Like a swarm of locusts, they blot out the night sky. They take prisoners; sow terror and confusion. A harvest of pain and screams all to satiate the eternal torment and hunger of their souls.
In this review, we’ll look at the new Drukhari Codex, the new and revamped pain token faction rule, the new Detachments, enhancements and stratagems, the new datasheets for classic units as well as new ones (Skari: And lament the loss of the old ones; F in chat for the beastpack folks), and how it all comes together for the army.
Before we dive in we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Codex and the new models included in this article. We have also been provided with a provisional Munitorum Field Manual for the army to use when writing the review, but please note that these points are subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.
Army Overview
Drukhari are meant to unleash swift, agonising demises upon their foes, and this book certainly aims to deliver on that deadly promise.
We think the following are five standout features of this book:
- Depth. Drukhari have access to every “cool rule” in 40k (from ignore cover, to reactive moves, to pseudo Lone Operative). Each unit is unique and will provide something of value to the army. A true testament of the “sum of parts” mentality that the army showcases.
- Detachments. Current popular choices remain strong, but there’s some real appeal to all of the ones in this book, and they generally avoid locking too much of the roster out, even if they specialise a bit.
- Deadliness. Lots of offensive improvements to units, including Incubi making a glorious return to S5, and a scattering of gifts and boosts elsewhere.
- Adaptability. The revised Power from Pain gives you a huge amount of choice in how you distribute your resources.
- Hellions. God damn. Honourable mention to Wracks on this one too.
There are a few things that are a bit less welcome.
- General decrease in some key characteristics like Leadership. Most units are now Leadership 7+, which slightly undermines the elite feel of the army. Archons and Kabalites are also slower, going back down to a 7” Movement.
- Departing units. Almost every resin kit has been removed from ranges as new Codexes have been released, but it hits especially hard in Drukhari which had a relatively thin selection of datasheets to begin with.
We were also a little worried that the army was a bit overcosted when we first received the book, but the provisional MFM points hand out a fair few drops, which has mitigated our concerns here.
The Video Version
Want a video version of this review, so you can listen to it while you paint or torture the souls of the damned? We’ve got you covered:
Army Rules
The basic rules concept for Drukhari hasn’t changed – longtime players will be familiar with Power From Pain, generating Pain Tokens, and becoming Empowered, but there are some changes to the rule which will change how the army functions.
Power From Pain
The general way this rule works is more or less the same as before: You’ll generate Pain tokens over the course of the battle, then spend them to make your units better. Unlike in the Index, you no longer start the game with any tokens (unless you’re running the Realspace Raiders Detachment), but on top of getting tokens when enemy units are destroyed or fail Battle-shock tests, you’ll also pick up a token at the start of each of your Command phases. This means that, all things being equal, you’ll have a few more tokens over the course of most games, but you’ll have fewer available to you in the first two rounds to get things started. You can supplement your supply with the Haemonculus, whose Pain Adept datasheet rule adds a Pain token to your pool in your Command phase on the roll of a 4+.
Empowered Through Pain
Each datasheet in the Drukhari army now has an ability marked (Pain). These abilities are triggered by spending Pain tokens to Empower the unit. While a unit is Empowered, it will have an extra bonus or ability, such as automatically Advancing 8”, re-rolling Wound rolls, or getting additional Attacks. Units stay Empowered to the end of the phase and when an Attached unit is Empowered, all of the Pain abilities of the Leader and Bodyguard units are activated at the same time (you only have to spend tokens to activate one). Unlike the previous version, you don’t have to activate these at the start of the phase; instead, each ability has its own timing trigger, so pay attention to when they have to be used.
Lowest of Men: The overall flavour and customisation here as compared to before is undeniable – every unit has built in powers that make them unique and trigger from the Pain tokens in very different ways, so no two spending plans will be exactly the same. You do pay a price for it, of course – exactly what the overall power impact of losing the generic reroll hits and extra AP is remains to be seen. That said, as you’ll see as we unpack the units, you have a bunch of self supporting shooting options and combat threats that work extremely well, and can plug in to a number of the different detachments too, so don’t be disheartened!
