Really, no one noticed you now could win back CPs from your own stratagems now ? Before that it was only when the opponent used them. Anyway your Black Heart Archon will mostly stay hidden in the back so it's just win-win.
Aaranis wrote: Really, no one noticed you now could win back CPs from your own stratagems now ? Before that it was only when the opponent used them. Anyway your Black Heart Archon will mostly stay hidden in the back so it's just win-win.
We didn't notice it because that was already the case. Looks like you nerfed yourself.
Yo what the hell the French codex says only when your opponents uses a stratagem ! Then yeah I agree it's a small nerf. Good thing I won't get a game with Drukhari before probably V9 at the rate I'm buying
Agree that killing the patrol combo 1 week after release is... a bit stupid. "Oh you can use it in smaller games or narrative games or take 6 detachments in bigger games" feels like a cop out.
The DE codex was probably written 3 months ago while this FAQ has been re-written in the last couple of weeks but still.
But yeah - I am cautiously optimistic that this will make Dark Eldar better rather than worse. Being fast matters a lot more when opponents are not turn 1 DSing at point blank (okay 9") range. If they can only DS into deployment you can keep key models (ravagers, flyers) back so they will get to do something.
It definitely hurts Scourge and Mandrakes but potentially not as much as other units - they may be able to shoot from deployment, especially if you go second, and they have the movement to get across the table in future turns. I can potentially see that against some armies you might want to just set them down normally so they can move up the board.
I think an interesting question will be how many CPs armies really need. I mean...would you use 20-25 CP in a game?
Probably not. I'd have thought you would be spoilt for choice with just a double batallion and an expected 17 or so in a game.
I can see the use in running above average CP numbers in a DE army so you can freely use Agents of Vect to mess with people.
Being able to stop the Chaos shooting twice stratagem and other such crucial stratagems every turn can feel pretty strong.
I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Dunno how much deep striking hurts scourges. I'm not usually looking to get them super close anyway.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Except that 3 Patrols also requires a second underwhelming HQ and then a third underwhelming HQ as well, all for less benefit.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Except that 3 Patrols also requires a second underwhelming HQ and then a third underwhelming HQ as well, all for less benefit.
But different underwhelming HQs, providing different bonuses, the only thing that brings most of them up to the level of, at least, whelming. I don't mind having to take, say, a Poison Tongue Archon, a Red Grief Succubus, and a Prophets of Flesh Haemonculus, each providing useful benefits to my army by their existence, even if only the Succubus is all that useful as a unit in her own right. What I mind is having to take a second Poison Tongue Archon, who provides me zero real benefit (or take Drazhar, who has some nice rules, sure, but honestly is not worth 120 points and pretty much inherently requires me to take Incubi).
To me the benefit of their abilities and obsessions is worth the points. An extra CP or two, less so. I'd rather spend it on another unit.
Note I have enough troops and heavy suport to get 1 more CP for 1 aditional Archon. But I do not think he would be worth it, In many ways the Archon is just a glorified kabalite warrior with BS2.. I have not plaued with him yet, so maybi that huskblade is better then I imagine, but I am not holding my breath.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Except that 3 Patrols also requires a second underwhelming HQ and then a third underwhelming HQ as well, all for less benefit.
But different underwhelming HQs, providing different bonuses, the only thing that brings most of them up to the level of, at least, whelming. I don't mind having to take, say, a Poison Tongue Archon, a Red Grief Succubus, and a Prophets of Flesh Haemonculus, each providing useful benefits to my army by their existence, even if only the Succubus is all that useful as a unit in her own right. What I mind is having to take a second Poison Tongue Archon, who provides me zero real benefit (or take Drazhar, who has some nice rules, sure, but honestly is not worth 120 points and pretty much inherently requires me to take Incubi).
To me the benefit of their abilities and obsessions is worth the points. An extra CP or two, less so. I'd rather spend it on another unit.
Well said. Our HQ's are pretty meh as is but with a combo of warlord traits and relics (dishing out 3 cp for 3 relics is iffy but 1 cp to have 2 relics sounds fine) having one of each to assist their designated units is fine. To me succubi without relic weapons are just very underwhelming, more-so when you factor in how drug distribution is such a pain. The raiding party allowed us to have the complete flavour of our codex without having to double down on redundant HQ slots, 1 of each felt fine. Haemonculus is the only one I'd consider taking two of so I could spread the +1T around further. Sure in larger battles battalions were getting taken anyways but in smaller games the raiding party offered a way of list building that simply wasn't possible due to our keywords not working inside of the same detachment. What bothers me is that when our dex came out we had 1 extra CP for 1 extra HQ, seemed fine to me and it was the workaround to our unique keyword burden. Then two weeks later they pull the rug out from under us and boost everyones CP for a detachment they were taking anyways but leave ours as is. How hard would it have been while they were writing our FAQ to boost our raiding party to 6 CP? It's not like they didn't know what changes they were planning when they were writing our FAQ.
On another note making the raiding party an atleast semi-competitive option made getting into mixed DE (in terms of purchases) a fairly simple process, 1 HQ and 1 Troop per detachment, not unreasonable. Now to build into multiple battalions for higher point games I'm tripling my investent in troops and doubling my HQ purchases to make a battalion of each. For those without existing huge DE armies leaving the raiding party in the dust just made it that much harder to play using all the models in your dex.
AnFéasógMór wrote: (or take Drazhar, who has some nice rules, sure, but honestly is not worth 120 points and pretty much inherently requires me to take Incubi).
Honestly, Drazhar doesn't really do a whole lot to help Incubi. The +1 to hit doesn't really matter after turn 3, and if you really need it sooner, Architects of Pain costs one CP. Worse yet, Onslaught only works on unmodified rolls of 6, so it's not like he helps towards that either. Incubi are mediocre with or without him, but Drazhar himself is just plain bad no matter what he's doing or who he's with.
Not really any better or worse than they were, other than a bit cheaper. There are better ones in the game, there are worse ones, they're solid units with solid rules, that fit well in the right list and don't in the wrong one. Pretty balanced units, all in all, imho. We also got FAQ rules for an oop jet you could easily kitbash from a razorwing, but I haven't looked at it well enough to know how it stacks up to the other two.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
whembly wrote: So... no more Trueborn units with blasters?
Guess I'm breaking off arms...
But cheaper Kabs, cheaper splinter rifles, and one blaster per 5 rather than 10. You can still technically run TB on the index rules, but with cheaper Kabs and 12 pt scourges, I don't know it it's worth it. I will say with the changes, I only found myself swapping out a handful of blasterborn for something else; you'll find a place for most of them among your newer, better, cheaper, more-worth-taking Warriors.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Dunno how much deep striking hurts scourges. I'm not usually looking to get them super close anyway.
1 less HQ total for 1 more command point would seem to not be too much of a problem to justify.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, as a funny side note for use if any of you ever come across an opponent who insists upon using the new FAQ rulings to make models invulnerable to assault by standing them on things:
RAW, post-FAQ, all dark eldar non-flying vehicles are fully immune to being assaulted unless an enemy can get to their base (flying stands being over 1" tall), and they're freely allowed to be tilted down when you charge so that the nose can be used to measure to target model bases.
"RAW, post-FAQ, all dark eldar non-flying vehicles are fully immune to being assaulted unless an enemy can get to their base (flying stands being over 1" tall), and they're freely allowed to be tilted down when you charge so that the nose can be used to measure to target model bases. "
How so? What part of the faq even suggests this?
They have Hover on the datasheet that overrides this.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Dunno how much deep striking hurts scourges. I'm not usually looking to get them super close anyway.
1 less HQ total for 1 more command point would seem to not be too much of a problem to justify.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, as a funny side note for use if any of you ever come across an opponent who insists upon using the new FAQ rulings to make models invulnerable to assault by standing them on things:
RAW, post-FAQ, all dark eldar non-flying vehicles are fully immune to being assaulted unless an enemy can get to their base (flying stands being over 1" tall), and they're freely allowed to be tilted down when you charge so that the nose can be used to measure to target model bases.
Fight powergaming with powergaming.
This was already specifically FAQ'd out last summer to not be a problem.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Dunno how much deep striking hurts scourges. I'm not usually looking to get them super close anyway.
1 less HQ total for 1 more command point would seem to not be too much of a problem to justify.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, as a funny side note for use if any of you ever come across an opponent who insists upon using the new FAQ rulings to make models invulnerable to assault by standing them on things:
RAW, post-FAQ, all dark eldar non-flying vehicles are fully immune to being assaulted unless an enemy can get to their base (flying stands being over 1" tall), and they're freely allowed to be tilted down when you charge so that the nose can be used to measure to target model bases.
Fight powergaming with powergaming.
This was already specifically FAQ'd out last summer to not be a problem.
The rule in the codex says "measure to the hull or base (whichever is closer). The check to see whether a unit is within assault range is a check whether my opponent has one of their bases within 1" of either my hull or my base (whichever is closer). Since my Hull is always more than 1" off the ground, it is ineligible as something that any model can possibly assault (barring weird circumstances and other measure from hull vehicles).
Certainly if they make it to my base, I can be assaulted, but unless they make it to within 1" of my base, my vehicles are immune to assault, rules as stupidly written.
whembly wrote: So... no more Trueborn units with blasters?
Guess I'm breaking off arms...
But cheaper Kabs, cheaper splinter rifles, and one blaster per 5 rather than 10. You can still technically run TB on the index rules, but with cheaper Kabs and 12 pt scourges, I don't know it it's worth it. I will say with the changes, I only found myself swapping out a handful of blasterborn for something else; you'll find a place for most of them among your newer, better, cheaper, more-worth-taking Warriors.
That's a very good point... thanks!
Also, I've seen lists where Archons can take blasters... but, in the codex I don't see it on the datasheet. How is this possible?
Anything from the index should be weened off though. It's a bad idea to model your newer kits off index options since the index will go in the trash sooner or later. Have an old conversion or model you really are attached to? Use the index. Trying to squeeze more crap into a list for an edge in game? Expect it to be gone eventually. I personally like the idea of a blast pistol on an archon better but I know that is just my opinion. At 10 points they are really good anyway.
Good points overall guys... I do see the appeal for the blast pistols.
Also... I'm kinda new to vehicle rules in 8th...I've only played Demons since 7th.
But, if a rapid fire weapon is on a vehicle, say a venom w/ splinter cannon...is it always 6 shots at full 36"? Or, is it in 8th vehicle shoots like infantry and need to be in rapid-fire range to get the full number of shots?
In either case, is it worth it to upgrade the splinter rifle on venoms to cannons?
whembly wrote: Good points overall guys... I do see the appeal for the blast pistols.
Also... I'm kinda new to vehicle rules in 8th...I've only played Demons since 7th.
But, if a rapid fire weapon is on a vehicle, say a venom w/ splinter cannon...is it always 6 shots at full 36"? Or, is it in 8th vehicle shoots like infantry and need to be in rapid-fire range to get the full number of shots?
In either case, is it worth it to upgrade the splinter rifle on venoms to cannons?
The second thing - it only gets full shots at half range.
I like the splinter cannon upgrade, purely because it means I don't have two different range sweet spots for my venom - it gets to 18", it's shooting at full effectiveness.
If my venom is transporting kabalites though I often leave it because it's only 2 shots more, and the venom will want to be at 12" anyway for the kabs.
So per the new FAQ all our flying CC units just got better, as we can charge way easier, by ignoring vertical movement. So deep strikes to charge a unit in a building (or dropping at the top to get to ground zero) are way more attractive. Also there's a thread in the YMDC section arguing with strong arguments that flying units ignore vertical movement even in the movement phase, picture from the starter set "Know No Fear" proving that.
Aaranis wrote: So per the new FAQ all our flying CC units just got better, as we can charge way easier, by ignoring vertical movement. So deep strikes to charge a unit in a building (or dropping at the top to get to ground zero) are way more attractive. Also there's a thread in the YMDC section arguing with strong arguments that flying units ignore vertical movement even in the movement phase, picture from the starter set "Know No Fear" proving that.
Hellions got even better ?
The annoying thing is that you (per the FAQ) need space to place on of your models in CC with the charged unit. So if a squad of aggressors completely fills out a floor in a ruin, they are essentially immune to being charged by anything with a base. A Leman Russ can do it though.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Dunno how much deep striking hurts scourges. I'm not usually looking to get them super close anyway.
1 less HQ total for 1 more command point would seem to not be too much of a problem to justify.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, as a funny side note for use if any of you ever come across an opponent who insists upon using the new FAQ rulings to make models invulnerable to assault by standing them on things:
RAW, post-FAQ, all dark eldar non-flying vehicles are fully immune to being assaulted unless an enemy can get to their base (flying stands being over 1" tall), and they're freely allowed to be tilted down when you charge so that the nose can be used to measure to target model bases.
Fight powergaming with powergaming.
This was already specifically FAQ'd out last summer to not be a problem.
The rule in the codex says "measure to the hull or base (whichever is closer). The check to see whether a unit is within assault range is a check whether my opponent has one of their bases within 1" of either my hull or my base (whichever is closer). Since my Hull is always more than 1" off the ground, it is ineligible as something that any model can possibly assault (barring weird circumstances and other measure from hull vehicles).
