How would you fix the weakest codex?

[Gridlock]

Every conversation I see on 40 codices certain armies ALWAYS comes up as being on the *** end of the spectrum, in such a way that it almost doesn´t matter how good or bad the player is, unless the other players are extremely unlucky and/or the player is extremely lucky certain armies will never get in first in the tournaments.
At least they won´t get into first place or close to unless they bulk up on allies.
Now while o have nothing against allies I don´t like the way that they need to be alpha omega for certain armies in order to win, to me allies should be flavor only, sure they can offer some fun game mechanics, but in the end your army should be able to fight and possibly win it all on its own two feet.

So let´s say GW hired you to re-write the rules of the one codex you thought was the weakest and bring it up to a point where it could actually win tournaments on its own.
And just to be clear here I am talking tournaments with no limits at all if the rules say you can do it, you can do it, so your army will have to be one that can stand up to every death star list out there and have a reasonable chance of beating it.

So which codex would you improve and how?

With me it would be Dark Eldar main because it´s what I play.

Now the Dark Eldar as I understand them is the fast scalpel, the thousand cuts army that will bleed an opponent to death rather than finishing it off instantly.
So a Dark Eldar army should have two things in my mind weapons that can slowly peel off the enemy’s armor and be the fastest army there is.
The moment a Dark Eldar army stands still they die, because in exchange for speed they have sacrificed their armor to such a degree that even a Imperial guard last gun can be deadly for them.

Here´s what I would change with the Dark Eldar:
Now for the sake disclosure I don´t have huge experience on tournament and the system I have most experience with is Fantasy, so most suggestion on improvements are from what I have read on the internet:

While each kind unit has a fixed amount of movement I would add 1d6 to that movement, the dice roll is final and can´t be re-rolled.
The only exception should be Dark Eldar Reavers which not only get the 2d6 roll any Eldar Jetbike does, but also has the option of re-rolling one of the dices.

All Dark Eldar units would have a 5+ Feel no pain from the beginning.

All Dark Eldar units should have the Fleet special rule.

Power from Pain is the same as in the Heamonculus Coven.

Also the Dark Eldar has a special rule that means in close combat they always strike first no matter what, against other Dark Eldar players roll a d6 the one who gets the highest strikes first.
While I am no fan of removing overwatch or directly nullifying it, i´m looking at you Eldar Banshees, I do think it should be remodeled for Dark Eldar on account of them having virtually no armor.
Dark Eldar Whyces and Incubi should on account of their speed for any unit to roll a 1d6, on a 1 and 2 the unit is not allow to overwatch, on a 3 and 4 they do so but at half BS and on a 5 and 6 they fire overwatch like normal.

Mandrakes are described as being able to emerge from any shadow slice the throat of their victim before sliding back into the shadows again.
Sounds almost like what the Eldar Warp spiders are able to do, so make Mandrakes able to do the same.
Able to teleport around the board and gear them for hit and run close combat.

Change the Dark Lance abilities so it mimics the thousand cut analogy.
For each hit that doesn´t destroy the Target it give it -1 to its armor save.
It could be like this 1st hit nothing happens, 2nd hit -1 to armor save, 3rd hit -2 armor save and so on and so forth till it´s reduced to only be able to manage a save on a 6+
In fluff terms it could be described as the Dark Eldar able the hit the same spots over and over again and each time remove a little amount of the armor till almost nothing is left.

Grotesques have the same abilities as Dark Lance slightly modified 2 hits are needed before they get the same effect.
I imagine in fluff terms it could be described as the Grotesques beating at the same spot constantly till broke through was able to tear open the hull and get to the crew.

Also Raiders and Venoms should have the special rule Fleet of foot or something like that that makes it so that if the Raider or Venom is destroyed, the crew will only be wounded on a 6+
In exchange if you do hit that 6+ no saves of any kind is allowed, neither feel no pain or It will not die.