Impact
The biggest impact here is going from a one-size-fits all rule for your army (re-rolling advances/charges or getting re-rolls to hit and an AP boost) to something tailored to each unit and its role on the battlefield. This can be a wash on some units – Wyches now gain the ability to Charge after Advancing or Falling Back while Empowered, a useful ability, but losing re-rolls to hit and extra AP hurts them (or would, were their Datasheet not also way better now). Some units like Mandrakes see Pain tokens used to activate their old datasheet ability – Fade Away in their case – but then gain a powerful new passive ability which makes them untargetable outside 18”. Your biggest challenge may be remembering what all your abilities are, because every unit having effectively two datasheet rules, one of which has to be activated with Pain tokens, is a lot to keep on top of.
Where it does actually bite is on high impact units that don’t now have a way to get re-rolls, most notably Voidravens (though their comically high price is near-disqualifying anyway) and Talos. There’s not too many instances where units are outright worse instead of different, but there’s a couple of cases like this where more compensatory buffs might have helped.
Detachments
There are five Detachments in this Codex. Realspace Raiders and Skysplinter Assault both return from their Index and PDF versions, plus three new ones – one each for Kabals, Cults, and Covens. On top of that, the Reaper’s Wager Detachment remains legal, giving Drukhari six to work with. You can find the full details on each Detachment in our Detachment Focus articles, linked below.
Realspace Raiders is an updated version of the Index detachment, and is very much improved here, working well with the new Pain token mechanics. This detachment gives you Pain tokens to start the game based on having Kabalites, Wyches, and Wracks in your army along with the corresponding characters. It’s going to be very popular as you are rewarded for taking units you will likely be taking anyway.
Skysplinter Assault is back and it’s about the same as the index version, giving you bonuses for disembarking from Transports – specifically [LANCE] and [IGNORES COVER]. It works especially well with units of Wyches.
Spectacle of Spite is your Wych-focused Detachment, giving you the choice of one of six Combat Drugs to be active for your WYCH CULT units at the start of each Command phase. Or you can pick two at random, with no benefit for rolling doubles. You can only pick each effect once, but you can randomly generate an effect a second time. These effects improve your army’s characteristics in similar fashion to a Creations of Bile list (a nice little lore throwback to his time training with Drukhari).
Covenite Coterie is the Haemonculus Covens Detachment option, giving all of your Covens units -1 to be wounded by attacks with a Strength greater than their Toughness characteristic. It also gives you a way to resurrect Haemonculus models when they’re destroyed and bring back dead bodyguard models.
Kabalite Cartel is for Archons, Kabalites, and Blades for Hire units. At the start of the battle you pick one of three Contracts to complete based on a target unit to destroy. Your units gain a specific ability when targeting the contract unit (or in most cases units that share a keyword with it) and when that unit is destroyed you gain 3 Pain tokens. These abilities help kill the target – think [PRECISION], [LETHAL HITS] and [SUSTAINED HITS 1] – and you can get a new Contract via a Stratagem after you complete one.
Reaper’s Wager from Grotmas is still here, and it’s still a contender for the best detachment – army-wide re-rolls are quite useful, even moreso with the general change to Pain tokens. This Detachment lets you combine Drukhari and Harlequins units and still has some of the best stratagems available to the faction.
Note: The updates for Reaper’s Wager will be coming soon – our review has not yet been updated for this Codex.
Datasheets
Because of how Power From Pain now works, every datasheet changes from the Index, as each now has a Pain ability on it. In some cases, these reproduce effects that you could achieve in the Index, while for others they’re entirely new. This means that Drukhari datasheets generally have more going on than the average in other books, but you’ll also need to be careful to plan your Pain expenditure to get the most out of them.
Sky Serpent: While we are no longer ‘Rerolls, the army,’ the new Pain abilities allow a new level of agency and fluidity to explore different combos with leaders and their bodyguard while you’ll likely have less wastage in lieu of over committing Pain Tokens which you didn’t need to use. A good Archon is always seeking a new level of pain and this can be found via many datasheets and detachments, there are plenty of ways to gain additional Pain Tokens!
As with all 10th Edition Codexes, some resin classics depart the stage for Legends. Here, those are:
- Urien Rakarth
- Beastmasters (and their packs)
- Court of the Archon
- Grotesques
This is an unusually impactful set of departures – the first three of these are staples in current builds, and Grotesques have seen play (and would love some of what the Coven detachment has to offer here). You’ll need to work out how to backfill these capabilities as you update your lists.