Certainly if they make it to my base, I can be assaulted, but unless they make it to within 1" of my base, my vehicles are immune to assault, rules as stupidly written.
I really don't see your point here at all. A good player doesn't assume they are going to roll double sixes, they move within a distance they feel they can roll on average, or even closer to virtually guarantee the charge if it positively must go off. So even springing this on an under-prepared player and being "that guy" about it will really only work once, if ever, then never again. Seems a lot of effort for essentially no advantage.
Aaranis wrote: So per the new FAQ all our flying CC units just got better, as we can charge way easier, by ignoring vertical movement. So deep strikes to charge a unit in a building (or dropping at the top to get to ground zero) are way more attractive. Also there's a thread in the YMDC section arguing with strong arguments that flying units ignore vertical movement even in the movement phase, picture from the starter set "Know No Fear" proving that.
Hellions got even better ?
The annoying thing is that you (per the FAQ) need space to place on of your models in CC with the charged unit. So if a squad of aggressors completely fills out a floor in a ruin, they are essentially immune to being charged by anything with a base. A Leman Russ can do it though.
I dunno it's pretty realistic if you think about it. If a squad of guys completely fill a platform then other guys of their same size might have a hard time safely ascending to the platform to get into close combat with them, but a huge honking tank crashing into that platform might have a chance to damage or dislodge them a bit, especially if they are being silly and standing right on the edge taking up as much room as possible. You don't have to picture close combat as the Russ growing arms and reaching for its chainsword.
AnFéasógMór wrote: I honestly don't know that I believe the 3 patrols rule is already dead. Yeah, you'll get more CP with a Battalion, but you'll also have to take a second underwhelming HQ with the same trait to do so. Outside of Succubi, I don't know that it's worth it.
Dunno how much deep striking hurts scourges. I'm not usually looking to get them super close anyway.
1 less HQ total for 1 more command point would seem to not be too much of a problem to justify.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also, as a funny side note for use if any of you ever come across an opponent who insists upon using the new FAQ rulings to make models invulnerable to assault by standing them on things:
RAW, post-FAQ, all dark eldar non-flying vehicles are fully immune to being assaulted unless an enemy can get to their base (flying stands being over 1" tall), and they're freely allowed to be tilted down when you charge so that the nose can be used to measure to target model bases.
Fight powergaming with powergaming.
This was already specifically FAQ'd out last summer to not be a problem.
The rule in the codex says "measure to the hull or base (whichever is closer). The check to see whether a unit is within assault range is a check whether my opponent has one of their bases within 1" of either my hull or my base (whichever is closer). Since my Hull is always more than 1" off the ground, it is ineligible as something that any model can possibly assault (barring weird circumstances and other measure from hull vehicles).
Certainly if they make it to my base, I can be assaulted, but unless they make it to within 1" of my base, my vehicles are immune to assault, rules as stupidly written.
I don't know what point you're trying to make. As I said this situation has already been FAQ'd months ago.
It benefits pretty well from the obsessions. Red grief being able to advance 32" and charge is huge. The dark creed stratagem allowing it to target characters is pretty good.
The downside is that while everything else gets cheaper it did not. At 400 points you can get two raiders and 2 ravagers instead.
Hopefully one day forgeworld will be brought into line with the rest of the updates.
So really it comes down to, More damage over all, or more survivability and even higher threat via sniper. Or if playing lots of Wyches and Reaver for Alpha turn 1 charge.
I'm pretty lukewarm on the tantalus myself. Feels like its giving up a major advantage of the structure of our army - like telling your opponent "Ok, here's my army full of T5 vehicles with 5++ saves that severely devalue your usually very efficient lascannons and lance weapons...and now heres my ONE, four hundred point, giant sail boat.
Pretty please don't shoot it, I have no psychic buffs to improve its defenses.
In general, it's got some tricks to be sure, its fun in Dark Creed as stated, fun in Red Grief, but I think its weight in more raiders/Ravagers is probably a hair more efficient and results in fewer eggs in one basket.
As to how Dark Eldar fares with the new FAQs...for the most part, I think we come off pretty well. Red Grief is now occupying a MUCH more restrictive niche of armies capable of pulling off a turn 1 charge, if we start seeing a reduction in the number of screens people take because of that it could improve our matchups. We now have viable horde/chaff clearing options in the form of wyches or even weirder stuff like Dark Creed haemonculus LD bombs, so the shift to a Guard/Tau meta may not be the worst thing for us. The battalion change does make our patrol shtick obsolete but for 2 extra command points it feels a WHOLE lot better to figure out how to use the extra tax HQ. Every DE list I've made since has featured at least 2 battalions, our troops are so efficient and we have such a huge impact with lots of CP.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm pretty lukewarm on the tantalus myself. Feels like its giving up a major advantage of the structure of our army - like telling your opponent "Ok, here's my army full of T5 vehicles with 5++ saves that severely devalue your usually very efficient lascannons and lance weapons...and now heres my ONE, four hundred point, giant sail boat.
Pretty please don't shoot it, I have no psychic buffs to improve its defenses.
Honestly, I'm not a fan of this approach in general - especially with Dark Eldar.
I really don't like putting so many eggs into one basket.
Niiai wrote: You can deep strike that basket, and defend it with the -1 to hit stratagem.
Sure, but my frame of reference is Thousand Sons - Where I can give it an invuln save or improve an existing one, I can make it -1 to hit, I can give it tons of offense buffs...psychic powers offer a ton of non-CP intensive ways to boost up a single model. Same deal with Guard and Baneblades. I think if you're not going the super-skew route with heavy armor, and you just have one big piece, you have to have some psychic buffs as a power multiplier.
So red grief has been the most popular cult so far from what I have seen since it compliments other units well serving as a distraction and tying things down. I am wondering if anyone has taken wych cult as their primary battalion and used cursed blade or strife.
Red Corsair wrote: So red grief has been the most popular cult so far from what I have seen since it compliments other units well serving as a distraction and tying things down. I am wondering if anyone has taken wych cult as their primary battalion and used cursed blade or strife.
Don't have Drukhari playing experience behind me but now that 2 battalions are more attractive I'd do a Kabal + Wyches double battalions, and Red Grief is very nice for the speed, their stratagem looks tricky to use but useful nonetheless, the have an excellent relic, and they have a nice warlord trait for surviving a little better. I'm just a little sad because I want to try a Druggubus from Strife with Stimm-Addict and the Phial-Bouquet to overdose her, it could be great fun.
Red Corsair wrote: So red grief has been the most popular cult so far from what I have seen since it compliments other units well serving as a distraction and tying things down. I am wondering if anyone has taken wych cult as their primary battalion and used cursed blade or strife.
I played test games for the 1000pt event I went to recently with pretty much the same list, trying it with Red Grief and Cursed Blade. It was 1 detachment, no unique characters so I didn't really consider Strife (imo strife is just slightly worse CB if you dont use Lelith, but she actually makes a strife battalion very tempting given how good both her and the other succubus can be).
Red Grief was just hands down scarier. Flyby Stratagem is absurdly good on a block of RG Reavers, enhanced aethersails has amazing utility, blood glaive and 3++ trait is awesome, and your wyches make up for the loss of durability and strength by having absolutely nuts threat range.
I think cursed blade is, strangely, shaping up to be the one I'd only go to for gimmicks like foot wych hordes and hellion swarms. I never thought I'd say that looking at the three traits but the Red Grief CP value is amazing (and I'm not even considering any list with less than 13cp to burn right now) and Lelith is such a firecracker post codex.
Red Corsair wrote: So red grief has been the most popular cult so far from what I have seen since it compliments other units well serving as a distraction and tying things down. I am wondering if anyone has taken wych cult as their primary battalion and used cursed blade or strife.
Don't have Drukhari playing experience behind me but now that 2 battalions are more attractive I'd do a Kabal + Wyches double battalions, and Red Grief is very nice for the speed, their stratagem looks tricky to use but useful nonetheless, the have an excellent relic, and they have a nice warlord trait for surviving a little better. I'm just a little sad because I want to try a Druggubus from Strife with Stimm-Addict and the Phial-Bouquet to overdose her, it could be great fun.
Druggubus is pure goofball, but Strife is fine. Pair with a heavy CP-use coven or kabal (hello Black Heart) and you've got yourself a solid, reliable damage machine.
Red Grief are really only amazing when you're pumping your CP into them. Strife is efficient without using Aethersails, Flyby, etc every round. You've got the threat of Blendermode for 3cp if you get a really amazing charge into a million GEQ but otherwise Strife just does what wyches do, really well.
Just run the Triptch/Blood dancer build over the druggubus in your competitive games
(if using 0-3 rule, I'll swap out a Lhamaean and the single Shock Prow for an extra Mandrake.)
The Djin Blade Archon will start in the Venom with the Lhamaeans.
The Soul Seeker Archon will start in the Disintegrator Raider with the Mandrakes.
Basically an aggressive PT army.
The HQs will each take about half the troops with them, and said troops will aim to disembark, shoot and charge early on (getting the benefit of both their PT Obsession and the Archon auras). The Soul Seeker Archon will be a little more cautious, staying at range with his Mandrake buddies or else charging weak targets. The Djin Blade Archon will be more aggressive (read: suicidal), and will go after heavier stuff with the aid of his Lhamaeans.
Red Corsair wrote: So red grief has been the most popular cult so far from what I have seen since it compliments other units well serving as a distraction and tying things down. I am wondering if anyone has taken wych cult as their primary battalion and used cursed blade or strife.
I love running Cursed Blade, S4 Wyches do all sorts of damage you wouldn't expect (killed a Hive Tyrant with a 10 Wych squad that had 2 Razorflails in there) and end up being a notable threat to a lot of things. I've found I really like running Red Grief on min bike squads to tie things up turn 1 before the Cursed Blade Wyches hit home. I've run Cult of Strife but haven't really got much out of them so far, +1A just doesn't feel like it offers as much of an overall boost as the +1S does.
I have some old beasts from 5th edition. I am full about painting hy helions, but I think the khymera seems OK. They remind me a bit of genestealers without the rending, and they are S4 and T4. 10 movement. (Genstealers have 8+d6 bnefore charges.) The stealers are usualy best when they can be 5++ 5+++. But it is 10 points vs 14 points.
I have no good way to judge the razorflock or the claw beast. What do people think?
If we could make something of a primer at some point (yes please) I made a guide to detachments.
Spoiler:
Detachments can be difficult to calculate with Drukhari. This is because the Drukhari Codex has three spesific sub factions, and some neutral units. You do not want to mix sub factions as you loose your obbsessions, faction bonuses. Drukari do get points if we have enough Patrol Detachments, and this is for the moment unique for our Codex,
But often there is some restriction on the number of detcahments you can take, usually 3. To make things more complicated some game groups do not allow duplicated detachments. To make things even more complex is the suggested 'Rule of three', meaning you can not have more then three similar datasheets outside of troops and transports. Some also consider the Archon and Haemoncolus a bit expensive for what they provide in term of raw power. Henceforth they can be consudered a detcahment tax.
Mercanery (Neutral)
HQ: Drazhar
Troops: -
Elite: Incubi, Mandrakes
Fast Attack: Scourges
Heavy Support: -
Transport: Raider, Venom (Note, both of these transports have to belong to one of the three factions)
Flyer: -
Please note that units from the Archons Court are only available in an archon detachment. But then they unfortunatly do not count as elites for filling out a detachment. Likewise you can only have beasts in a detcahment that has Beastmasters in them, but the beasts unfortunatly do not count as fast attacks for filling out a detachment.
The index only units are Kabalite Trueborn (Elite Kabal) Hekatrix Bloodbrides (Elite Cult). The Forge World models are Tantalus (Heavy Support Kabal, Cult and Coven) Reaper (Heavy Support Kabal, Cult and Coven) and Raven (Flyer Kabal and Cult.)
Note at the moment the index and forge world units are considered exspensive in points compared to codex units. Plan your realspace raid acordingly.
If it makes it into a primer it should probably be in a spoiler. Also, if we get an index I do think it would be beneficial to have someone do mathhammer on our models. As well as someone doing general list. As we tend to be focused on specialised lists. And lastly some notes on what stratgems to keep an eye on.
Clawed fiends are awesome, fulfil a role wyches are bad at (grinding wounds off heavy targets) and any full wych list should take a good long look at 3 units of clawed fiends with a LD drug master.
If you're diverting from just cult, Grotesques or taloi do their job probably better, but for pure wyches they're auto includes.
The little beasts I just don't know why I'd want them over more basic troops. They aren't terrible mathematically but no obsession, no obsec, no CPs, and yes escape (no no escape)...kinda meh in my eyes.
I'd love to do a unit by unit primer as a group effort when I get a few more games in. I did a big "what do you do with a DEHQ" thread on tdc that would probably cone in handy iver here.
the_scotsman wrote: Clawed fiends are awesome, fulfil a role wyches are bad at (grinding wounds off heavy targets) and any full wych list should take a good long look at 3 units of clawed fiends with a LD drug master.
If you're diverting from just cult, Grotesques or taloi do their job probably better, but for pure wyches they're auto includes.
