Please ignore if this was a rhetorical question, you know I just love to type into forum textboxes. I also don't mean to defend Games Workshop who are big enough, ugly enough and profitable enough to look after themselves, but like any hair splitting internet geek I have my own nuanced view on what of their things are bad and wrongme_in_japan wrote: ↑Thu Sep 29, 2022 8:57 amI have to ask, is completely hosing an entire army with a new codex release normal these days in 40k, or am I just incredibly unlucky with my army choices? I mean, I could handle a few units needing a few new guns, or maybe shifting from Troops to Fast Attack or something, but seriously, I've had 3 whole armies shotgunned out from under me, and every time I start looking into it it just gives me the twitchy-eye.
Anyway short answer, no, generally what is *playable* does not change that much with new codexes in the modern era.
What is *good* changes frequently, and contrary to general prejudice, not simply to the newest models. So having re-started in 8th I have lost zero models from playability and been all too frequently provoked to buy *old* models because the wheel of buffs landed on Falcons and Space Marine Attack Bikes of all things. If anything GW's reluctance to stop selling Firstborn marines and support nearly everything they've ever had in some respect is a problem for the Space Marine Codex which has terrible internal balance.
There are exceptions:
- The great 7th --> 8th divide. I came back too late to be familiar with this but I understand late 7th was pretty wild and 8th was happy to slaughter a lot of sacred cows. It's entirely possible armies that worked in the Indexes in early 8th stopped working as Codexes came out. Even this is 5+ years ago though, but if you were out of the game for this transition, it's likely this had a bigger effect on what you came back to than the 9th Codexes.
- An army is spun out as its own thing when it was previously a subfaction. I'm not sure this has actually happened without also being part of the 7th --> 8th transition but we will see it soon with World Eaters and I fully expect they will lose options.
- The minis are not sold *at all* anymore. This is where Legends comes in. This is actually good for casual play - the units vanish from the Codex but they are in a free PDF, and the fact you can't use them in tournaments is not very relevant for most of us (meanwhile tournaments don't have to deal with recast Chaplain Dreadnaughts everywhere because they're accidentally busted even though you can't actually buy them). However they also don't really get updated, so over time those rules will probably interact oddly with whatever's current. They are playable though.
- You bought the minis from Forge World. I am pretty sure GW proper has minimal loyalty to the Forge World back catalogue - it might be the same company but as I understand it very different studios. For the most part Forge World rules support is actually getting better and given how extensive their Legends PDF is I think there is pretty good coverage of the rules *existing* but ultimately I think they're not first class citizens.
I think you have been a bit unlucky in that you have been hit by the Death Guard getting split out so you unexpectedly find yourself the owner of two armies, and the Corsairs being (AFAICT) firmly in the Forge World bucket (though to be fair the datasheets I've seen look super easy to use as long as your opponent is OK with Legends).
Drukhari I'm afraid I'm not sure what the issue is. I appreciate there were army compositions you had that don't work now, but Drukhari are so good and so flexible in how they can put together a force I'm really quite sure there are many great lists you can put together with any arbitrary assortment of models. It might be a bit tougher at Combat Patrol size because you only get one Patrol, but even then you can mix in Wyches and Haemonculi into a Kabal detachment and not switch off detachment rules (or Kabal into a Wych detachment or whatever). Drukhari are nuts!