[Reldane]

I can understand a lot of your points with regards to allies and how certain books have become so dependent on them to function in a competitive environment. However speaking from a game balance perspective, whilst you have asymmetrical armies, you are never going to have a situation where having allies isn't going to increase the available options. more options is invariably more powerful for example: wairthguard (a strong unit, from arguably the strongest codex) with a Archon with webway portal and a shadow field makes the unit a lot more durable and allows it to deep strike to where exactly where it wants to be. The only way to balance would be too make the costs and disadvantages of Allies more restrictive, however this is contrary to Games Workshops current philosophy of letting players play with what they want and would also affect the less abusive more fun/fluffy allies.

as for your suggested changes to Dark Eldar, a lot of them would entail a lot of extra steps each turn along with increased bookkeeping with every dark lance hit affecting armour slowing the game down for what amounts to little effect.

my personal ideas would be:

• 4+ armour save on trueborn, possibly even ghost plate. there's simply no reason not to have 4+ save ranged units

• Assault grenades on Incubi, although not on witches. there is little point including rules for assaulting through cover if every unit ignore the effect, however Incubi are the Heavy(er) assault unit and should have the stronger charge whilst the cheaper witches should need to better pick targets

• Give Witches a 5++ dodge save against everything rather than the 4++ in close combat

• Remove Bloodbrides as they don't really fulfill any role at the moment, and any role that they could fill is now occupied by Harlequins.

• make Drugs a d3 roll: 1 +1ws, 2+1S, 3 +1T. that way you are always going to see some benefit to them.

• make power weapons of all kinds available to the Dark Eldar rather than just swords

• special/heavy weapons dependent on the squad size, no more 4 special weapons on 4 trueborn. I appreciate that there are other examples of armies having 4 special/heavy per 5 however not with as much maneuverability as is offered to the dark eldar

• increase the cost on Raiders (or raiders with stealth) at the moment they are easily the best transports in the game, with armour values counting for less and less the fast skimmer jinking for a 3+ cover that is also an assault transport that can deep strike is a lot of advantages and should be costed accordingly.

• give the Voidraven bomb str D, its one use only and on an expensive unit

[Houghten]

While each kind unit has a fixed amount of movement I would add 1d6 to that movement, the dice roll is final and can´t be re-rolled.
The only exception should be Dark Eldar Reavers which not only get the 2d6 roll any Eldar Jetbike does, but also has the option of re-rolling one of the dices.

You can already add 1d6 to your movement, it's called Running. Jetbikes can Turbo-Boost.

All Dark Eldar units would have a 5+ Feel no pain from the beginning.

Eh...

All Dark Eldar units should have the Fleet special rule.

Most of them already do; the exceptions are the Coven units, which are slower but hit harder, and units that can't Run anyway.

Power from Pain is the same as in the Heamonculus Coven.

We'll probably get a unified table next Codex around. Nothing since Necrons turned the format upside-down has had a Supplement.

Also the Dark Eldar has a special rule that means in close combat they always strike first no matter what, against other Dark Eldar players roll a d6 the one who gets the highest strikes first.

Is this the real life? Is this just Fantasy?

While I am no fan of removing overwatch or directly nullifying it, i´m looking at you Eldar Banshees, I do think it should be remodeled for Dark Eldar on account of them having virtually no armor.
Dark Eldar Whyces and Incubi should on account of their speed for any unit to roll a 1d6, on a 1 and 2 the unit is not allow to overwatch, on a 3 and 4 they do so but at half BS and on a 5 and 6 they fire overwatch like normal.

Overwatch is already BS1; there's no such thing as BS½.
Also, no.

Mandrakes are described as being able to emerge from any shadow slice the throat of their victim before sliding back into the shadows again.
Sounds almost like what the Eldar Warp spiders are able to do, so make Mandrakes able to do the same.
Able to teleport around the board and gear them for hit and run close combat.

Agreed that just having Infiltrate isn't the best way to represent Mandrakes' abilities, but I'm not sure Warp Spiders are the best role model for them. More like a remove-and-re-Deep-Strike thing, I think.

Change the Dark Lance abilities so it mimics the thousand cut analogy.
For each hit that doesn´t destroy the Target it give it -1 to its armor save.
It could be like this 1st hit nothing happens, 2nd hit -1 to armor save, 3rd hit -2 armor save and so on and so forth till it´s reduced to only be able to manage a save on a 6+
In fluff terms it could be described as the Dark Eldar able the hit the same spots over and over again and each time remove a little amount of the armor till almost nothing is left.