The little beasts I just don't know why I'd want them over more basic troops. They aren't terrible mathematically but no obsession, no obsec, no CPs, and yes escape (no no escape)...kinda meh in my eyes.
I'd love to do a unit by unit primer as a group effort when I get a few more games in. I did a big "what do you do with a DEHQ" thread on tdc that would probably cone in handy iver here.
My biggest problem with the beasts is the change to the Beastmaster. He used to give a flat reroll failed hits, now it's only reroll 1's to hit. Given that Clawed Fiends hit on a 4+ thats a significate drop in their ability.
the_scotsman wrote: Clawed fiends are awesome, fulfil a role wyches are bad at (grinding wounds off heavy targets) and any full wych list should take a good long look at 3 units of clawed fiends with a LD drug master.
If you're diverting from just cult, Grotesques or taloi do their job probably better, but for pure wyches they're auto includes.
The little beasts I just don't know why I'd want them over more basic troops. They aren't terrible mathematically but no obsession, no obsec, no CPs, and yes escape (no no escape)...kinda meh in my eyes.
I'd love to do a unit by unit primer as a group effort when I get a few more games in. I did a big "what do you do with a DEHQ" thread on tdc that would probably cone in handy iver here.
My biggest problem with the beasts is the change to the Beastmaster. He used to give a flat reroll failed hits, now it's only reroll 1's to hit. Given that Clawed Fiends hit on a 4+ thats a significate drop in their ability.
Yep, used to take 3 every game, the re-rolls is what made them playable, the new Aura is bad, they dont had the damage if they are missing 33% of the time comapre to what they used to hit.
Beastmasters being cheaper is nice tho and they can take a Relic if you wanted too (I wouldnt but eh, its an option)
I really like clawed fiends, and I really want to bring them. But I'm also bringing a coven and I am having a really hard time justifying bringing a unit of clawed fiends instead of another unit of grotesques. They just seem better for about the same amount of points.
Raulengrin wrote: I really like clawed fiends, and I really want to bring them. But I'm also bringing a coven and I am having a really hard time justifying bringing a unit of clawed fiends instead of another unit of grotesques. They just seem better for about the same amount of points.
Warriors are obviously very good, but I didn't really get quite how good. They are quite possibly the best line infantry in the game right now. Math follows.
The reigning champion is of course Guard Infantry. They're stupidly durable and are pretty good at killing things too, especially with Company Commanders running around for FRFSRF. Equal points in Guardsmen will wipe the floor with just about anything in a sustained firefight.
But Warriors actually do even better against anything with T4 or higher. If you assume that everyone is just standing and shooting simultaneously (so if you have 100 Guardsmen and 30 Space Marines there are 100 lasgun shots and 30 bolter shots, then casualties, then the next round, and so on) you can work out the relative value of a Warrior like so:
They hit 4/3 as often, and they wound 3/2 as often (vs T4). Meanwhile they're 6/5 durable due to PfP. If X Guardsmen are an equal match for some T4 thing, then sqrt( 3/4 * 2/3 * 5/6 ) Warriors will be. This implies a fair per-model cost of 6.2 points -- Warriors are only 6 points, so in real life you need fewer points of them than you'd need of Guardsmen to win this shooting match vs T4.
What about T3? If Guardsmen and Warriors are fighting each other, then with what I've laid out so far the Warriors look like the losers. They lose their wounding advantage and would need to cost 5.06 points per model to fight Infantry on an even footing.
But actually we've ignored some things that work to the disadvantage of Guardsmen. At 24", a squad is typically shooting at 90% efficiency -- the sergeants have pistols. This is 95% in rapid-fire range, and of course when we consider FRFSRF the pistol falls further behind. The other thing we've ignored is morale. If you can freely target whatever you want, you should be killing 7 men of every Infantry Squad, because on average 2.5 will then run away. Guardsmen are only 75% as durable as they appear to be on paper in a fight over multiple turns. Meanwhile Warriors have Ld 8 and smaller squad sizes. If you're taking only 5 man squads, you expect to lose only 6.7% of them to morale. When we account for the sergeant not shooting and for Guard being more vulnerable to morale, we get that the "fair" price for Warriors in a shooting match with Infantry is 5.95 points. That's pretty close to what they are, and that's about the worst-case scenario for Warriors (since it's vs T3). You can also go up to 7-man squads without losing too much here.
Now buffs. First things first: Company Commanders are not actually very cost-effective if you're bringing them at a rate of 1 per 2 Infantry Squads. They double a squad's firepower but you're paying 37.5% more per squad to do it (the fair price here would be 41% more, so they're worth it but not by much). A better plan is to bring fewer CCs than you'd need to fully order your Infantry and then just always order the fullest squads (or even a combined squad). In the limit of lots of Infantry and few CCs, points spent on a CC are about 33% more efficient than points spent on more Infantry assuming you can find full squads every turn. If you have, say, 2 CCs per 6 Infantry Squads, that's about 7% more efficient than just pure Infantry. So it's not actually that big of a deal, though of course you need HQs anyway and you get CP for them. If your opponent can actually knock off some of every squad, then the efficiency of CCs rapidly declines too.
Meanwhile Warriors are going to be re-rolling 1s to hit, which is only a 17% firepower buff, or 36% if they're also re-rolling wounds of 1. Archons can of course buff any number of Warriors, but you probably still have 2 Archons per 6 squads. And they're a lot more expensive. They're not very worth it purely for buffs. The cheapest possible Archon needs to be buffing about 140 naked Warriors to be worth it for his re-roll aura alone, or 70 if he's a BH Archon with the Writ. But unlike Company Commanders, Archons do more than buff your basic Troops with small arms. They also give re-rolls to things like Ravagers, and re-rolling 1s to hit and wound is worth about 22 points on a Ravager. You can also give the Archon himself a blaster. You'd be pretty happy to pay 50 points for an anti-tank shot that hits almost all of the time -- Marine Devastators are perfectly playable and they pay 38 points per lascannon dude and are less accurate, less durable, less good in CC, and they're targetable (they have longer range but you're running up the field with your infantry so that's not a big problem). Or compare to a Scourge with a blaster and tack on another 15 points for all the other advantages Archons have. So the real cost of an Archon is more like 30 or 40 points -- that's the tax you're paying beyond what you'd happily pay to bring blaster Archons just as their own unit without an aura. So at least the first Archon in your list is very easy to justify, though the second is going to be more of a tax. It's not too bad though, and so I don't think Company Commanders are a decisive advantage.
I didn't talk too much about traits. Black Heart offers very little for Warriors directly but does unlock the Writ relic. Poisoned Tongue also gives wound re-rolls. Both are better than most Guard doctrines. Obsidian Rose is very similar to the Vostroyan doctrine (which is great), and also buffs your Archons' blasters. I also didn't cover weapon options. In general they don't seem too appealing on foot Warriors because they make the squad too fragile. The same is true for Infantry -- you usually only see mortar teams, and only in ITC when the Reaper secondary gives them an incentive to avoid having a 10 model unit. This is generally a disadvantage for them in a fight, because it makes the squad more vulnerable to morale and it's harder for the squad to move forward and shoot.
So in short, Warriors are far better than Guardsmen against anything with T4 or better (except vehicles). They're competitive with Guardsmen vs T3. And that's true even when we account for the buffs available to each. Aeldari in general have a lot of reason to use Kabal detachments the same way the Imperium uses Guard detachments, as a cheap source of CP and excellent line infantry.
What's the view on Archon re-rolls applying to Open-topped passengers?
-text says "restrictions and modifiers" that affect the transport, affect the passengers.
I was considering blaster Raiders vs. Ravagers, but if this doesn't work that might kill that...
Fafnir wrote: If the passengers are not on the board, they're not within range.
Sorry, I wasn't being clear.
Our open-topped vehicles explicitly pass any "restrictions or modifiers" that they gain, onto their passengers. So if the transport gets hit by an enemy Fog of Dreams, the passengers get -1 to hit.. If you could Prescience the transport (somehow), they'd get +1 to hit.
My question is, do we do the same thing with re-rolls?
caelim wrote: What's the view on Archon re-rolls applying to Open-topped passengers?
If an Archon is aboard a transport, his aura doesn't even work on himself. Likewise, the Archon's Court refuses to even acknowledge his presence if they're both aboard the same transport.
You see, Dark Eldar are so well adapted to fighting from atop their transports that their leaders can't even give out the piddling turd they call a buff until everyone disembarks.
Fafnir wrote: If the passengers are not on the board, they're not within range.
Sorry, I wasn't being clear.
Our open-topped vehicles explicitly pass any "restrictions or modifiers" that they gain, onto their passengers. So if the transport gets hit by an enemy Fog of Dreams, the passengers get -1 to hit.. If you could Prescience the transport (somehow), they'd get +1 to hit.
My question is, do we do the same thing with re-rolls?
Models inside transports are treated as NOT being on the table, and therefore can not gain Re-rolls. Open-top rules lets you shoot those units even if they are not on the board, but then follows all normal rules like "within 1" can't shoot other than pistols, cant shoot if fell back, etc..
Aura effect units within range and must be in play, and b.c while on a transport you are not counted as being on the field, there is technically no aura if on a vehicle, if the archon was out of the vehicle, you still dont gain the aura b.c your unit embark on the transport is treated as not being on the field making them not within the aura.
caelim wrote: What's the view on Archon re-rolls applying to Open-topped passengers?
-text says "restrictions and modifiers" that affect the transport, affect the passengers.
I was considering blaster Raiders vs. Ravagers, but if this doesn't work that might kill that...
The rulebook sets out re-rolls and modifiers as being separate things so no re-rolls for the guys inside.
Fafnir wrote: ...it's almost as if the Archon's aura was very poorly thought out and does nothing to actually contribute to the army he's meant to support.
Well. Except for Ravagers, which he buffs fairly well. And troops on foot. And transports, it's usually worth it to get the archon out to get the transports his aura while you're shooting things up.
Getting value out of archons is one of the reasons I'm slowly gravitating towards Poison tongue over Flayed Skull as my main kabal choice (secondary kabal is always going to be the obvious Black Heart for AoV). Disembarked kabalites getting both buffs put out serious damage, and control the board far better than when I play FS and end up basically having 5-6 transports on the board instead of 14 units with a ton of them having obsec. I think the aversion to getting out of your transport is a holdover to the 7th ed days, where our units were paper thin and died to a stiff breeze. At 6ppm, with 5+ armor and 6+++, kabalites on foot are pretty annoying to take out, especially deployed in cover where you have the option of popping their saves up to space marine levels if you want to.
Like I said on the last page, Warriors are fantastic line infantry.
- You don't need transports to protect them -- they're more durable than the transports.
- You don't need transports to get them into range -- they can move and then shoot 24 or 30"
- Transports don't even significantly improve their firepower by getting them into rapid-fire range. 95 points for 5 Warriors and a Venom gets you 20 shots at 12". 96 points for 16 Warriors is 16 shots at 24 or 30", with the potential for 32 shots later. Raiders at 12" provide almost no firepower advantage over Warriors on foot at 24".
- And as others have noted, Warriors in transports don't get aura buffs, whereas Warriors outside of transports can, if you don't want +6" range, always be re-rolling hits and wounds of 1. This makes Warriors on foot at 24" almost as effective as the same points in Flayed Skull Warriors and Venoms at 12" (except vs cover).
We're not guardsmen, they can spam 100 infantries and ed up with a very good list, we don't. We still rely on some assault if we really want to be competitive, as I don't think a pure gunline is the best built we can have.
But I agree about kabalites being among the best troops in the game.
For a start, other auras work on the entire army - not a tiny fraction of it. And of the 9 units the Archon's aura affects, 4 of them already get rerolls for being near him, and another one wants to shoot from a vehicle (and so can't benefit unless they disembark).
Indeed, DE in general favour a more mobile and often dispersed playstyle, making auras less useful even if they weren't awful. And whilst other army's auras don't work in transports either, most other armies can't actually shoot out of their transports. So the aura would do nothing even if it worked.
Finally, there's the issue that our HQs are among the slowest in the game, with no mobility options outside of transports. Only IG and Admech are slower. So, whilst a Space Marine Captain can hand out his aura from atop a bike or with a jump pack, our ""fast"" HQ is stuck either riding in a transport (thus negating his aura entirely) or else trying to jog beside out other units (sure am glad I'm playing such a fast army). And in the latter case, his aura still won't affect any units embarked on transports within his aura.
Amishprn86 wrote: They do work the same, we just have more restricted keywords, the laws of the aura is the same for us as they are for space marines.
I mean, I guess if you ignore every other aspect - including the units the auras can actually affect - then sure, our aura that affects maybe 1/3 of our army works exactly the same as the Autarch aura thay affects everything in the army. And which has a chance of generating CP each turn for good measure.
Blackie wrote: We're not guardsmen, they can spam 100 infantries and ed up with a very good list, we don't. We still rely on some assault if we really want to be competitive, as I don't think a pure gunline is the best built we can have.
This looks pretty similar to me. A Kabal battalion gets you 6 units of Warriors, which is already 40 even if you're limiting yourself to squads of 6 or 7 for morale purposes. A Spearhead unlocks 3 more units. As I argued, these Warriors are competitive with Guardsmen for the same job. What is it that these 100 Guardsmen are doing that your 60 or 70 Warriors can't?
