with so many armies able to get first turn charges they simply don’t have that chance. A shooting army that never gets to shoot is simply going to lose. To make it in the big leagues T’au have got to get a way of dealing with first turn charges.
A Way to Deal With Psykers
Psychics are a big part of the game. Right now T’au are the only army that has no way of countering or dealing with them. This leaves them very vulnerable not only to direct attack like Smite but to debuffs and enemy ploys. While T’au don’t need to get Psykers of their own, they do need a way to not just wilt in the enemy psychic phase.
Necrons
Better Buffs
Necrons as an army are horribly supported by their commanders. The army has few aura abilities and little way of buffing its troops. The Crypteck makes some units tougher and the Lord/Overlord has “My Will Be Done” but that only targets one unit. Overall the army has few ways of buffing its forces or allowing them to become grater than the sum of their parts.
A Cheap Transport
While Necrons do have transport options they are pretty limited. Ghost Arks are expensive and can only carry warriors. The “teleport” options they can get all come from taking pretty expensive support units. All this tends to make the core of Necron armies slow and static. What the army needs is some kind of cheap fast transport that could get units where they need to be.
Real Close Combat Options
Like the T’au the Necrons aren’t great in hand to hand fighting. However with the rise of assault armies and first turn assault its more and more necessary for them to either get some good units or a way to reliably avoid close combat. Now the Necrons actually do have a number of units made for fighting in close combat, but not of them are good. Lets revise these units to make them better and give the Necrons a fighting chance.
Let us know how these armies can be fixed, down in the comments!