Grotesques have the same abilities as Dark Lance slightly modified 2 hits are needed before they get the same effect.
I imagine in fluff terms it could be described as the Grotesques beating at the same spot constantly till broke through was able to tear open the hull and get to the crew.

Dark Lances are already AP2 and Lance; they don't need a power boost. Grotesques could have the ability to glance anything on a 6+ if you wanted them to be able to kill vehicles without any tedious bookkeeping.

Also Raiders and Venoms should have the special rule Fleet of foot or something like that that makes it so that if the Raider or Venom is destroyed, the crew will only be wounded on a 6+
In exchange if you do hit that 6+ no saves of any kind is allowed, neither feel no pain or It will not die.

I'd just go back to the old "open-topped transports explode at S3," myself. Simpler.

• 4+ armour save on trueborn, possibly even ghost plate. there's simply no reason not to have 4+ save ranged units

What are Scourges?

• Assault grenades on Incubi, although not on witches. there is little point including rules for assaulting through cover if every unit ignore the effect, however Incubi are the Heavy(er) assault unit and should have the stronger charge whilst the cheaper witches should need to better pick targets

Why should the heavy assault unit be the fast assault unit?

• Give Witches a 5++ dodge save against everything rather than the 4++ in close combat

They could do with having haywire grenades back, too.

• Remove Bloodbrides as they don't really fulfill any role at the moment, and any role that they could fill is now occupied by Harlequins.

Disagree so hard. You should be able to do a pure faction army if you want to.

• make Drugs a d3 roll: 1 +1ws, 2+1S, 3 +1T. that way you are always going to see some benefit to them.

*shrug*

• make power weapons of all kinds available to the Dark Eldar rather than just swords

Agreed and doubled down: let DE players kitbash. A Space Marine Tactical Squad only comes with a Missile Launcher for a heavy weapon and a power sword and power fist for the sergeant, yet they can still take plasma cannon, heavy bolters, power axes, lightning claws, etc, etc, etc. Yet only the Solarite can take a power lance or venom blade because Scourges are the only box they come in, even though they fit perfectly well on a Sybarite? For shame! The venom blade should be restored to the Mêlée Weapons List, Trueborn should be able to take Shardcarbines again, the "Scourges only" should be removed from the Haywire Blaster and Heat Lance, and there should be no such thing as a weapon that an Acothyst can take but a Haemonculus can't.

• special/heavy weapons dependent on the squad size, no more 4 special weapons on 4 trueborn. I appreciate that there are other examples of armies having 4 special/heavy per 5 however not with as much maneuverability as is offered to the dark eldar

Really? What's more manoeuvrable about a Raider than a Chimera (IG Special Weapon Squad) or Rhino (Dominions)? Being a Fast Vehicle only helps the vehicle shoot, not the passengers. Also, Windrider Jetbikes are even more maneuverable and can take heavy weapons on every model.

• increase the cost on Raiders (or raiders with stealth) at the moment they are easily the best transports in the game, with armour values counting for less and less the fast skimmer jinking for a 3+ cover that is also an assault transport that can deep strike is a lot of advantages and should be costed accordingly.

What do you mean, armour values counting for less? Destroyer and Haywire are both things, yes, but you still can't take out AV12 with bolters. Raiders fold like a paper tissue if you look at them hard, even after jinking. They don't need to get any more expensive.

• give the Voidraven bomb str D, its one use only and on an expensive unit

Agreeb!

The Voidraven's rules had the misfortune to be written before some bright spark started putting the D on non super-heavies.

[jeffersonian000]

The main issue is that GW always seems to be writing for the next edition. Back in 5th, they released the GK codex, which was a bit overwhelming in power level, and also introduced new concepts that were standard in 6th. With 6th coming out, GK got pretty neutered, the DA codex was considered a flop, SM were pretty bland, etc., then codexes started to crank up the power level, leading to ... 7th Ed. With 7th, those "OP" armies became meh, newer codexes were meh, then we start seeing OP releases leading up to .... 8th?