Actual lists that rely on Guardsmen also tend to use other units. They also frequently rely on fast assault units to be competitive -- that's the appeal of Blood Angels. At various times tournament lists have brought deep-striking anti-infantry like Grey Knight Strike Squads or deep-striking anti-tank like Scions. Often they back up the Guardsman horde with devastating ranged shooting like Basilisks.
Dark Eldar have basically all of the same concerns, and actually almost the same incentives to soup. Dark Eldar don't have great CC units; if you want to do the Blood Angels thing you're probably souping in some Shining Spears. If anything in the Harlequin codex ends up being competitive it'll probably be some fast CC units too. If you want some deep-striking anti-infantry you'll soup in a Guardian blob. You can handle deep-striking anti-tank yourself with Scourges or anti-MEQ with Mandrakes, and likewise you have vehicles with great ranged shooting in Ravagers.
This looks pretty similar to me. A Kabal battalion gets you 6 units of Warriors, which is already 40 even if you're limiting yourself to squads of 6 or 7 for morale purposes.
Surely you'd want at least 10 per squad, otherwise you don't have access to Heavy Weapons?
Dionysodorus wrote: As I argued, these Warriors are competitive with Guardsmen for the same job. What is it that these 100 Guardsmen are doing that your 60 or 70 Warriors can't?
Warriors and Guardsmen are indeed pretty comparable. Guardsmen are 2/3 the cost of Warriors, but Warriors have BS4+ and PfP, so it's pretty even there.
However, the real killers are the HQs. 2 Guardsmen HQs cost less than a single Archon, but bring vastly more utility to the table. Yes, both can let nearby Infantry reroll 1s to hit, but the problem is that that's the least Company Commanders do. Archons have no way to mimic First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!, which is an amazing order for Infantry armies. They've also got Forwards for the Emperor!, Get Back in the Fight! and Move! Move! Move!. The second one we can get with a Stratagem, so there's that, but I don't believe we've got anything on the others.
In essence, IGHQs are cheap and provide a great deal of support and versitility, whilst Archons are expensive and tend to offer diminishing returns.
Also, IG have far more Infantry options than DE does. Infantry Squads are the obvious ones, but you've also got Heavy Weapon Squads as Heavy Support choices, you've got Scions as deep-striking troops, you've got Scion Command Squads as harder-hitting, deep-striking Elites. You've even got a deep-striking HQ to support them (something our "fast" HQs all lack). Basically, they have a far greater variety of units for different roles, whilst we're relying on just one specific infantry squad (maybe 2 if you count Trueborn) to do everything, and with far less HQ support.
Furthermore, you talk about Battalions, but IG can easily fill out a Brigade with Infantry. Hell, at 1500pts, I can have a Brigade *and* a Battalion with IG (possibly more but I'm using a themed army).
Just to be clear, I'm not saying DE can't do Infantry armies - just that they're not really comparable to IG armies, because they lack the variety/specialisation, HQ support and cheap cost (not just of troops but also of Elites, Heavy Support and such).
Even so, if I had enough Kabalites, infantry-DE is definitely something I could see myself trying sometime.
Surely you'd want at least 10 per squad, otherwise you don't have access to Heavy Weapons?
I'm not sure why you'd want them. Again, look at what people are doing with Guardsmen in tournament lists. It's just lasguns. In ITC they bring mortars but that's mostly just to get the squad down to 9 guys so that they dodge a secondary objective. But, sure, if you're concerned about anti-tank you might take a squad of 10 and hole them up in cover with a dark lance. Otherwise you probably want just pure splinter rifles, although a blaster in a bigger squad isn't terrible with Obsidian Rose.
Warriors and Guardsmen are indeed pretty comparable. Guardsmen are 2/3 the cost of Warriors, but Warriors have BS4+ and PfP, so it's pretty even there.
However, the real killers are the HQs. 2 Guardsmen HQs cost less than a single Archon, but bring vastly more utility to the table. Yes, both can let nearby Infantry reroll 1s to hit, but the problem is that that's the least Company Commanders do. Archons have no way to mimic First Rank Fire! Second Rank Fire!, which is an amazing order for Infantry armies. They've also got Forwards for the Emperor!, Get Back in the Fight! and Move! Move! Move!. The second one we can get with a Stratagem, so there's that, but I don't believe we've got anything on the others.
In essence, IGHQs are cheap and provide a great deal of support and versitility, whilst Archons are expensive and tend to offer diminishing returns.
Also, IG have far more Infantry options than DE does. Infantry Squads are the obvious ones, but you've also got Heavy Weapon Squads as Heavy Support choices, you've got Scions as deep-striking troops, you've got Scion Command Squads as harder-hitting, deep-striking Elites. You've even got a deep-striking HQ to support them (something our "fast" HQs all lack). Basically, they have a far greater variety of units for different roles, whilst we're relying on just one specific infantry squad (maybe 2 if you count Trueborn) to do everything, and with far less HQ support.
Furthermore, you talk about Battalions, but IG can easily fill out a Brigade with Infantry. Hell, at 1500pts, I can have a Brigade *and* a Battalion with IG (possibly more but I'm using a themed army).
Just to be clear, I'm not saying DE can't do Infantry armies - just that they're not really comparable to IG armies, because they lack the variety/specialisation, HQ support and cheap cost (not just of troops but also of Elites, Heavy Support and such).
Even so, if I had enough Kabalites, infantry-DE is definitely something I could see myself trying sometime.
See my post on the last page for some more detailed analysis of Archons vs Company Commanders, but in short: Company Commanders don't actually buff units very efficiently. Their big one is FRFSRF -- that's what I was considering in my earlier post -- and they're only slightly better than just bringing more Infantry even in pretty favorable conditions. The second Archon is something of a tax, but an untargetable BS2+ blaster isn't bad, and you're always pretty happy to have one BS2+ grenade launcher to use with the MW stratagem. But, yes, I agree that probably you only want to bring the one battalion -- this is still at least 40 Warriors and could easily be pushed to 50 or 60 -- and then supplement with other infantry elsewhere. With the CP changes I'm not sure that brigades are even particularly desirable anymore -- you're probably better off with 2 battalions and a third 1 CP detachment than with a brigade and two 1 CP detachments.
And you have access to plenty of solid infantry choices. Mandrakes and Scourges are very good in the Elites and FA slots. And then in a separate detachment you have Rangers, Guardians, and Dark Reapers (and probably Shining Spears even though they're not technically infantry), or even Grotesques if you can force the enemy to come to you or are willing to wait until turn 2 to do anything with them (they're probably better than Bullgryn but have many of the same issues). Craftworld allies also bring in psychic support, and Doom and Jinx are great. Again, look at what people are using Guardsmen for. It's very common to see just a bunch of Infantry Squads and some mortars, and then other detachments to handle other jobs.
Cheap guardsmen are needed to bubble wrap their tanks and artillery. We have mobile gun boats that can fire without penalties and several effective close combat units while AM basically only shoots from distance. We don't need 80-100 warriors to protect the ravagers, that's the huge difference between the armies.
But maybe that's me, since I can't even imagine playing a gunline
Blackie wrote: Cheap guardsmen are needed to bubble wrap their tanks and artillery. We have mobile gun boats that can fire without penalties and several effective close combat units while AM basically only shoots from distance. We don't need 80-100 warriors to protect the ravagers, that's the huge difference between the armies.
But maybe that's me, since I can't even imagine playing a gunline
There are four lists that bring Infantry Squads, and none of them are using them to stop tanks or artillery from getting locked in CC -- they don't even have vehicles for the most part. There's a mostly Blood Angels list with a ton of Catachans -- these are clearly going to be aggressively moving forward and trying to get into CC. There's a similar list which is mostly Guard infantry and then some Blood Angels and Custodes. There's a list with Dark Angels and GKs (nothing here that doesn't want to be close to the enemy) and then a Guard battalion. And last there's a list that's a lot like the second one but with Cadians. None of the Infantry Squads have heavy weapons and none of the lists have anything that needs to worry about getting locked in CC.
Guardsmen get used because they're just all-around fantastic. They're very durable and they're very good at killing things and they take up lots of space and screen. Warriors do the same, and even if you don't care that much about your Ravagers getting charged you still have lots of reason to want to keep deep-strikers away from them and to hold your half of the board.
Edit: Also note that of those lists, only one has more than 6 Infantry Squads (it has 8). Only 2 of the lists are using a brigade, and this is before the change that makes battalions relatively more appealing. DE can bring something very similar with a battalion with 2 Archons and 6 units of Warriors.
I feel like reading the AdMech thread where they talk more about AM than AdMech :/ Do you guys play a lot against AM ? How many of you are active competitive players ? I see discussions about Guard all the time but oddly only one person plays it in my LGS, and when he faces our best player (unbeaten since V8 at 40k), who plays mostly Aeldari and Daemons, he puts up a good fight but always loses against him. So I tend to think these discussions about Guards are always exaggerated.
Of course my meta is not your meta but it's getting tiring to feel like we're playing Astra Militarum 40,000
EDIT: I'd add that a well-equiped Archon can mow through loads of units by himself while the Company Commander may as well be preventively taken as a casualty when he gets engaged in a fight against anything. The Archon gives back his points value by slaughtering everything with his blaster/blast pistol and huskblade. The aura is just a situational bonus GW felt like giving us so that the Archon fits the "aura HQ" theme. I agree they could've given him something else but it's there at least.
At least the discussion isn't "just bring Guard instead of your own units" the way it is in Imperium threads. I'm comparing to Guardsmen because we know that they're good -- 3 to 6 naked Infantry Squads have been a staple of competitive Imperium lists since the start of 8th, or at least since Conscripts got nerfed. If Dark Eldar can put together something that works very similarly, then chances are that's a solid detachment that can be plugged into almost any Aeldari list. It's important to understand why these Guard battalions are successful in order to understand that Eldar would benefit from the same kind of thing and that Warriors can do the same job.
On the topic of Archon auras, page 5 of the BRBFAQ states thatauras do not apply to passengers, despite the Open-Topped rule. Now I think this is silly, as RAW now any modifiers like, say, The Horror (or whatever Tyranid psychic power gives -1 to hit) still applies to the passengers, but the Archon's aura does not.
Also, the strength of Guardsmen spamming is mostly cheap CPs and amplifying their strength via orders and stratagems. Spamming footslogging kabalites en masse would work until you run into someone whose list has enough output to kill them. You're putting your entire list on the math game.
I'm not sure why you'd want them. Again, look at what people are doing with Guardsmen in tournament lists. It's just lasguns.
Perhaps, but then Guardsmen have access to FRFSRF - which drastically increases their damage output with lasguns. Dark Eldar don't have that.
Nor can Dark Eldar use them just to shield artillery pieces, as we also have none (and our vehicles are mobile enough that assault shouldn't be much of an issue).
See my post on the last page for some more detailed analysis of Archons vs Company Commanders, but in short: Company Commanders don't actually buff units very efficiently. Their big one is FRFSRF -- that's what I was considering in my earlier post -- and they're only slightly better than just bringing more Infantry even in pretty favorable conditions.
I've read your math and it's weird, to say the least.
You look at Company Commanders and say 'well, their main buff is better than just bringing more infantry, and they also bring a toolbox of other buffs . . . so they're pretty poor.'
Then you look at Archons and say 'Well, their buff is pretty bad, especially looking at their cost . . . so they're pretty great, really.'
Also, I think you're being optimistic about just how many squads you can fit around an Archon, in addition to apparently having Ravagers around him as well. But then, we seem to greatly disagree on squad sizes as well.
Dionysodorus wrote: The second Archon is something of a tax, but an untargetable BS2+ blaster isn't bad
Not when it costs ~90pts.
Dionysodorus wrote: and you're always pretty happy to have one BS2+ grenade launcher to use with the MW stratagem.
The Archon doesn't have Plasma Grenades and has no means of acquiring them.
Dionysodorus wrote: But, yes, I agree that probably you only want to bring the one battalion -- this is still at least 40 Warriors and could easily be pushed to 50 or 60 -- and then supplement with other infantry elsewhere. With the CP changes I'm not sure that brigades are even particularly desirable anymore -- you're probably better off with 2 battalions and a third 1 CP detachment than with a brigade and two 1 CP detachments.
Possibly, but either way you're looking at an even bigger HQ tax.
Dionysodorus wrote: And you have access to plenty of solid infantry choices. Mandrakes and Scourges are very good in the Elites and FA slots.
They're good, it's just a shame we have no way to support either of them. This is one of the things I was talking about with regard to IG doing Infantry armies better than us. They can actually support their infantry, whereas Scourges and Mandrakes in our lists are entirely on their own. Our Archons can do nothing for them, and they have no HQs of their own.
Dionysodorus wrote: And then in a separate detachment you have Rangers, Guardians, and Dark Reapers (and probably Shining Spears even though they're not technically infantry), or even Grotesques if you can force the enemy to come to you or are willing to wait until turn 2 to do anything with them (they're probably better than Bullgryn but have many of the same issues). Craftworld allies also bring in psychic support, and Doom and Jinx are great. Again, look at what people are using Guardsmen for. It's very common to see just a bunch of Infantry Squads and some mortars, and then other detachments to handle other jobs.
