Warhammer 40K: So, The Drukhari Nerf Kind Of Backfired

Let’s talk about how the Drukhari nerf totally didn’t work.

GW’s big balance update attempted to make the game a bit more equal. While it was a good attempt, and succeeded in some areas, it seems to have had some unintended consequences. Let take a look.

Raider Lords

Earlier this year Drukhari were a massive dominant force in the meta. They were getting some of the highest win ratios we’ve ever seen out of an army and absolutely killing it on the tabletop. Their dominance got a pretty negative reaction from the player base however. It was pretty obvious that they were just too good. So GW took action, eventually, and brought the nerfs down. Unlike what they had done with some armies (cough, Salamanders, Iron Hands, Nids, CSM)  the nerfs never really broke the Drukhari. They did get taken down a peg, but they still remained just massively powerful.

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King

The nerfs were however enough that newer armies were able to gain a foothold. Admech and more recently Orks were able to use their complex rules to edge out Drukhari as the top dogs in the meta. Drukhari remained up there, but weren’t quite as bad. Now the really bad armies were these two new ones that just destroyed everyone, and earned the community’s hate.

A New Drukhari Nerf

via Games Workshop

All of this culminated in the new Balance Dataslate. This was an admirable attempt to bring better balance to the Force game. A few armies got some real buffs. More importantly three armies were targets for nerfs. Orks and Admech got some larger nerfs, with rules and point changes. The third targeted army was Drukhari, and they got lessor nerfs in the form of point changes. Looking at the changes I had this thought “The big worry for me is that with Orks and AdMech taking a beating Drukahri might make a quick resurgence as they still have a powerful list. We will have to wait and see on that front.”

Revenge of the Sith Drukhari

It honestly didn’t take long for my fears to turn out to have been well placed. Since the Dataslate Drukhari have jumped back up in the rankings. The consensus among major tournament players is that they have gone back to being the best army out there. Take the recent Austin GW GT. This was a major event run by GW. At the past couple of GW GT’s they’ve talked about the diversity in the top lists. Three of the top four spots when to Drukhari players, and out of the top ten, half of them were Drukhari. That’s not a whole ton of diversity in lists.

Not This Again

GW had great intentions with the Balance Dataslate. In many ways they worked, Orks and Admech took needed hits. Nids and Knights got buffs! This is great. But, as the Jedi can tell you, sometimes trying to bring balance leads to a dark path. And in this case that path is the Dark Eldar’s new ascendancy. It’s clear that Drukhari were always an overpowered army, and that they were only kept down by some even more OP armies. Nerfing those armies, has allowed Drukahri to take over again. Indeed they even got some stealth buffs, such as a points drop to Talos‘ which have shown up in force now. Anyway, hopefully we don’t have another 6 months of Drukhari winning everything to look forward to.

Let us know how long you think Drukhari will dominate for this time, down in the comments! 

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.