Finally, there are also two wholly new datasheets, and we’ll cover those first.
New Datasheets
Lady Malys
As the leader of the Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue and one of the most powerful Archons in Commorragh – not to mention one of the only beings who has a shot at out-scheming Asdrubael Vect – we expected Malys to have abilities that will let you interfere with your opponent’s gameplan. And she doesn’t disappoint: she offers not only a three-unit redeploy ability, she also increases the costs of your opponent’s stratagems by 1CP when targeting units within 12”. She’s no slouch in combat, either, packing the Lady’s Blade with 6 attacks at 5/-3/3 and the ability to spend a Pain token to give her unit your choice of [Sustained Hits 1] or [Lethal Hits] for a phase.
Hand of the Archon
The Kill Team box finally gets a datasheet, and it has as many guns as you’d expect it to. They have Scouts 7”, which is a handy trick, especially if they start embarked in a Raider. They also pick an objective at the start of the game, then get a 5+ invulnerable save and improve their OC to 3 as long as they’re within range of it.
Their Pain rule is a bit lackluster, unfortunately: it gives them [Lethal Hits] and [Precision], which we’d normally be excited about, but it specifically doesn’t apply to dark lances, blasters, and blast pistols, which are the weapons you’d really want those on. If you really want to get mileage out of it, there are other effects you can look to to improve their AP between shardcarbine Scourges and some of the detachments, but auto-wounding splinter weapons are usually kind of a dud.
Updated Datasheets
Kabal and Blades for Hire
On the Kabal side of things, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Archons lose both of their abilities, exchanging them for the once-per-game ability to clear Battle-shock on a unit within 12” and a once-per-round cost reduction for a Stratagem targeting their unit. Their Pain ability allows their unit to re-roll Hit rolls, giving some much-needed reliability to a unit of Kabalites or Incubi. They do pick up some neat wargear options, though: your choice of an agoniser with ANTI-INFANTRY 3+, a huskblade that hits for 3 damage and has DEVASTATING WOUNDS, or a power weapon that hits at the familiar AP-2 2-damage statline with no keywords. On top of this, they can swap their splinter pistol for your choice of a blast pistol or the new soul trap, which adds 1 to the Attacks and Strength of their melee weapons until the first time they kill a model, at which point the bonus goes up to two each. The soul trap is a vastly superior choice to any of the Pistols, and even before the upgrade gets these to a seriously nasty place.
Sky Serpent: While you’ll never see an Archon with a pistol again, I wouldn’t write off the Agoniser as this will combine well when used in tandem alongside Incubi and their Decapitating Strikes ability so that your wounds all become DEVASTATING WOUNDS due to being ANTI-INFANTRY 3+
Rank and file Kabalite Warriors are more or less unchanged, keeping the ability to make objectives sticky (though not generically while in a Transport – that’s now part of the Raider datasheet), and picking up a Pain ability that lets them re-roll Wound rolls of 1, or all Wound rolls if their target is on an objective. Stick an Archon in here and their shooting output is very similar to what they were in the index. Not amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but you’re probably going to be taking a squad in most lists anyway, so it’s good they’re about on par.
Archons can also still join Incubi, who now hit at Strength 5 and now not only force Battle-shock tests at the start of the Fight phase, but get +1 to hit against Battle-shocked enemies. Their Pain ability gives them DEVASTATING WOUNDS against INFANTRY. This combos nicely with their Incubi Shrine Tokens, which function similarly to Aeldari Aspect Shrine Tokens, letting them change a single Hit or Wound roll to an unmodified 6. Unfortunately, you can’t use the token on Drazhar or an Archon, but each one’s still good for a guaranteed 2 devastating wounds into an infantry unit.
Speaking of Drazhar – he’s much spicier than in the Index. He gets +1A on each of his offensive profiles, and a bit of a reshuffle on abilities. +1 to Wound for his unit becomes his Pain effect, while when Leading a unit, he now grants them 6” Pile Ins/Consolidates. Having a cost on the +1 to Wound is mildly annoying but the new baseline datasheet ability is strong, and it also opens up the option of taking him solo as the Pain ability doesn’t require him to be leading a unit to function. This is further augmented by a change to his other ability, Silent Executioner – rather than once-per-game Precision, he now re-rolls hits against targets below Starting Strength, and wounds too against targets Below Half-strength. It’s not hard to set up the hit re-rolls, and he hits hard enough that you could seriously consider just taking him as a solo beater (and he’s also still great with a squad).