Okay, if we're having to bring in Eldar infantry I'm calling it there. If Dark Eldar can supposedly do infantry armies well, then they shouldn't need to bring in a whole other army to make them work. QED.
Vipoid, you should probably re-read my last couple posts because you haven't understood much. Feel free to ask questions if you don't understand where some of the numbers are coming from. Also, I'm not sure why you've decided that I'm arguing that pure Dark Eldar can run a competitive all-infantry army. Did I accidentally say that somewhere? Also, to clarify real quick: when I said "grenade launcher" I meant "grenade launcher", not "plasma grenade". And so the stratagem I'm referring to is the one that works with grenade launchers, not the one that works with plasma grenades.
Also, the strength of Guardsmen spamming is mostly cheap CPs and amplifying their strength via orders and stratagems. Spamming footslogging kabalites en masse would work until you run into someone whose list has enough output to kill them. You're putting your entire list on the math game.
Again, that's not really true, and Warriors compare very well with Guardsmen even considering the buffs available to each.
- Warriors also provide cheap CP -- it's very easy to justify a Warrior battalion for Agents of Vect and 5 CP. You're paying a bit more for the Archons but you're getting characters that are actually valuable in themselves.
- Guardsmen don't really get that much extra efficiency from orders when you account for the cost of the Commanders. They get especially little out of them when the other player doesn't need to get through all of them in a single turn. Infantry are good because a vanilla Guardsmen with no support is really strong for its cost.
- When you account for morale, Warriors aren't really more fragile than Guardsmen per point unless you're taking them in big squads. Having a 6+ FNP and higher leadership in a smaller squad is a big deal. Just like Guardsmen, they're very hard to remove efficiently. Sure, in principle if you run into someone who can kill all your stuff very quickly you're in trouble. That doesn't seem to be a problem for Guardsmen so why would it be a problem for Warriors?
- Warriors can match many of the important utility orders Guardsmen have. Warriors are naturally just faster than Guardsmen. There are stratagems for shooting after falling back and for moving after shooting. They can do all of this while still getting hit and wound re-rolls.
Dionysodorus wrote: Vipoid, you should probably re-read my last couple posts because you haven't understood much.
Sorry, but I'm not taking the blame for the fact that your arguments don't make sense.
Dionysodorus wrote: Also, I'm not sure why you've decided that I'm arguing that pure Dark Eldar can run a competitive all-infantry army. Did I accidentally say that somewhere?
That appeared to be exactly what you were arguing earlier when you appeared to say that DE can do infantry armies just as well as IG can:
Blackie wrote: We're not guardsmen, they can spam 100 infantries and ed up with a very good list, we don't. We still rely on some assault if we really want to be competitive, as I don't think a pure gunline is the best built we can have.
This looks pretty similar to me. A Kabal battalion gets you 6 units of Warriors, which is already 40 even if you're limiting yourself to squads of 6 or 7 for morale purposes. A Spearhead unlocks 3 more units. As I argued, these Warriors are competitive with Guardsmen for the same job. What is it that these 100 Guardsmen are doing that your 60 or 70 Warriors can't?
Dionysodorus wrote: Also, to clarify real quick: when I said "grenade launcher" I meant "grenade launcher", not "plasma grenade". And so the stratagem I'm referring to is the one that works with grenade launchers, not the one that works with plasma grenades.
Ah, fair enough. Have you found that Stratagem to be particularly useful?
Blackie wrote: We're not guardsmen, they can spam 100 infantries and ed up with a very good list, we don't. We still rely on some assault if we really want to be competitive, as I don't think a pure gunline is the best built we can have.
This looks pretty similar to me. A Kabal battalion gets you 6 units of Warriors, which is already 40 even if you're limiting yourself to squads of 6 or 7 for morale purposes. A Spearhead unlocks 3 more units. As I argued, these Warriors are competitive with Guardsmen for the same job. What is it that these 100 Guardsmen are doing that your 60 or 70 Warriors can't?
It is very strange to me that you're continuing to insist on this reading even when the quote you've found obviously doesn't support it at all. "60 or 70" Warriors is about 400 points. Three Archons, even with blasters, are a bit under 300 points. 700 points in two detachments is not an army -- to be clear I've had 2k lists in mind when talking about this and I suspect that that's also what Blackie was thinking about when he mentioned 100 Guardsmen. And, uh, the fact that I mentioned a Spearhead should probably have tipped you off that I'm not talking about a pure infantry DE army, since there are literally no infantry units in the DE Heavy Support slot.
I'm really not sure what else to say if you're not even going to bother to read what I'm writing. As with this, your last post simply isn't responding to things I actually said. So, again, if you'd like to understand why Warriors are better than you're thinking they are, you might want to re-read.
Dionysodorus wrote: Also, to clarify real quick: when I said "grenade launcher" I meant "grenade launcher", not "plasma grenade". And so the stratagem I'm referring to is the one that works with grenade launchers, not the one that works with plasma grenades.
Ah, fair enough. Have you found that Stratagem to be particularly useful?
I mean, of course it's useful. The Torment Grenade stratagem lets you pick any targetable unit within 18 or 24" of your Archon. You're going to hit, because you get d3 shots at a re-rollable BS2+. The hit reduces the target's Ld by 1. Then you roll 3d6 and need to get above the target's modified Ld. This has a 91% chance of going off against an initially Ld 7 unit, 84% vs Ld 8, 74% vs Ld 9, and even 63% vs Ld 10. Obviously if you've got a Hemlock close by or similar it's even easier. And then you do d3 MWs. So you expect 1.8 MWs against a Ld 8 target, and it can be anything, like Obliterators or Havocs even with Cultists intervening. It's like a targetable Smite -- Smite also inflicts an average of 1.8 MWs at WC 5. 1 CP to try to cast a targeted Smite is definitely worth it. And the grenade launcher itself is a pretty easy pick-up.
Amishprn86 wrote: They do work the same, we just have more restricted keywords, the laws of the aura is the same for us as they are for space marines.
I mean, I guess if you ignore every other aspect - including the units the auras can actually affect - then sure, our aura that affects maybe 1/3 of our army works exactly the same as the Autarch aura thay affects everything in the army. And which has a chance of generating CP each turn for good measure.
The entire point of why i said that was for rules sake via Transports................
As for Warriors vs Guardsman? Guardsman are better as a horde, they are cheaper and thats all that matters for them. Warriors can have Shredders, Blasters, Lances, on 3+ models and thats where we are good, thats why you see mass 5 or 10man units in vehicles, b.c every turn a vehicle is alive that 2-3 more good weapons and huge mobility.
Dionysodorus wrote: I'm really not sure what else to say if you're not even going to bother to read what I'm writing.
As some feedback, It's this approach to your points that's likely proving problematic Dio as your writing style comes across as that you believe you have found "the one true way" and that anything contrary to this gets brushed off as people not having put the effort in to try to understand you.
I've read through your posts, put the effort in, and even then i'm still not sure what you are trying to make as your point beyond "Kabalites are good". You do however come across like you are expecting everyone to now drop all plans and make a Kabalite horde force off the back of your own revelation and are disappointed that you don't seem to be getting anywhere with that one.
So out of a desire to see how you believe this information should actually be applied, could you put up a draft 2K list as you see it? The reality of what you are thinking a list should be vs what it comes across that you think a list should be could be very different.
As some feedback, It's this approach to your points that's likely proving problematic Dio as your writing style comes across as that you believe you have found "the one true way" and that anything contrary to this gets brushed off as people not having put the effort in to try to understand you.
I've read through your posts, put the effort in, and even then i'm still not sure what you are trying to make as your point beyond "Kabalites are good". You do however come across like you are expecting everyone to now drop all plans and make a Kabalite horde force off the back of your own revelation and are disappointed that you don't seem to be getting anywhere with that one.
So out of a desire to see how you believe this information should actually be applied, could you put up a draft 2K list as you see it? The reality of what you are thinking a list should be vs what it comes across that you think a list should be could be very different.
Sure, I can talk about that. To be clear, I'm not saying that Warriors in Venoms are bad, and most of the reason I'm posting this stuff is to see if anyone can raise objections I haven't thought of or considered enough. It's a weird way to play Eldar and there are a lot of moving pieces here, so I could easily have missed something. But, like, someone brushing off what I'm saying as not fulfilling the promise of a pure DE all-infantry army on the basis of my referencing only 700 points of DE infantry (as a high end estimate!) in detachments that must include at least 300 points of vehicles is... not an objection worth listening to. Right? And that seems characteristic of the care with which vipoid, specifically, read my posts. I'm interested in responses to my actual posts and not in responses to aggressive misreadings of them, and I feel like it's probably important to at least point out that that's what their responses are -- thankfully they provided a wonderfully clear example I could use and then doubled down on it by quoting a snippet of my post that proved them wrong -- to avoid other people sort of skipping over the exchange without thinking too much about it and assuming from my lack of response that I don't have answers to what he's said.
But, yeah, I kind of am just trying to say "Kabalites are good". I think so good that they probably work best on foot doing the same job that Guardsmen do. I'm very interested in substantive objections to that. The point is not to get everyone to go out and buy a ton of Warriors but to see if anyone can poke holes, and just to clarify my own thinking on the matter by taking the time to write it down.
Anyway, so again the basic idea here is that you can plug in a Warrior battalion to a lot of other list shells -- we're looking to use Warriors the same way Imperium uses Guardsmen. 438 points would get you 2 Archons with blasters and 6 7-man squads. Probably these are Obsidian Rose for the extra range, and you still get Agents of Vect this way. The Warriors themselves are 252 points, like the 240 points of Guardsmen you might see in a 6-unit Guard battalion. If your opponents aren't trying to blow them all away on turn 1 and are willing to let morale do some work, these 42 Warriors are almost exactly as durable as the 60 Guardsmen vs single-damage weapons, and they shoot only a little worse vs T3 and much better vs T4+. The first Archon is a steal, and you're probably only over-paying for the second by 20 points or so.
So what can we plug that into? We can produce something that looks a lot like some very powerful Blood Angels lists. Cult units don't seem great so we probably want Craftworld or Ynnari for this. 626 points gets a small Alatoic battalion with a Farseer, Warlock, Rangers, and 9 Shining Spears. We Quicken the Spears and hit very hard on turn 1. The same units but Yvraine instead of a Farseer is 648 points. We could bring both of these and try to WotP and advance one and Quicken the other. The Blood Angels analogues here are Shining Spears for the hard-hitting melee like the Captain and Sanguinary Guard, and then Rangers for controlling the board instead of Scouts. Rangers deploy a little worse but shoot a lot better. Spears are obviously crazy good. You could also replace one unit of Rangers with a big unit of Guardians that will deep strike in, but I'm not sure how useful that is on turn 2 now.
We could also do something with more long-ranged shooting, comparable to an artillery list. The big question here is whether we go with Ravagers and maybe Crimson Hunters or whether Ynnari Dark Reapers are still king. A Dark Reaper battalion costs only a bit more than the Shining Spear pieces I described earlier, and you probably want a Wave Serpent for turn 1. If you've got a Serpent anyway you might as well bring some Ravagers. Maybe a Black Heart Spearhead as your third detachment. This will shred anything other than T3 hordes, but I think is probably lacking there -- you're relying on your splinter rifles for that and that's not great.
With most of these you have some extra points floating around. Valuable add-ons would be a Hemlock to help with anti-tank and anti-horde (via its -2 Ld debuff), Scourges (anti-tank) or Mandrakes (anti-MEQ), or maybe some Swooping Hawks (anti-GEQ, objective grabbers).
So, that sort of thing. The current competitive-but-not-that-competitive list I'm toying with, avoiding Ynnari, is 2 Alatoic battalions with 5 units of Rangers and 1 big unit of Guardians, 1 big unit of Spears, 2 Hemlocks, and then 45 Warriors. Obviously it's mostly a Craftworld thing with Warrior support, which is also how Guard tend to get used in soup. I'd like to use more DE elements but I have a hard time justifying it, and there's also a lot of reason to have at least 3 Craftworld psykers for buffs and Doom. Maybe the Guardians should be dropped with the new deep strike rules. The other really promising DE unit, I think, is Grotesques, but getting them there is a big problem. It might make sense to bring Ravagers instead of Hemlocks; it probably depends on how many primaris statlines are out there.
Pure DE seems a lot harder to do since it feels bad to have a bunch of Archons, Cults don't seem to offer very much outside of some tricks with Reavers, and you can only have 3 Archons (and you don't really want the third one anyway), while Covens don't do anything for the whole first turn. One option would be to combine a Warrior platoon with more traditional Venom/Ravager spam. The foot Warriors lock down the mid-field while squads with blasters in Venoms get closer to kill tanks. But it's hard to do all of this without 2 battalions and Drazhar. But if you have a DE shell using just one Archon and the other sub-factions, or you still have Troops slots open in a Cabal battalion, a bunch of Warriors are probably a very strong addition.
Ok cheers for that Dio, explains it in more depth.