What I'm saying is that the "bad" releases where written for the current rules, the "good" releases are written for the rules that haven't come out yet and will be seen as underwhelming after the new rules are out.

TL;DR - GW sucks are managing their release schedule.

How to fix it? Fire their product manager, hire a real publisher and some technical editors, and actually play test their products before they go to print.

SJ

[angkor what?]

I proposed something a while ago before the latest dark eldar codex. It was a special rule to fix Mandrakes.
Something like 'pulled into the shadows' in lieu of normal attacks you may elect to attempt to pull an enemy into the shadows. For each mandrake in the unit your opponent must make a toughness test. For each failed test one enemy model is removed from play (with no saves allowed) with one mandrake also removed. The mandrake may attempt to come back by passing an initiative test.

Couple that with a movement like spiders and you've got a very fluffy style in my opinion.

[Gridlock]

You can already add 1d6 to your movement, it's called Running. Jetbikes can Turbo-Boost.

Yes but I am suggesting putting it in even when you walk, either that or every unit needs to have shoot and run or run and shoot, with no penalties what so ever.
As for Reavers in the fluff it is said that the drivers of dark elder Reavers constantly modifies their Jetbikes to go a little bit faster.
I would want that to be reflected in the rules and to set them apart from their craftworld cousins, hence the option for re-rolling
It would represent the Dark Eldar trying to squeeze just a little more speed out of his engine.

Eh...

Feel no pain on a 4+ or 5+ would again represent the speed of the Dark Eldar, according to the fluff some of them are fast enough to dodge a last gun shoot or a bolt round.
So again if you make your FNP roll it´s the Dark Eldar, that dodges the shoot or something like that..

Most of them already do; the exceptions are the Coven units, which are slower but hit harder, and units that can't Run anyway.

I would suggest even getting coven units to get that extra move or get fleet.

While coven units can hit harder and are tougher, the way I understand it even our toughest units can still be ripped apart, if they go up against Gray knights or other such lovely units with instant death and other lovely toys.
So again either toughen the units up so Wracks, Grotesques, Talos and Chronos would be able to go up against Grey Knights and Dreadnoughts and other such heavy units.
Or increase their speed so in a sense they would be able to run in circles around such units.
Personally I am a fan of the last as I have mentioned before in my mind the Dark Eldar´s main themes should be speed and the thousand cuts that slowly bleed the opponents to death.

Having units that go round after round in close combat just doesn´t sound very fluffy to me.

We'll probably get a unified table next Codex around. Nothing since Necrons turned the format upside-down has had a Supplement.

That would be nice, because this current codex seem a little chopped up, like Haemonculus Covens and Dark Eldar where really meant to be one codex and not two.
Just bring back the old fluff with Haemonculus being able to make Wracks troops and you can run with the Coven and Dark Eldar forces combined or just coven alone.

Also I didn´t mention that before, but I really think that Haemonculus support role should be beefed up.
Kinda like this the Archon is mainly a character hunter he is supposed to go after single targets and take challenges.
The Succubus should be a little like the Dark Eldars answer to the Eversor a close combat monster that should be able to take on blobs of enemies.
The Haemonculus should be the Support choice with a capital S.
He isn´t meant to go into close combat if he does he´s toasts, same with his shooting it´s only so so at best he can be sniper unit, just not a very good one.
What he excels at should be beefing up units, we have the obligatory put him in a unit and he raises the counter of their power from pain chart.
But also maybe do stuff like heal a unit, give them access to special drugs that raises a stat randomly.
Now since he can do all those things, you might be tempted to put him in a Wynch unit, except he will get creamed relatively quickly.
There you could give him certain pieces of equipment that has the abilities described before but could work them at a distance.

Is this the real life? Is this just Fantasy?

Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
High Elves in Warhammer Fantasy used to have (don´t know if they still do) a special rule that said no matter the opponent initiative the High Elves ALWAYS got first turn in close combat.
This was to make up for the poor strength compared to other armies out there.
I would be suggesting something a little like that for Dark Eldar, whenever they get into close combat no matter the opponents initiative the Dark Eldar always had first strike, even if they were the ones being attacked.
Again in fluff terms their speed would be the cause of that.