Scourges are now split into two datasheets. The first is the same unit you’ve been taking in all your games, and you’ll probably continue to do so; they’re still the same good unit with move-shoot-move and your choice of 4 dark lances, heat lances, or haywires (or another heavy or special weapon, if you’ve recently suffered a serious head injury). This version keeps “reroll all hit rolls” as a Pain ability, though only in the Shooting phase. You weren’t putting them into melee anyway.
The new sheet is Scourges with shardcarbines. They’re still a unit of 5, but they can only take shardcarbines, which seems odd until you look at the right side of their datasheet. First, they give your entire army an extra point of AP against one target they hit for the rest of the Shooting phase. Second, their Pain ability lets them drop in anywhere more than 6” away from enemy units, making them into a useful action-scoring unit that can then flex into a force multiplier where you need it.
Sticking with the Blades for Hire, Mandrakes rock here. They still have Infiltrate and Stealth, but add full Deep Strike, which they can jump back into using their Pain ability. As with several things in this book, that did used to happen for free (though it’s more flexible now – no requirement to come back down on the next turn), but here the replacement basic datasheet rule is the extremely good ability to be untargetable outside 18”. This has fantastic synergy with an uppy-downy scoring piece, as if you’re judicious about where to place them, the opponent might just not be able to do anything about them. Finally, they’re a bit more lethal – both their melee and ranged attacks add some AP (the latter also getting IGNORES COVER), and their melee gains DEVASTATING WOUNDS. They’re 10pts pricier than right now, but you get a lot for your points – one unit can accumulate serious value, and they’re even better able to pick off enemy scoring pieces than before.
Ravagers get two major upgrades: first, their datasheet ability now lets them reroll all hit rolls against targets at Starting Strength, not just rolls of 1. Second, disintegrator cannons might not be terrible now: moving to Strength 6 and AP-3 gives them just enough added punch that they might be worth taking, especially in the Kabalite Cartel detachment. They also love access to the 18” untargetable Stratagem in that detachment.
Wych Cults
Leading the charge for the Wych Cults is Lelith Hesperax, who is still an anti-Infantry blender. She’s lost out a little from the migration to Pain effects, as her Brides of Death ability has been split in two – Fights First for being a Leader, +1 to S and AP as her Pain effect. The only trade-off for that is that she does now have Precision, which gives her an additional role taking down Leaders in other units. Like with Drazhar, the one silver lining of the Pain change is that you could get a bit more value from taking her solo, as you can still get the juicy AP-3 (though Wyches are strong and cheap enough now that you don’t really need to).
Your generic Wych Leader option is the Succubus, who is being subjected to a prolonged experiment to determine whether it’s possible to make a worthwhile melee Character with D1. Maybe, finally? She’s still dirt cheap, and has 7A with ANTI-INFANTRY 3+ and AP-2 (plus PRECISION). This is augmented by SUSTAINED HITS 1 when leading a unit, and a built-in ability for full Hit and Wound re-rolls (for herself only) against Character units, plus a 1CP reward if her unit kills a Character. That is decent – if you throw her at a 4W Character with a 4+ Invulnerable save, she does now have a shot at killing them, and adds a decent weight of output into any Character unit. There are also a couple of Enhancements that make her legitimately scary on top of this slightly improved profile. Finally, her Pain effect is slightly unremarkable, but nice to have – it gives re-rolls to either Advances or Charges. Since you’ll already be Empowering Wyches in the Charge Phase to get their Advance/Charge, that’s effectively a free re-roll for a spend you were already making, so why not.
Wyches then – and yes, their Pain effect is Advance/Charge, which is exactly what you want from them. They’re also quite a bit nastier than they used to be – the basic models are up to 4 Attacks each, and you can now take four improved weapons per unit. There’s a 5 attack ANTI-INFANTRY 3+ power weapon for the Hekatrix (why isn’t this just an agoniser?), and the welcome return of the old Wych weapons, now renamed as “gladiatorial weapons”, each of which is 5A, S4, AP-2. That’s a big boost on lethality compared to the Index, and makes them more than just a Lelith delivery tool. Concentrating the killing power in four models helps when splitting with a Venom too – it makes it very easy to have an actual scary squad to go with Lelith or a Succubus and then a cheap objective piece from the other half.