It sounds like you are trying to think through a little bit what i'm thinking through, which is "what's a great Kabalite batallion that can bolt on to other Aeldari things". Just you've taken it in a 100% pure mathematics direction for unit configurations by going MSU on unit sizes for durability.
It's that MSU which I would challenge. If you are going for 6 units of 7 Kabalites it may work out mathematically the most durable for avoiding the affects of Morale, however do consider that by doing so you are essentially wasting potential firepower by only part filling in special/heavy weapon requirements. At the full 6 units that's 12 Kabalites over your special weapon needs which could be unlocking further special and heavy weapons. When a splinter cannon increases the splinter shot output of a obsession-less 10 man Kabalite squad to 18" by 50% it's well worth the morale risks of larger squads.
I don't think anyone at this point would be disagreeing that Kabalites are strong, but they do need a clear purpose. Your comparison to Guard Infantry Squads and the 7 man squad sizes looked to have everyone thinking your whole purpose was to use them as a screen, when Aeldari have very little that either wants a screen or is worth screening. If your purpose is just to have a solid anti-infantry Kabalite core that's durable for holding objectives though, then I would advise bumping those squads up to 10 and add those Splinter Cannons. If morale is your main reservation against doing so, then you have the option to use the Poison Tongue warlord trait.
A word on Morale however - Splinter cannons, like all special and heavy weapons make the casualties taken early worth less than the final casualties. While you can avoid morale casualties by taking MSU, the same affect can also be achieved by taking larger squads of 15-20 who still have great functionality when reduced to low model count thanks to all the extra weapons - then you ignore morale through use of CP. Sure it has a cost, but it's an alternative approach to the one you are thinking of that is also viable. (e.g. Ork tactics)
I did get a chance to test out some dismounted Kabalites in a game yesterday against a half armored/half militarum tempestus guard list, and I can attest to being pleasantly surprised by their durability, though I have to say I would not have been had I not had Raiders to protect them early.
The list I played against had 2 battlecannon+Extras russes (one commander) one Fireball Russ with heavy flamers and punisher, 2 Hellhounds, a wyvern and a Hydra. That stuff would have taken my kabalites apart had they not spent the first two turns trying to crack open my transports. And once they did, with the help of a big 30-man scion drop, the scions didn't have enough juice to kill the warriors inside and the artillery was either destroyed or tied up by wyches at that point. He had opted to screen with a big line of bullgryns, which turned out to be more of a liability than a help because they ended up not able to withdraw from the wyches and I ground them out just in time for my turn 2 where I got to engage all the vehicles.
The warriors were basically able to slug it out with the scions no problem post-drop, along with one of my Archons who just eviscerated a tempestus prime and most of his command squad in one round of combat.
So yeah, I don't know about foot horde warriors, but I do think a warrior battalion is incredibly strong thing to tack into any list. It's just so cheap. But you can fit a full kabal battalion into 2 Raiders no problem - I don't see why you would want them on foot.
Automatically Appended Next Post: As a side note, Hunt from the Shadows is rapidly becoming one of my favorite stratagems to use. Just wait for a big street sweeper unit to commit their firepower to killing one of your units (for me it was a 15-man hellion squad sitting in a ruin getting shot by 40 LR punisher shots) and just turn them into space marines. I probably spent 8 of my 13 command points giving things +2sv or -1 to hit.
On the MSU/Morale debate one thing of interest might be that with Black Heart you are immune to morale by turn 3.
On one hand this isn't that great - games have often been decided by then (but that may change slightly with the nerf to deepstriking) - but on the other that means if they don't shoot down your kabalites early on (and they are not typically the most important/attractive target) morale isn't going to be a problem.
Going Black Heart on a battalion also means you don't need the extra archon & save a detachment slot if you don't want to take that Ravager spearhead separately. You miss out on a potentially more useful buff for warriors though - but it depends on the trade offs.
Still - not going to point this out exactly, but 2 archons, 60 warriors with 6 splinter cannons & 3 ravagers with disis is under 1000 points. Sprinkle in some blasters if you want more anti-multi wound firepower.
This seems like a good base to me. For pure DE I'd add a cult outrider with reavers (for locking stuff down - its a bit predictable, but 36" expected charge range on the first turn is good) and a coven list. Not sure on Talos or Grots. Suspect Grots may be better - it depends on whether the Talos guns are a useful addition. Both are almost impossible to deal with efficiently with a 4++, potentially rerolling 1s/6+++.
Tyel wrote: On the MSU/Morale debate one thing of interest might be that with Black Heart you are immune to morale by turn 3.
On one hand this isn't that great - games have often been decided by then (but that may change slightly with the nerf to deepstriking) - but on the other that means if they don't shoot down your kabalites early on (and they are not typically the most important/attractive target) morale isn't going to be a problem.
Going Black Heart on a battalion also means you don't need the extra archon & save a detachment slot if you don't want to take that Ravager spearhead separately. You miss out on a potentially more useful buff for warriors though - but it depends on the trade offs.
Still - not going to point this out exactly, but 2 archons, 60 warriors with 6 splinter cannons & 3 ravagers with disis is under 1000 points. Sprinkle in some blasters if you want more anti-multi wound firepower.
This seems like a good base to me. For pure DE I'd add a cult outrider with reavers (for locking stuff down - its a bit predictable, but 36" expected charge range on the first turn is good) and a coven list. Not sure on Talos or Grots. Suspect Grots may be better - it depends on whether the Talos guns are a useful addition. Both are almost impossible to deal with efficiently with a 4++, potentially rerolling 1s/6+++.
If I'm talking about a pure competitive list, taking every advantage possible, I don't think I'm taking Black Heart for that spearhead, I think I'm taking Ynnari with Yvraine as the HQ+Warlord. Gives me agents of Vect, gives me the ability to take anything Drukhari that I want to have Soulburst (hello Reaver Jetbikes) and avoids me having to take an Archon with them at all.
A word on Morale however - Splinter cannons, like all special and heavy weapons make the casualties taken early worth less than the final casualties. While you can avoid morale casualties by taking MSU, the same affect can also be achieved by taking larger squads of 15-20 who still have great functionality when reduced to low model count thanks to all the extra weapons - then you ignore morale through use of CP. Sure it has a cost, but it's an alternative approach to the one you are thinking of that is also viable. (e.g. Ork tactics)
I think there's probably a place for a single huge squad that's fully kitted out and is hiding in cover. Taking both heavy and special weapons seems a bit awkward though, since they mostly want to be at different ranges.
I'm also not a fan of splinter cannons in general. A Warrior with a splinter cannon costs almost 3 times as much as a Warrior with a splinter rifle, and at many ranges only gets 3 times as many shots. It's true that they get double output from 12" to 18" (or 15" to 21"), but of course you have a lot of reason to spend as little time as possible in that range band so that the rest of your guys can maximize their firepower. On the other hand, I'm pretty tempted by shredders. With Obsidian Rose they've got 18" range and are almost twice as efficient as rapid-firing splinter rifles vs GEQs and MEQs. I could definitely see adding a shredder to each squad, and possibly going to 10-man squads with 2 shredders each. I want to see how often I end up within 18" on turn 1, though. A lot of people put GEQ screens right at the front of their deployment zone, especially if they're also staring down a bunch of Spears, so this might work out pretty often.
the_scotsman wrote: I did get a chance to test out some dismounted Kabalites in a game yesterday against a half armored/half militarum tempestus guard list, and I can attest to being pleasantly surprised by their durability, though I have to say I would not have been had I not had Raiders to protect them early.
That's interesting. I'm surprised he couldn't kill a Raider on turn 1. Like, that's my big fear about using the normal sort of Venom/Raider spam -- with the right sort of firepower mix you're not really protecting your guys at all, since your opponent can open up a transport with guns that are good for that and then kill the guys inside with other guns that are good for that. In general battle cannons are pretty great vs Raiders -- you kill about twice as many points' worth of Raider with a battle cannon shot than Warriors. Warriors are only a tiny bit less durable than Raiders even against a Punisher cannon, since Raiders are only T5. It's bolters and lasguns where you really benefit from having a transport. Though obviously giving blasters to your Warriors makes the squad more fragile and makes transports more desirable, if they're not just going to get blown up immediately. That said, the big appeal of transports is probably that then your opponent has to decide whether to shoot the transports or shoot your other vehicles (but the right answer is probably to shoot the transports).
A word on Morale however - Splinter cannons, like all special and heavy weapons make the casualties taken early worth less than the final casualties. While you can avoid morale casualties by taking MSU, the same affect can also be achieved by taking larger squads of 15-20 who still have great functionality when reduced to low model count thanks to all the extra weapons - then you ignore morale through use of CP. Sure it has a cost, but it's an alternative approach to the one you are thinking of that is also viable. (e.g. Ork tactics)
I think there's probably a place for a single huge squad that's fully kitted out and is hiding in cover. Taking both heavy and special weapons seems a bit awkward though, since they mostly want to be at different ranges.
I'm also not a fan of splinter cannons in general. A Warrior with a splinter cannon costs almost 3 times as much as a Warrior with a splinter rifle, and at many ranges only gets 3 times as many shots. It's true that they get double output from 12" to 18" (or 15" to 21"), but of course you have a lot of reason to spend as little time as possible in that range band so that the rest of your guys can maximize their firepower. On the other hand, I'm pretty tempted by shredders. With Obsidian Rose they've got 18" range and are almost twice as efficient as rapid-firing splinter rifles vs GEQs and MEQs. I could definitely see adding a shredder to each squad, and possibly going to 10-man squads with 2 shredders each. I want to see how often I end up within 18" on turn 1, though. A lot of people put GEQ screens right at the front of their deployment zone, especially if they're also staring down a bunch of Spears, so this might work out pretty often.
the_scotsman wrote: I did get a chance to test out some dismounted Kabalites in a game yesterday against a half armored/half militarum tempestus guard list, and I can attest to being pleasantly surprised by their durability, though I have to say I would not have been had I not had Raiders to protect them early.
That's interesting. I'm surprised he couldn't kill a Raider on turn 1. Like, that's my big fear about using the normal sort of Venom/Raider spam -- with the right sort of firepower mix you're not really protecting your guys at all, since your opponent can open up a transport with guns that are good for that and then kill the guys inside with other guns that are good for that. In general battle cannons are pretty great vs Raiders -- you kill about twice as many points' worth of Raider with a battle cannon shot than Warriors. Warriors are only a tiny bit less durable than Raiders even against a Punisher cannon, since Raiders are only T5. It's bolters and lasguns where you really benefit from having a transport. Though obviously giving blasters to your Warriors makes the squad more fragile and makes transports more desirable, if they're not just going to get blown up immediately. That said, the big appeal of transports is probably that then your opponent has to decide whether to shoot the transports or shoot your other vehicles (but the right answer is probably to shoot the transports).
The first battlecannon (the commander, who also had plasma cannons and a lascannon) opted to shoot at the venom containing my warlord archon+court. I used the -1 to hit stratagem, he only managed to do 2 wounds. The second (which was battlecannon+3 heavy bolters) took 7 wounds off a raider, but didn't kill it. The majority of everything else tried to take out Hellions or Reavers that were charging at him, but both were in Ruins and proved a pain in the ass to take down with small arms fire (both had a 3+ save, thanks to strike from shadows on the hellions. He focused them and his whole army pretty much took them out).
here's why I like Raiders/Venoms: If they take damage, they don't lose hardly any effectiveness until they're completely dead, because their effectiveness is contained in getting your warriors within rapid firing range turn 1. Sure, on a wound per wound basis, warriors are as durable, but they take two turns to actually get up to rapid fire range to start doing real damage, even if you take them as Obrose. With raiders, I'm there, turn 1, and I don't even need to take obrose, I have the luxury of going Flayed Skull and getting a good deal more damage shooting out of my transport or Poison Tongue for more longevity for my firepower bonus.
I can definitely see the perks of twin Shredder Kabalite squads as the rank & file if using Obsidian Rose for the 18" range. Assuming you are under Archon aura, you put out 6.5 GEQ kills per squad vs the 4.5 GEQ of a Poison Tongue 10 man squad with Splinter Rifle. MEQ it's 3.46 to the Shredder squad vs 2.27 on the splinter fire team. That's just how good Shredders are; probably the best weapon Drukhari have access to so I can see it being perfect for your approach of a cheap anti-infantry swarm Dio.
You then also have the "Failure is not an option" stratagem to get some better plays vs any morale checks you do have to take which further fits your views.
the_scotsman wrote: I know this is Dark Eldar discussion, but I'm curious how people are feeling Ynnari fit into DE post-FAQ.
They might be good, but I'm personally not a fan. Not in their current incarnation at least.
I don't want to have to use a special character *and* have said character be my warlord (thus locking me out of Alliance of Agony as well all our fun warlord traits) just to unlock the army.
the_scotsman wrote: I know this is Dark Eldar discussion, but I'm curious how people are feeling Ynnari fit into DE post-FAQ.
They might be good, but I'm personally not a fan. Not in their current incarnation at least.
I don't want to have to use a special character *and* have said character be my warlord (thus locking me out of Alliance of Agony as well all our fun warlord traits) just to unlock the army.
