Faction Focus: Drukhari

Warhammer 40,000 Faction Focus: Drukhari

I was wondering when Aeldari was announced as a pure faction for 10th Edition what the fate of their dark cousins would be.  At this point Harlequins definitely seem to still be a part of the Aeldari faction, though we still don't know the rules for how they'll be played in 10th.  But, for now at least, it seems the Lords of Comorragh will remain an independent faction with their own rules.

Let's see what horrors they have in store for us . . .

POWER FROM PAIN

The intro discusses how the three aspects of Drukhari work together to accomplish their goals, so it looks like we probably won't be seeing separate rules for Kabals, Cults, and Covens yet, if they keep them at all.

For now, Power From Pain returns, a mechanic 9th Edition Drukhari shared with their AoS sisters.  But now, instead of being a cumulative buff over the course of the battle, it's a token based mechanic.  You gain Pain at the start of Battle, each time you destroy a unit, and each time you inflict Battle-shock.  In a standard Strike Force game you'll be starting with three.

You know, with both Daemons and World Eaters losing their points mechanics, and Votann being simplified, it seemed like 10th was moving away from this kind of book keeping.  Now they're introducing it where I feel the system was much more simple before.  Honestly finding this a little bit strange.

And this is a much more restrictive and less powerful set of buffs for it too.  Admittedly, re-rolling Charges is always useful, but this faction used to have army wide Advance and Charge.  The flat re-roll hits is pretty nice though, especially when their more disciplined cousins just get to re-roll one dice.

REALSPACE RAIDERS

So our first detachment for 10th Edition is the Realspace Raid, implying we could see more dedicated detachments in the future.  I do hope they keep that in some form when the Codex comes out.  This is a very simple mechanic too, you get another Pain token if you have at least one of a sub-faction's leaders, to a maximum of 3.  This can double your starting Pain total.  Being able to front load an army's power is always useful.  Looks like Drukhari will have some serious alpha strike potential.

THE VENOM

Venoms have been potent in many editions of the game.  I seem to recall they were particularly nasty in 8th Edition.  We're getting the full rules for them here, so we can get a better idea for how good they'll be in 10th.

It's interesting the model itself gives you the ability to Combat Squad your units.  If you have one, you can take one squad of Wyches or Warriors and split them.  One part of the unit will be embarked on the Venom, the other can either be deployed or embarked on another vehicle.  I'm noting the rule reads, "Before the battle, at the start of the Declare Battle Formations step, you can select one Kabalite Warriors or Wyches unit from your army."  It's my understanding that rules like this don't stack.  So this means you can split one unit if you bring a Venom, not one unit for each Venom.  I'm curious to see how this actually works out when I have my hands on the full rules.

Oh wow!  It comes with Stealth.  We still don't know for sure what that does, but if it's a -1 to Hit at ranged that will still be quite powerful.  The embarked models also get to fire, which is definitely a plus.

Like many models in 10th Edition, it's a little bit tougher but also a little slower.  The Invuln has gone down a pip but now works against melee.  The Bladevanes are also staying at WS 4+.  It also looks like Splinter weapons are getting a slight boost, wounding Infantry on 3s now instead of 4s.  Other than that a lot of this is what we've come to expect.  The splinter rifles are losing a shot of Rapid Fire but gaining TWIN-LINKED.  Interestingly, not only is the splinter cannon gaining SUSTAINED HITS 1, but the AP hasn't gone down.

What's really cool here is you can Embark units in the Fight phase.  This means you can embark them in your opponents turn and reposition them on your turn.  If there's a Stratagem to allow them to charge, this could be brutal.

KABALITE WARRIORS

The article immediately calls out that Kabalite Warriors have sticky objectives.  They get the added bonus that you can control the marker either with them, or with a Transport they're on.  Looks like they want to keep Drukhari as fast and agile as they can.  This makes sense as they've always been a glass cannon army.

Kabalites are actually faster in this edition too!  Other than that their stats seem very much the same.  Their weapons seem mostly unchanged, save the standard AP reduction.  The big loss here is that the Sybarite is substantially nerfed.  My guess is that they probably felt it didn't need its current damage abilities with the new Leader rules.

Huh!  And I just noticed they have Aeldari as a keyword.  So while the Aeldari units we've seen don't have any keywords denoting them as anything but Aeldari, Drukhari are still both Drukhari and Aeldari.  I'm guessing Harlequins and maybe Ynnari will have their Keywords too.

WEAPON SPOTLIGHT

We get to see the Talos's haywire blaster.  It's lost a shot to gain TWIN-LINKED, but that's almost certainly a buff.  The re-roll will be very appreciated when fishing for 4s.  Like similar weapons, it's gained DEVASTATING WOUNDS now but lost the extra mortals.  In exchange it's now flat 3 damage.  Its AP has gone down, but that doesn't really matter since you'll be ignoring saves for Vehicles anyway.

We then get a peak at Lelith herself!  She's gained an attack but lost a point of Strength.  In exchange her weapons are now ANTI-INFANTRY and have gone up to SUSTAINED HITS 2!  She will shred most light or medium infantry now and any such characters will need to watch out.

ALLIANCE OF AGONY

The stratagem reveal doubles down on the Detachment Rule.  They really want you to take one of each faction leader for this army.  This is the first Stratagem I'm kind of cold on.  You're basically trading 1 CP for 2 Pain Tokens.  Of the two resources, I feel CP is going to be far more scarce.  Still, if the game isn't going well this might give you a way to catch up.

FINAL THOUGHTS

They finally end with a little tease of Advance and Charge returning for Wyches, if only as a Stratagem.  I think they might need it too.

Drukhari entered 9th Edition with all the devastation and terror befitting their faction.  Between them and AdMech, they devastated formats for nearly a year.  This Drukhari force feels like it might be paying a bit for those sins.  The new army rule will require much more skill to use.  This is honestly better than an army rule that doesn't require much skill at all, but the army as a whole can already require some effort to pilot.  However a lot of that power does seem to have gone back onto the units, which seem to allow for a agile and hard hitting play style. 

Like so much of this edition, I guess we'll have to wait and see.