Wyches are spicier now, but for real heavy lifting from Wych Cults, Hellions are the answer, and could well be the best unit in the book. They get LANCE built in on their hellglaives, already a big boost, and supplement that with a Pain ability to get +1S and +1A, which makes even five-model units really scary into a wide variety of targets. Not content with that, they get a d6” reactive move when enemies end within 9”, and improve their base save to 4+, which is supplemented with the addition of the SMOKE keyword to the Helliarch’s phantasm launcher (which also still gives GRENADES to the unit). Five of these is a scary thing for elite Infantry to have to play around, ten is a threat to anything, expect to see a whole bunch in lists.
Lastly for the Cults, Reavers are ultra fast positional pieces, which can also drop a few mortal wounds somewhere in a pinch. Their base datasheet is pretty much unchanged (speedy bikers that do mortal wounds on a 4+ on a flyover and have one nasty melta shot), with the exception that their flyover mortals now work when Advancing. This is important because their Pain effect is a flat 8” Advance, meaning that if you desperately need to drop one mortal wound on something to finish it off, it’s in the danger zone if it’s anywhere within about 21” of a unit of them. Being able to move an OC6 unit 24” is also just very strong for mission play. Not as exciting as Hellions, but one squad of three as a utility piece seems somewhat plausible.
Sky Serpent: If you’re missing your Beastmaster and furry/feathered friends, then depending on terrain the Reavers can help fulfill a similar role with increased speed and ability to tag while doing some chip damage owing to their Eviscerating Fly-by.
Haemoculus Covens
One of the most eye-popping datasheets in the book is the new profile for Wracks, who move to 2 wounds instead of 1 wound with a 5+ Feel No Pain, a definite mathematical improvement. Their save has also improved to a 5+ (plus keeping their 6+ invulnerable save), and their abilities have been replaced with a pair that are considerably more versatile – now The Torturer’s Craft lets you pick a non-VEHICLE unit at the end of the Shooting and Fight phase which was hit by attacks from your Wracks unit and force them to take a Battle-Shock test. This is specific to this unit, so if you have multiple units of Wracks shooting the same target, you can stack these tests. The Pain ability on Wracks is Experimental Enhancements, which lets you pick one of either getting 3 attacks on your non-character melee weapons or 4 attacks and gaining [HAZARDOUS]. And this is also the part where I note that wrack blades have been replaced by twin torturer’s tools, which are S4, AP-1 weapons with [ANTI-INFANTRY 4+] and [TWIN-LINKED], so if you were worried about losing the AP bonus from the old Pain tokens well, you won’t miss it. And for all that, they only went up 10 points in cost per five models, making this an absolute glow-up.
In a similar fashion, the Haemonculous got an improved Save (to 5+), but kept his old 5-wound profile with a 5+ Feel No Pain. He now has three abilities: Fear Incarnate (Aura) worsens the Leadership characteristic of enemy units within 6” by 1 and forces enemy units below starting strength to test in the battle-shock step of the opponent’s command phase. It’s a good combo with Wracks’ ability to force extra tests. Pain Adept is the easiest Pain token generation in the army – just be on the table with one or more of these models and roll a D6 in your Command phase; on a 4+ you get a token. Finally, their Pain ability is Fleshcraft, which lets you spend 1 Pain token each Command phase to bring back D3+1 dead bodyguard models. A steal given how valuable Wracks are, and a bit less degenerate than the imaginary world where they kept the old ability and could give the 2-wound models a 4+ Feel No Pain.
The Talos lost a point of Leadership (now 7+) but gained both some innate accuracy by going to BS3+ ranged attacks and some melee punch as chain flails become AP-1, while the rest of their options are AP-2 and talos gauntlets bump up S9. They now give you 1 additional Pain token each time they destroy an enemy unit and gain [TWIN-LINKED] when they take two macro-scalpels, giving you more reason to go that route. Their Pain ability lets them fight on death on a 2+. This is all great, but they’re a unit that really misses the old version of Pain tokens – though you aren’t quite so dependent on re-rolls to Hit now that they’re more accurate in the first place.