True, I'm talking on more of a "I want to win this tournament" level here - where we're already factoring in soup and taking a slightly more soulless version of our list anyway. the only warlord trait I'd be sad about losing is Labyrinthine Cunning.
Though I suppose besides forcing your opponent to deal with them or risk eating soulbursts to the face the turn afterwards, Ynnari reavers don't do much that Red Grief Reavers can't. Both cross the board hilariously easily, then need a little help to deal a lot of damage. The only reason I like the ynnari version is I can take them with the Strife stratagem, which actually makes them do good burst damage the turn they hit (hyperstimm them with +attack drugs and they attack 96 times, rerolling 1s thanks to ancestors grace...its pretty hilarious.)
True, I'm talking on more of a "I want to win this tournament" level here - where we're already factoring in soup and taking a slightly more soulless version of our list anyway.
Fair enough.
Quite honestly, the Ynnari rules have been messed with and changed so much that I don't think I could be bothered doing the paperwork even if I did want to play them.
the_scotsman wrote: The only reason I like the ynnari version is I can take them with the Strife stratagem, which actually makes them do good burst damage the turn they hit (hyperstimm them with +attack drugs and they attack 96 times, rerolling 1s thanks to ancestors grace...its pretty hilarious.)
How are you getting the Strife stratagem with them? Doesn't being Ynnari prevent that?
I just want a Ynnari codex that they put in the datasheets Ynnari can use (they can even tailor them for Ynnari, like ABC only can take 0-1 per detachments) give them their own stratagems, relics, and WL traits, change the points to better fit Ynnari and take away some of the nerfs of the Ynnari SFD rule.
I currently dont like how Ynnari plays (not about being good, just the feel how you build the army).
it is basically powergaming: The Army at this point. There's nothing there but ways to try and abuse the strength from death rule. I agree, they need their own units/costs and an un-nerf of SFD letting it trigger more often so you don't have to resort to super gamey tricks to get mileage out of it.
I thought the regular visitors to this thread might like a heads up:
I currently maintain the drukhari datafile for Battlescribe, and some backend logic changes coming soon may break army lists. (ripping out some workarounds for a longstanding bug that was recently fixed).
Since it may have breaking changes, I thought it might be a good time to gather a little feedback on any changes that might help end users of the datafile. Are there any major changes to the way certain units are configured, or things that could be added (like the combat drugs selector) that are desired? I don't play DE myself except a tiny patrol with my few corsairs, so I might not see annoyances that people who play the army fully might.
Given the new FAQ it would be useful to allow us to select "Ynnari" as a subfaction, enabling Yvraine Yncarne and Visarch and disabling any Coven units and Mandrakes.
All the talk about the kabalites on foot being comparable to guardsmen and how the drukhari can do a good imitation of a guard army, why would you want to?
The main strengths of the drukhari army to me is the ability to throw down a huge amount of fast moving, cheap, decently survivable threats that hit like a truck. Why put down 60 kabalite warriors and run them forward when you can throw down 20 in raiders which moves up and are effective turn one? With the ability to put down 10+ 10 wound raider shells on the field, it's almost inconsequential that the enemy will take out one, maybe 2 first turn. When the army is going to be in their face it overwhelms their target priority.
A 2000 point list can fit in 5 raiders full of dudes, 3 ravagers, a flier, a unit or 2 of reavers, and maybe some hellions or wyches in deep strike for turn 2. Your opponent might have enough anti tank to drop 2 first turn. What do they shoot?
The ravagers that will kill them from afar? The raiders full of wyches that will be in their face turn 2? The raiders with blaster kabalites that will just drive around popping tanks? Or the flier that will prove a thorn in the side and punish any mismovement of characters?
The fact that all their weapons are assault as well on the vehicles means they can dance in and out of threat ranges while still shooting at full efficiency.
Or do you want to just advance across the field giving the threats in piecemeal? Have guys on the ground that give ranged anti infantry some tasty targets?
Guard armies play how they play because they have to. Do you think guard would have a static gunline approach if they could move their tanks and fire at full efficiency? Hell no.
Do you think infantry squads would be standing around or foot slogging around the board if they could get a ride they could all shoot out of while they are ferried up into optimum range for the low low price of 80 points? No way they would.
WindstormSCR wrote: I thought the regular visitors to this thread might like a heads up:
I currently maintain the drukhari datafile for Battlescribe, and some backend logic changes coming soon may break army lists. (ripping out some workarounds for a longstanding bug that was recently fixed).
Since it may have breaking changes, I thought it might be a good time to gather a little feedback on any changes that might help end users of the datafile. Are there any major changes to the way certain units are configured, or things that could be added (like the combat drugs selector) that are desired? I don't play DE myself except a tiny patrol with my few corsairs, so I might not see annoyances that people who play the army fully might.
A Haemonculus' tools being switched for other weapons is annoying (I think this also applies to Wracks). If you pick a weapon, it still keeps the Haemonculus Tools box ticked, which then pings the configuration as illegal. Since the tools get subbed out anyway, there's no point in keeping them as a separate on-off box.
I don't know if it's possible, but a way to duplicate talos loadouts within a single unit would be nice.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Wyldcarde wrote: All the talk about the kabalites on foot being comparable to guardsmen and how the drukhari can do a good imitation of a guard army, why would you want to?
The main strengths of the drukhari army to me is the ability to throw down a huge amount of fast moving, cheap, decently survivable threats that hit like a truck. Why put down 60 kabalite warriors and run them forward when you can throw down 20 in raiders which moves up and are effective turn one? With the ability to put down 10+ 10 wound raider shells on the field, it's almost inconsequential that the enemy will take out one, maybe 2 first turn. When the army is going to be in their face it overwhelms their target priority.
A 2000 point list can fit in 5 raiders full of dudes, 3 ravagers, a flier, a unit or 2 of reavers, and maybe some hellions or wyches in deep strike for turn 2. Your opponent might have enough anti tank to drop 2 first turn. What do they shoot?
The ravagers that will kill them from afar? The raiders full of wyches that will be in their face turn 2? The raiders with blaster kabalites that will just drive around popping tanks? Or the flier that will prove a thorn in the side and punish any mismovement of characters?
The fact that all their weapons are assault as well on the vehicles means they can dance in and out of threat ranges while still shooting at full efficiency.
Or do you want to just advance across the field giving the threats in piecemeal? Have guys on the ground that give ranged anti infantry some tasty targets?
Guard armies play how they play because they have to. Do you think guard would have a static gunline approach if they could move their tanks and fire at full efficiency? Hell no.
Do you think infantry squads would be standing around or foot slogging around the board if they could get a ride they could all shoot out of while they are ferried up into optimum range for the low low price of 80 points? No way they would.
With Obsidian Rose giving +6" to your kabalites' weapons and the slightly higher movement range of the kabalites themselves (effective range 37"/22") combined with a significant nerf to alpha strikes, the need for a delivery system becomes much less important for an on-foot fetish army. Moreover, many cheap, single wound bodies are far more efficient than a single 10W one. 8th edition is the horde edition, and kabalites are one of the most well equipped and generously statlined units for their cost in the game in this regard.
In a game with no such thing as anti-horde measures, a sea of bodies is simply going to be better than what a traditional raiderspam can bring to the table. If they fix morale/leadership to actually be meaningful, or even introduce some units which are properly built to handle hordes (as in, they actively punish weak statlines and large model counts, rather than just having a high number of attacks that are still more efficient against elites and armour), then we might see a change. But until then, the best way to the top for near anything will be more bodies.
the_scotsman wrote:Given the new FAQ it would be useful to allow us to select "Ynnari" as a subfaction, enabling Yvraine Yncarne and Visarch and disabling any Coven units and Mandrakes.
That's already in, just select ynnari under detachment attribute and it'll hide all invalid options (and the rules that no longer apply, swapping for SfD)
Fafnir wrote:
A Haemonculus' tools being switched for other weapons is annoying (I think this also applies to Wracks). If you pick a weapon, it still keeps the Haemonculus Tools box ticked, which then pings the configuration as illegal. Since the tools get subbed out anyway, there's no point in keeping them as a separate on-off box.
I don't know if it's possible, but a way to duplicate talos loadouts within a single unit would be nice.
the tools is a function of how shared option lists work, where the tools are a direct link on the model and the rest of the list is a shared one. there might be a solution to that, but it would only work if all units that can take from the weapons of torture list have haem tools as a default option. the splinter pistol and not the stinger pistol is the default for a similar reason.
I'll see what I can do about Talos units, but I don't think there is a way for BS to allow duplication inside units. I'll check and see if there is a feature request out to the developer on that if I can't make it work.
I'm not trusting relying on big blobs of Drukhari on foot just because Kastelan Robots and Hurricane Bolters exist. 2 Robots in Protector mode pump out 36 S6 AP-2 shots that ignores cover. I once destroyed a unit of 20 Guardians just with that + morale. Against the same Robots if you have them in a Raider however, for starters it wounds on 3s instead of 2s, and you actually have an invulnerable save against it.
But it's a matter of preference I guess, I'm into this army for fast raiding attacks from fast transports, not to live a footslogging army again :p
Aaranis wrote: I'm not trusting relying on big blobs of Drukhari on foot just because Kastelan Robots and Hurricane Bolters exist. 2 Robots in Protector mode pump out 36 S6 AP-2 shots that ignores cover. I once destroyed a unit of 20 Guardians just with that + morale. Against the same Robots if you have them in a Raider however, for starters it wounds on 3s instead of 2s, and you actually have an invulnerable save against it.
But it's a matter of preference I guess, I'm into this army for fast raiding attacks from fast transports, not to live a footslogging army again :p
In this case though, failing morale can actually be a benefit. Let the kastelans nuke what they want, it'll give your blasters/lances/shredders an extra shooting phase. 20 guardians/however many warriors is not that big a loss to take considering cost of those kastelans and Cawl.
WindstormSCR wrote: I thought the regular visitors to this thread might like a heads up:
I currently maintain the drukhari datafile for Battlescribe, and some backend logic changes coming soon may break army lists. (ripping out some workarounds for a longstanding bug that was recently fixed).
Since it may have breaking changes, I thought it might be a good time to gather a little feedback on any changes that might help end users of the datafile. Are there any major changes to the way certain units are configured, or things that could be added (like the combat drugs selector) that are desired? I don't play DE myself except a tiny patrol with my few corsairs, so I might not see annoyances that people who play the army fully might.
Talos weapons swap has a error saying you have you one to many
WindstormSCR wrote: I thought the regular visitors to this thread might like a heads up:
I currently maintain the drukhari datafile for Battlescribe, and some backend logic changes coming soon may break army lists. (ripping out some workarounds for a longstanding bug that was recently fixed).
Since it may have breaking changes, I thought it might be a good time to gather a little feedback on any changes that might help end users of the datafile. Are there any major changes to the way certain units are configured, or things that could be added (like the combat drugs selector) that are desired? I don't play DE myself except a tiny patrol with my few corsairs, so I might not see annoyances that people who play the army fully might.
Talos weapons swap has a error saying you have you one to many
Sounds like you're a release or two behind, current is v29
So interestingly, there is a way to duplicate inside units. There is no context menu item, but the button at the top of the roster selections pane WILL work. Sadly I don't work on the application itself so this will annoy me to no end forever.
Wyldcarde wrote: All the talk about the kabalites on foot being comparable to guardsmen and how the drukhari can do a good imitation of a guard army, why would you want to?
The main strengths of the drukhari army to me is the ability to throw down a huge amount of fast moving, cheap, decently survivable threats that hit like a truck. Why put down 60 kabalite warriors and run them forward when you can throw down 20 in raiders which moves up and are effective turn one?
I mean, the reason you might want to do this is that 60 Warriors shoot a lot better from 24" than 20 Warriors do from 12", and 40 Warriors are harder to kill than 2 Raiders. I don't think those points are quite right, but it works out even with real points -- for the cost of a Raider and 10 Warriors you can just get 20 Warriors and a blaster. You shoot just as well at long range as the Raider squad does in close, and of course you can get in close on turn 2. What's not effective about that? And if you replace a few Raiders in this way you quickly overwhelm ranged anti-infantry shooting.
Aaranis wrote: I'm not trusting relying on big blobs of Drukhari on foot just because Kastelan Robots and Hurricane Bolters exist. 2 Robots in Protector mode pump out 36 S6 AP-2 shots that ignores cover. I once destroyed a unit of 20 Guardians just with that + morale. Against the same Robots if you have them in a Raider however, for starters it wounds on 3s instead of 2s, and you actually have an invulnerable save against it.
But it's a matter of preference I guess, I'm into this army for fast raiding attacks from fast transports, not to live a footslogging army again :p
Likewise here, it's important to recognize that Raiders aren't actually much more durable in the face of this kind of firepower, especially not if the Raider is within half range of rapid fire weapons whereas the Warrior blob wouldn't be. An S6 AP-2 hit expects to knock 1.78 points' worth of wounds off of an 80 point Raider vs 2.08 off of a Warrior. That's not even considering that you expect one or two free kills on the unit inside when you pop a Raider. If the shots are AP-1 (as from an assault cannon) then the Warriors are outright more durable. The only thing Warriors are genuinely scared of is hurricane bolters, which you mention, but even here it's worth noting that the Raiders' advantage disappears if they're getting rapid-fired upon. And this will often be the case -- you mostly see hurricane bolters on Aggressors and Custodes bike Captains. Aggressors are never going to be within 12" of foot Warriors, but probably will be that close to Raiders, and even bike Captains are going to have a hard time. There used to be a lot of faster S4 AP0 firepower but GW seems intent on nerfing flyers with hurricane bolters as soon as people find them, and the new deep strike rule keeps you safe from storm bolter squads.
