Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K: Meet the New Drukhari
Goatboy here with what to expect from the new power faction in Warhammer 40K – the post Balance FAQ Drukhari!
It is interesting how a Balance FAQ update fixed a few things. But it really dug a hole in the one major faction that didn’t need any type of fixing. Dark Eldar/Drukhari are still an issue and will continue to be as the points released is the points will most likely see come January. I am not sure why the designers thought it was ok to drop some points for the naughty Aeldari. But they did and it massively shifted the army into a fat bottom direction.
Gone are the days of the sharp scalpel zipping around the board and bring pain to the enemy. Now with the “New Drukhari” is the time of fat monsters that cost too little, unit choices that are too tough for too little of investment. It is army one of the best players in the world calls “on easy mode”. These things means will continue to see the same DE armies reaching towards the top. The army didn’t get worse, they got better because a very mean counter got kicked down.
As the points are locked in what can GW do to fix this? I truly think we should refresh the points again. But I am sure Chapter Approved is at the printers or stuck on a ship waiting to be delivered for the new year. This leads me to think that a better way to attack this is to eliminate some of the power in how they build armies. They don’t really follow the rules that other books need to. I feel it might be time to bring those rules back into their army or at least force them into a pseudo army of renown to get it.
Align the Covens
I never liked how we would see “Coven” armies led by a Succubus. It made no sense to me as a game balancing option and figured this would be an easy way to attack it. Sure you can make a “Dark Eldar” detachment but you get no Obsession because not everyone is of the like minded Obsession. This would eliminate some of the build abilities that get annoying. For Example lead by a dancer of death but somehow still Obsessed with sticking mechanical pain tentacles in no no places on the body. If you want a Cult of Strife Jabroni you need to have a Cult of Strife Patrol – Wyches and all. If you want an Archon and the Black Heart you need a full patrol of those dudes to run around. This would be a simple thing and match it up to other armies out there. Most of the others need to have everyone be the same in a detachment in order to get those sweet extra rules.
Power From Pain Hurts TOO Much
From there the only other option really is to rework their rules in ways to eliminate some of the synergies. Could they reorder Power from Pain a bit to make it where they don’t get nearly as smothering turn 2? Does it really matter that much as they are fast anyway so getting somewhere isn’t that hard after turn 2? There are so many stacking rules in the new Drukhari army that make something like a 4+ to-hit not matter at all. Thus, you can easily see how powerful a list full of pain robots just is too much to deal with.
Really I don’t know what they should do because we basically caught a glimpse of the future at the Austin GT. Now we wait for everything else to sync up because I am sure there are ton of other points updates that might shift the game. I get the feeling a lot of mid-tier armies are going to see their “good” stuff go up in points. I’m starting to wonder if we’ll just always fight badly damaged Dark Eldar models on the top tables. I won’t say how many “broken” Talos I saw at the GW GT but if I was a pain robot mechanic I know my job would be. Fixing the never ending bent spikes, chains, and blades on a lot of models.
Praying for New Missions
I am hoping changes coming to the main missions might be the way to fix some of this stuff. Maybe even any future armies that might fit into this Drukhari mold (Fast, good at scoring, deadly). I know will see some new ones revealed soon enough. While the Secondaries sound like they are locked in I think an update to the main battle choices will hopefully be a big boon. Or at least something else we can complain about.
Did you ever think we would be complaining about Drukhari being too good a year ago? They were a forgotten faction for over a decade back in the day. Crazy!