The Cronos keeps its ability to refund pain tokens – you get them back for spending them on units within 9” on a 5+ (or a 4+ if you have at least one Cronos which did not take a Spirit Vortex – the wording is weird). The Pain ability here can be used in the Shooting or Fight phase to have your Coronos heal 3 wounds if they killed an enemy model, or revive a dead Cronos if the ones left are all at full health. Similar to other units, they’ve also gained 1 AP on their melee attacks, and Spirit-leech tentacles became a real threat, gaining 2 attacks, hitting on 3+ and gaining [ANTI-INFANTRY 2+].
Other/Shared
Next, we have the winner of this book’s award for “Most Complicated Datasheet,” and it’s…the Raider? For some reason, the main Drukhari transport now has the most rules of anything in the book. In addition to a Pain ability that lets it re-roll hit rolls for weapons with the [Anti-] ability (neat for letting mounted Kabalites take potshots from their ride), it also gets a “pick an ability” similar to what you’d expect from Primarchs and similar units. The abilities are themed to let it help the specific units it’s carting around. Regardless of its payload, it can gain the ability to reroll Advance and Charge rolls as long as it’s carrying something. Shove some Kabalites in there, and you can choose to give it sticky objectives. Wracks add an additional attack to its melee profile for each one it’s carrying (a fun potential combo with the Stratagem in Skysplinter Assault that also rewards this). Most interesting though is the bonus it gives to Wyches: if you choose that ability for the round, a unit of Wyches disembarks wholly within 6” instead of 3”. With their new Advance and charge, this gives them even more reach.
Venoms moved to Ld 7+ and a unit can still embark in one at the end of the Fight phase if they’re wholly within 6. Its Pain ability is used when the Venom Advances to let units Disembark afterward as if it only made a Normal move, but those units can’t declare a charge afterward (they can otherwise act normally). This is a bit of an edge case, but it’s potentially useful for grabbing objectives that are just out of reach, or, since the unit only counts as having made a Normal move, doing Actions.
Like many of the vehicle units in the book, the Razorwing Jetfighter went to Ld 7+. Its Shatterfield missiles improved a bit, going to AP-2. It still gets +1 to Hit units that can’t FLY, and its new Pain ability, Nowhere to Run, lets you pick a non-MONSTER, non-VEHICLE unit it hit in the shooting phase to become pinned, taking -2 to its Move Characteristic and -2 to its Charge rolls.
Finally, the Voidraven Bomber also goes to Ld 7+ and retains its Void Mine ability, doing D6 mortal wounds to each enemy unit they moved over in the Movement phase on a 4+ once per battle. The Voidraven’s Pain ability lets it strip the Benefit of Cover from a single unit it hit in the Shooting phase, giving it an extra boost when it comes to helping take out a key threat. Both planes are fine, even interesting, but wow Voidravens are expensive.
Sky Serpent: Giving the flyers linked and flavourful names for their Pain abilities in Nowhere to Run and Nowhere to Hide really shows the love and attention to detail that has been given to this Codex.
How They Will Play
Wings: As always with the Drukhari, plan A here is to bait foes into exposing themselves, then eviscerate them with a wide variety of brutal murderers. The classic bait of Beast Packs is gone, but 2W Wracks and improved Mandrakes both do a solid job of forcing your opponent out to play. Wracks are just over the line of needing something “real” to come and get them, while 18” untargetability on Mandrakes forces foes to get somewhat close. Venoms with split units also continue to provide a cheap way of demanding some attention. Heavy weapon Scourges remain fully operational as a way to take safe pot shots at the foe as well, punishing anything that isn’t fully hidden.
Once the foe comes out to play, the Drukhari’s ability to punish them is stronger than ever. Improved Wyches, Hellions and Incubi all provide some serious blending capability, and the various Detachments add lots of diverse ways to power up your toys. Hellions in particular provide a mid-weight all-purpose threat that doesn’t really need any support, something the army was missing before, and which should do a decent amount to mitigate the loss of some previous favourites. They should be especially valuable in the melee Marine-heavy metagame we seem to be finding ourselves in.
Evil elfcore, in short. I guess the only thing I’m faintly worried about, having digested the whole lot, is whether the change to starting Pain tokens makes it hard to get the ball rolling early on. There is stuff here that’ll kill without Pain tokens, but some units really want them, and you may need to spend pain to make pain. A Haemoculus with some pet Wracks could prove surprisingly clutch for mitigating that, as the combination of command phase generation and dropping some Battle-shock tests can help build up a stash.