Overwatch is already BS1; there's no such thing as BS½.
Also, no.

Okay must have read it wrong, the way I read it you always fired Overwatch on your normal BS.
Which would be Wyches wasn´t used anymore as they would get shredded by Overwatch before they ever got a chance to get into close combat.
But I would still say that Wyches and perhaps Incubi should have a way to negate Overwatch reason is that a Wyche suit is a 6+ save and anything that hits it kills the Wyche.
So the d6 option would make the Wyches viable again as there where a 50/50% chance that they could get into close combat without being shredded by overwatch.
Either that or give them a 4+ Feel no Pain that way the opponent would still get to fire Overwatch and there would still be a 50/50% chance that the Wyches would make it into close combat.

Agreed that just having Infiltrate isn't the best way to represent Mandrakes' abilities, but I'm not sure Warp Spiders are the best role model for them. More like a remove-and-re-Deep-Strike thing, I think.

That could work either that or maybe a combination of that option and what angkor what? Suggested.

Dark Lances are already AP2 and Lance; they don't need a power boost. Grotesques could have the ability to glance anything on a 6+ if you wanted them to be able to kill vehicles without any tedious bookkeeping.

Okay when you put it like that I can see the model I proposed would slow the game down a bit.
However I read this on another Forum which to me does illustrate that the Dark Lances in their current form does have a problem, mind you it was in 6th Edition but from what I have read not that much have changed since then, so the argument is still valied.
One of Dark Eldars major problems: 90% of the shooting is poison, ie they cannot even GLANCE a rhino in the ***.

Now someone might think "well, they have the super blasters and dark lances !?" Yes, which often is worse than lascannon, and only one shot per unit.
No Assault Cannon, Auto Cannon or the like, to take the medium out vehicles. You MUST use one hard shot (and hope you hit AND penetrates) against even the softest orc buggy. And if you make an army of 16 lancer and 12 blasters, then you really don´t have anything else. Fine, you stopped a few more tanks, but you have 40 models in the army, which will be swept away with ease.

In the 7th edition is an EVEN greater disadvantage since tanks again got a boost, so fleet armies again emerges from the caves.

Std. Marines with S4 rapid fire bolter, four warriors with S5 rapid fire, Necrons with rapid fire gauss etc., etc. can all blow small aircraft, rhinos, raiders, buggies and land speeders to smithereens without problems if they come within 12 " while a unit of kabalite warriors stand with their ONE blaster, and MAYBE hits, and MAYBE damage a rhino (which is now also Claiming!), and it is often not enough to stop it.
Now there are so just five instead of two, so Dark Eldar have a tooth worse in 7th, not least because of. This.

This was part of the reason I suggested maybe fixing the Dark Lance so it would have a better option of damaging the various units.
A Ravager can have three Dark Lances that´s 3 potential hits suddenly instead of saving on a 2+ you can only do an armor save on 5+
Which would make up for the fact that a Dark Eldar lance can only shoot once.

I'd just go back to the old "open-topped transports explode at S3," myself. Simpler.

Problem is all Dark Eldar armor is wet cardboard, it takes almost nothing to make them go down, so again to compensate for that I think once again a D6 for the all the passengers.
Only on a 6+ will the passengers get injured, once they are on the ground however they can be picked off normally.

Why should the heavy assault unit be the fast assault unit?

Incubi in my opinion shouldn´t get any types of range attacks not grenades or anything
They should be a close combat unit and nothing else, the main thing they should focus on is going after smaller elite choices, like Terminators and such.
As for dealing with Tanks and other heavy units leave that to the Grotesques, Ravagers and Scourges that´s their job.

They could do with having haywire grenades back, too.

I can only say YES PLEASE

Disagree so hard. You should be able to do a pure faction army if you want to.

Agreed Harlequins have become their own faction now, let the Blood Brides fill out the position that the Harlequins occupied.