Lowest of Men: The new unit rules and the Detachments themselves set you up nicely to play classic, underhanded Drukhari 40k. Bait the foe out, deny their scoring, put them on a timer, and then counter-attack viciously when the opposing forces try to force the issue. Reavers and Wyches are worthy shout-outs as early skirmish and denial units, before the heavy hitters come to play mid-game as Hellions, Incubi and Talos get to work.
The book does a good job of restoring that ‘mini-blender’ feeling for the Drukhari characters and their retinues too – these won’t live long, but they sure will take their pound of flesh in the turn you commit them. The Archon, Malys, Drazhar, Lelith and the Succubus all punch up nicely in the right detachments and conditions, and it’ll be awesome mix and matching across games. With your ranged support a little more flexible now thanks to built-in accuracy support for the Ravager and the return of the Disintegrator Cannon, I can see Drukhari speccing nicely for different elements of the field with a wider range of tools than before.
Final Thoughts
Liam: Look, losing datasheets sucks, especially in a range like Drukhari where they’re already pretty thin on the ground. There isn’t a single thing in this book that didn’t exist in the fifth edition codex, which came out almost 15 years ago now, and even with Lady Malys we’re operating a one-in, one-out system as Urien Rakarth goes to the torment chambers where all resin models are kept these days. It doesn’t help that Beastmasters have been holding the faction up competitively for a while now, with at least one appearing in most lists.
It’s important to take a breath, though, and look at what is here rather than what isn’t. In general, the refreshed datasheets are good, and there are real efforts to correct some of the issues Drukhari units had. It’s nice to see some of the weirder choices from the index fixed, too, such as with the restoration of gladiatorial weapons to Wyches, and S5 to Incubi. The Detachments all look at least interesting, and while Reaper’s Wager probably remains the strongest option, I’d like to try all of the others. Now, time to find where I left all my Hellions…
Lowest of Men: The best advice I can give is to get the new toolkit on the table and start figuring things out. We have a book here that has multiple, quite different ways to tool up and send out your Realspace Raiders, and a lot of very powerful (and sneaky!) combinations to try. Drukhari are a highly skill-expressive army, and, as is good and right, finding the combinations, traps, and set ups takes a little bit of digging. Trust me though, they’re there! It’s been a long wait for the Dark Kin, now it’s time to hunt…
Sky Serpent: This book brings the lore to life with so much depth and flavour with some great rules. A lot of Archons including myself will have to adapt to a potential new playstyle if they leaned heavily on the options that have now gone to Legends but the new Codex is so exciting!
The detachments are all great, all encourage and reward different playstyles while I don’t think there is a bad datasheet in the Codex. They work agnostically but sing (or scream?) even more when married to their subfaction’s detachment.
It’s time to experiment and find out what works for you!
Condit: And while you’re looking for the list that works for you, keep in mind that many of the units who lost access to rerolls and AP from Pain tokens get other changes that help make up for that. A lot of the units who really needed those boosts in the Index either get an extra point of AP baked into their melee weapons natively or receive some other boost to make up for it. Wyches getting gladiatorial weapons and Wracks picking up AP on their torturer’s tools are two of the standout options here, but even units like Mandrakes and Reavers get some much-needed boosts to their damage output that keep them on par with their Index counterparts even without spending a Pain token.
This, combined with the fact that many units’ new Pain abilities are some degree of situational, means that your Pain economy is going to be hugely different than it has been previously. Take Wyches as an example: the return of gladiatorial weapons and the extra attack on Hekatarii blades means that 10 of them are now slightly deadlier with no support than they were with hit rerolls and an extra point of AP in the Index. And while the ability to advance and still charge is admittedly great, it may not be one you find yourself needing every time you want to chuck them into combat. Add on that you’ll have better token generation over the course of a game between the free one at the start of your turn and that Haemonculus you’ve got stashed over in the corner and you’ll likely find the Dark Kin to be more reliably potent than they’ve been all edition, with the added kicker that it’ll be much harder to completely run out of gas.
Does this mean a return to 9th edition’s Hot Drukhari Summer? No. But if you’re a fan of the faction who’s been hoping for a more fun and flexible set of rules to play with, this might be just what you’re looking for.
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