Agreed and doubled down: let DE players kitbash. A Space Marine Tactical Squad only comes with a Missile Launcher for a heavy weapon and a power sword and power fist for the sergeant, yet they can still take plasma cannon, heavy bolters, power axes, lightning claws, etc, etc, etc. Yet only the Solarite can take a power lance or venom blade because Scourges are the only box they come in, even though they fit perfectly well on a Sybarite? For shame! The venom blade should be restored to the Mêlée Weapons List, Trueborn should be able to take Shardcarbines again, the "Scourges only" should be removed from the Haywire Blaster and Heat Lance, and there should be no such thing as a weapon that an Acothyst can take but a Haemonculus can't.

If every Dark Eldar could take every weapon we would have a lot of useless units.
Why should I take Scourges if my warriors can fill out the exact same role?
Again while the Dark Eldar doesn´t have the Path system like the Craftworld cousins do, I would still say let each unit have something they are geared towards.
As said before I see the Haemonculus as a support unit, he isn´t designed to ever go into close combat and even his shooting is much is nothing and unexceptional, where he excels is in support.
So re-tool the different units so they are more geared towards the role they will fulfill in your army.

What do you mean, armour values counting for less? Destroyer and Haywire are both things, yes, but you still can't take out AV12 with bolters. Raiders fold like a paper tissue if you look at them hard, even after jinking. They don't need to get any more expensive.

We defiantly agree here, Dark Eldar armor is wet cardboard and that´s when it´s at its best.
Chimeras and Rhinos can take a lot of punishment Venoms, Raiders and Ravagers can´t even a stiff breeze will knock them over.
So if they go up in points they need some SERIOUS improvements to justify their price increase.

Agreeb! The Voidraven's rules had the misfortune to be written before some bright spark started putting the D on non super-heavies.

Can´t argue there especially when we look at things such as Eldar Hemlock Wraithfighters that have all sorts of goodies on them including psychic powers.
If Voidravens and Razorwing is to be worth their cost Voidravens should get D on all their weapons and Voidravens weapon range should increase and each should get Night shield or something like that.

[Reldane]

Really? What's more manoeuvrable about a Raider than a Chimera (IG Special Weapon Squad) or Rhino (Dominions)? Being a Fast Vehicle only helps the vehicle shoot, not the passengers. Also, Windrider Jetbikes are even more maneuverable and can take heavy weapons on every model.

I generally try not to respond without constructive points to make, however a couple of points have been made that I would like to address.

firstly Raiders and Venoms are quantifiable more maneuverable than Chimera and Rhinos, being both a skimmer and a fast Vehicle.
Skimmer: "skimmers can move over friendly and enemy models... Skimmers can move over terrain ignoring all penalties for difficult terrain and Dangerous terrain tests" - that's pretty clear cut as being easier to move than a non skimmer.

fast: "fast vehicles that moved at combat speed can fire all of their weapons... fast vehicles that moved at cruising speed may fire up to two weapons using their full Ballistic Skill" - means that the Vehicle (but not the passengers) can fire move weapons having moved 12" than a regular vehicle that moved 6" given that a lot of specail weapons are closer range, Meltas, Blasters and so forth the ability for a Venom to move 12" in the first (and potentioaly second) turns whilst still pumping out 12 bs posioned 4+ shots certainly lets it get into a better position

Deep strike - both the Venom and the Raider now have Deep strike as standard. making them able to arrive anywhere on the board with the usually drawbacks associated with Deep Strike.

all in all Raiders and Venoms are a more maneuverable in two quantifiable ways, and one debatable way, than the more regular transports avaible to non eldar players.

add in the fact that non open topped vehicles have limited firing ports and the squads by comparison are capped at firing 2 weapons rather than all of the weapons that can be fired and hopefully you can see why every other army would happily trade their transports for Venoms and Raiders. As to your comment about the Eldar windriders, honestly I have nothing to say, but if you can only justify your own units by comparing them to Eldar then you may need to change the title of the thread from the worst codex to not quite the Eldar Codex.

What do you mean, armour values counting for less? Destroyer and Haywire are both things, yes, but you still can't take out AV12 with bolters. Raiders fold like a paper tissue if you look at them hard, even after jinking. They don't need to get any more expensive.

We defiantly agree here, Dark Eldar armor is wet cardboard and that´s when it´s at its best.
Chimeras and Rhinos can take a lot of punishment Venoms, Raiders and Ravagers can´t even a stiff breeze will knock them over.
So if they go up in points they need some SERIOUS improvements to justify their price increase.

with Gauss, Haywire, Destroyer and Grav weapons becoming ever more prevalent along with increases in the firepower of high strength weapons, Tau Broadsides with Missile pods for example, it matters very little if your transport is AV 10 or 11, either way it is enough hits to take it out (also you brought up the Ravager that has exactly the same AV's as a Rhino). now in the case of the Venoms and Raiders being open topped does increase the chance of a pen causing an explodes result that can be devastating, but to balance that point being open topped permits you to assault (even after your transport is wreaked) and to fire all of your weapons. rules that do fit well with the Dark Eldar principles of being a very offensive but also very vulnerable army.

however with the inclusion of Stealth and Jink your transports now can have a 3+ save against a lot of shooting, and have a much better chance to survive a volley of str 5 or better shooting than a Rhino

weapon Str	to hit	to pen av10	to glance av10	shots to kill	to pen av11	to glance av11	shots to kill
5	4/6	1/6	1/6	34.7	0	1/6	27
6	4/6	2/6	1/6	22.1	1/6	1/6	13.5
7	4/6	3/6	1/6	16.2	2/6	1/6	9
8	4/6	4/6	1/6	12.8	3/6	1/6	6.8

shots taken calculated as to HP/(hit*(to pen*chance to destroy*2+to glance)*failed save) 2 being average amount of hull points lost on a destroyed result.

hopefully you can see how begin able to take a 3+ cover save increases the amount of firepower taken to destroy the vehicle by some margin meaning Venoms and Raiders are a lot more durable than they might at first seem. I haven't compared them with a Chimera because the Chimera has side armour of 10 meaning that taking either facing will skew the results one way or another.

[angkor what?]

I proposed something a while ago before the latest dark eldar codex. It was a special rule to fix Mandrakes.
Something like 'pulled into the shadows' in lieu of normal attacks you may elect to attempt to pull an enemy into the shadows. For each mandrake in the unit your opponent must make a toughness test. For each failed test one enemy model is removed from play (with no saves allowed) with one mandrake also removed. The mandrake may attempt to come back by passing an initiative test.

Couple that with a movement like spiders and you've got a very fluffy style in my opinion.

Actually rather than in lieu of attacking it would be better at initiative step 9? After HoW

[Katharon]

It's not a matter of "fixing" weak codicies, but rather a matter of pairing down extremely powerful ones.

[Charon]

Skimmers can move over terrain ignoring all penalties for difficult terrain and Dangerous terrain tests" - that's pretty clear cut as being easier to move than a non skimmer.

There is an item called "Dozer Blade" which decreases your chance to fail dangerous terrain tests immense. Also note that skimmers still have to test if they end or start in diffcult terrain.

fast: "fast vehicles that moved at combat speed can fire all of their weapons...

Which is totally important for the raider which has... ONE weapon.

You also fail to compar point costs. While yes, it takes 3 times as many shots to down a jinking Raider with nightshields than to kill a rhino, you also get around 3 rhinos for the same points.
Also the existence of AV12 all around dirt cheap drop pods makes the mobility point rather moot.

hopefully you can see why every other army would happily trade their transports for Venoms and Raiders.

Sure they would. Because they have high quality troops to transport. They would not be very keen if they were only allowed to transport chaos cultists.

You just need to compare price points to see that the mobility of the raider/venom is actually no big deal as the transported units are strictly worse than aything else at their price point.

Flayed ones come at the same price point as Bloodbrides for example.
And while the Bloodbrides have a better BS and I, the Flayed ones have more S, T, A, Ld, Sv and a ton of useful special rules AP5 and shred.

So basically if you had the choice between spending another 70 points to let your 10 Bloodbrides have "the superior mobility" and DS them with a raider or just Infiltrate/DS 2 units of 8 Flayed ones I am pretty sure that most people would go for the flayed ones.

You can do this for nearly every single unit in the book.