So being a curious soul I thought i'd compare the Obsidian Rose shredder teams you are looking at Dio with Scourges. For the sake of this exercise I assume the Kabalites are with Archon aura while the Scourge unit is not.
10 Obsidian Rose Kabalites + 2 Shredders = 76 points
Durability = 10 wounds, 15 wounds after save, 18 after FNP = 4.22 PPW
Durability in Cover = 10 Wounds, 15 wounds after save, 24 after FNP = 3.46 PPW
Durability in Cover + Hunt from the Shadows = 10 Wounds, 30 wounds after save, 36 after FNP = 2.11 PPW
Damage output = 6.49 GEQ, 3.46 MEQ = 11.71 PP-GEQ, 21.96 PP-MEQ
10 Scourge Team + 4 Shredders = 152 points
Durability = 10 wounds, 20 wounds after save, 24 after FNP = 6.33 PPW
Durability in Cover = 10 wounds, 30 after save, 36 after FNP = 4.22 PPW
Durability in Cover + Hunt from the Shadows = 10 Wounds, 60 wounds after save, 72 after FNP = 2.11 PPW
Damage output = 11.56 GEQ, 6.15 MEQ = 13.15 PP-GEQ, 24.71 PP-MEQ
My conclusions from this are that, so long as you are careful in your maneuvering so that you adequately use cover, Scourges only fall behind a fraction due to the lack of Archon aura buffs; though I believe they more than make up for it with the free deep-strike to ensure they get at least one volley of max firepower, and their high move speed. I think it's great that Obsidian Rose Kabalites can put out that kind of firepower, but i'd rather the choices other obsessions give and there is a limit to the amount of concentrated Shredder firepower you would really need.
Blaster Kabalites feels the better choice from an overall tactical perspective to me, since I prefer my objective holding units to be able to also take down light vehicles and transports as they try to close in.
Dio I think you are underselling the raiders maneuverability. The fact they can move 16 inches and still fire effectively, up to 24 with only a -1 to hit when advancing puts them over the top imo. They are a lot better at overloading a flank than warriors, for one.
You compare their survivability to the warriors in the face of hurricane bolters. In theory this might be the case, but in reality the custodes bikes never catch the fully mounted dark eldar list. They move up and maybe get some shots off at 24 inches with their bolters before all the raiders move out to 36 and just bomb them with disintegrstor cannons and dark lance shots.
The kabalite warriors dont have that maneuverability to avoid the damage. The extra 6" helps to at least give them a turn, but then they are shooting non rapid fire splinter rifle shots only.
Anyway, I'm keen to see your list utilising the kabalite flood. Care to share your take?
Yeah. The whole "A swarm of kabalite warriors is superior at X and Y and Z so therefore kabalites will be meta!" kind of smacks of over-theorized, heavily mathhammered concept.
Sure, if you spend all your points on infantry, you'll probably end up with a more durable force that does more damage...if you ignore the fact that your range directly correlates to your damage, and you ignore the extra flexibility you gain by units being able to embark/disembark, transports with Fly being able to engage enemy units to stop them shooting, your models without fly being susceptible to getting charged and enemy units stopping your shooting, objectives occasionally being open but 20+ inches away where you just can't get to them with a horde... all these things that really don't turn up in the math but definitely do the second you test things on the table. When winning the game is not just a simulation of "ok all my units walk forward, all your units walk forward, all our guns shoot at each other when they come in range and lets simulate the dice rolls to see whose guys die first" armies that are heavily just based on theoretical mathhammer rather than flexibility tend to perform far under expectations.
This might be why despite all the talk of 8th being a pure horde edition, where no anti-infantry option is ever effective and nothing but hordes of faceless dudes matter, we've seen a ton of metas and on top tournament tables, hordes are really only a single element of a successful force. You could much more accurately describe 8th as either "The Character Edition" or "The Fly Edition" with how much more we tend to see those rules appear as a major element of the points spent on lists.
The Tau/imperial guard boogeyman that's constantly whined about on Dakka appears so incredibly infrequently at top tournament tables that "gunlines so broken" has become a running joke among high level players.
Lithanial wrote: So being a curious soul I thought i'd compare the Obsidian Rose shredder teams you are looking at Dio with Scourges. For the sake of this exercise I assume the Kabalites are with Archon aura while the Scourge unit is not.
...
My conclusions from this are that, so long as you are careful in your maneuvering so that you adequately use cover, Scourges only fall behind a fraction due to the lack of Archon aura buffs; though I believe they more than make up for it with the free deep-strike to ensure they get at least one volley of max firepower, and their high move speed. I think it's great that Obsidian Rose Kabalites can put out that kind of firepower, but i'd rather the choices other obsessions give and there is a limit to the amount of concentrated Shredder firepower you would really need.
Blaster Kabalites feels the better choice from an overall tactical perspective to me, since I prefer my objective holding units to be able to also take down light vehicles and transports as they try to close in.
I think you're assuming that the Warriors are between 15" and 18" from the enemy. If they also get to rapid fire with their splinter rifles then I believe the PPW numbers are 8.88 and 16.9 for GEQs and MEQs, respectively. That would make the Warriors about 50% more efficient on offense when they're at 15" and 50% more durable vs AP0 outside of cover (which is commonly going to be the case when you're trying to pick a target for 12" guns). You do not often see that kind of efficiency gap. I feel like at minimum you would want to consider spending a CP to deep-strike 20 Warriors before bringing shredder Scourges (and if you're doing this they can obviously be any Kabal).
I also don't think that the ability to guarantee a turn of full power shooting is a huge deal. It matters for Scourges, sure, because if they had to deploy on the table at an average of 15 points per model they'd get blown away immediately, and with decent AP weapons that they're even more vulnerable to relative to Warriors. But just in general you should only feel bad about things taking fire before they get to shoot if they're the best target for some of the other side's weapons. You're deploying something on the table, and your opponent's going to get to shoot at it; what does the rest of your army look like that you're unhappy that your opponent is shooting 24"+ guns at cheap Warrior units? Though this is why I'm leaning towards 0-1 special weapon per squad of 7-9 guys. The other issue here is that your Scourges don't get to do anything until turn 2. You can go second and lose a third of your Warriors before your turn 1 and another third before your turn 2 and the Warriors will still put out more firepower by the end of your second turn (and these are insane losses that I think are only likely with now-illegal mortar spam or deep striking).
I think blasters are a fine choice too, as is just running them naked. With blasters I think you definitely want just one per squad on foot to keep the average cost down as much as possible, and even moreso than with shredders you want Obsidian Rose so that you can shoot behind the front lines on turn 1. I've seen Infantry Squads with just a single plasma gun put in some work -- it feels really bad having to kill through a bunch of Guardsmen to shut up a single special weapon, but you can't just ignore it either.
Wyldcarde wrote: Dio I think you are underselling the raiders maneuverability. The fact they can move 16 inches and still fire effectively, up to 24 with only a -1 to hit when advancing puts them over the top imo. They are a lot better at overloading a flank than warriors, for one.
You compare their survivability to the warriors in the face of hurricane bolters. In theory this might be the case, but in reality the custodes bikes never catch the fully mounted dark eldar list. They move up and maybe get some shots off at 24 inches with their bolters before all the raiders move out to 36 and just bomb them with disintegrstor cannons and dark lance shots.
The kabalite warriors dont have that maneuverability to avoid the damage. The extra 6" helps to at least give them a turn, but then they are shooting non rapid fire splinter rifle shots only.
Anyway, I'm keen to see your list utilising the kabalite flood. Care to share your take?
I don't think I'm understanding the scenarios you're describing -- I'm having trouble envisioning them. You have Raiders full of Warriors which are frequently moving so that the Warriors' guns are out of range, except for maybe a splinter cannon? This is paying 140 points minimum for 1 disintegrator cannon volley. This doesn't seem to be a great use of your capabilities, especially since the Custodes bikers are Characters -- you're going to have to clear a bunch of Guardsmen to get at them. Meanwhile they might have some much longer-ranged shooting of their own which is likely to be effective against your vehicles, or at least some deep-strikers that you'll have a hard time dealing with without allowing the main force to catch you. In your last post I took you to be endorsing a "hit them hard and fast" game plan where the Raiders would get the Warriors into rapid-fire range immediately, which is a solid strategy. I was saying that Warriors on foot shoot just about as well but from 24" away instead of 12" away, and so you get the same offensive output and then even if on paper the Warriors are more vulnerable to small arms the Raiders are likely to take a lot more hits because the Raiders moved a lot closer to the enemy to do their shooting (plus you still have the issue that if a Raider dies the Warriors inside are going to get shot next). And then I don't understand why the foot Warriors are shooting "non rapid fire splinter rifle shots only" after the first turn. Is the enemy running away from them?
But, regardless, part of the point of running a ton of GEQ bodies is that you don't care if they get caught. Naked Warriors will win just about any slugging match out there. They are not even terrible against most vehicles (they shoot them as if they have lasguns, which still put in work when you have enough of them). I only brought up Custodes bikers because they're one of the only examples of mass S4 AP0 firepower you're still likely to run into a bunch of, but even with their hurricane bolters foot Warriors crush them. Splinter fire (on foot or mounted) also benefits more than most other DE weapons from Doom and Jinx (and on foot or non-Flayed Skull from Reveal).
I tossed around some more detailed list ideas on the last page, but I've mostly been toying with a battalion with 2 Archons and 40-50 Warriors, currently just with splinter rifles, and then two detachments of Craftworld good stuff -- some psykers, a big unit of Spears, some Rangers to zone, a unit of Guardians to deep strike, and some Hemlocks. I suspect a more competitive list would bring in Ynnari and maybe drop the Hemlocks in favor of presenting no vehicles at all. If you want more DE flavor in the list you could bring Ravagers instead, and you could replace the Guardians with deep-striking Warriors and even the Spears with Cult units (though I don't think this would be nearly as good). The Rangers and Warriors lock down my side of the table and still put out very respectable shooting to clear screens in support of the Spears and deep-striking Guardians. The main change I'm tempted to make is to add a blaster to each squad since my impression is that with the new FAQ you can keep a GEQ horde alive a lot longer (because there are fewer turn 1 deep-strikers and fewer mortars).
This might be why despite all the talk of 8th being a pure horde edition, where no anti-infantry option is ever effective and nothing but hordes of faceless dudes matter, we've seen a ton of metas and on top tournament tables, hordes are really only a single element of a successful force. You could much more accurately describe 8th as either "The Character Edition" or "The Fly Edition" with how much more we tend to see those rules appear as a major element of the points spent on lists.
The Tau/imperial guard boogeyman that's constantly whined about on Dakka appears so incredibly infrequently at top tournament tables that "gunlines so broken" has become a running joke among high level players.
To be clear, this is what I'm saying. I've only ever been presenting a Warrior horde as one part of a larger force, which can fill a role very similar to Guardsmen in top-tier Imperium lists. I mean, you can't run a list of nothing but Warriors, really -- I don't think Kabals have enough valid HQ choices to take enough of them.
Dio when you were talking custode bikes with hurricane bolters j was envisioning a pure bike force. Hence my answer.
But that doesn't seem to be the case.
A full mounted army can fulfill both ideas you mentioned. It can be full in your face assault, or if the circumstances dictate sit at range and let their big guns soften up the enemy before committing.
I'm definitely not advocating sitting at range the whole game and losing, but having the option to outrage am opponent is handy. The mounted seem good at hitting the sweat range. Being able to shift gear from hitting out at 36, closing to 18 to blaster range, in to 12 for rapid fire, then back out to 36 if required. Or rapidly shifting point of attack to overwhelm a flank.
The no vehicles at all definitely is interesting, especially when combined with craftworlds. The I dont know how long the shining spears will last with all the anti tank weapons pointing at them.
I'd be keen to hear your results tho.
The games I have played with and against the mech heavy drukhari list have been overwhelming.
Hey, guys, I'm looking for a little advice. I'd like to run a Poison Tongue Kabal Battalion (a Ravager, some Scourges and lots of Warriors in Raiders/Venoms).
I'd like to add either a Wych or a Coven detachment to the mix.
- The Wych one would be an outrider with 3 units of 3 Reavers and maybe some Wyches to accompany the Succubus.
- The Coven one would be a Vanguard with 2 units of 3 Grotesques in Raiders (maybe a unit of Mandrakes to make up the 3 Elites). The Haemonculi can accompany one unit, whilst one of the Archons from the Battalion goes with the other.
Does either one of these stand out to you as being the better choice?
TheFleshIsWeak wrote: Hey, guys, I'm looking for a little advice. I'd like to run a Poison Tongue Kabal Battalion (a Ravager, some Scourges and lots of Warriors in Raiders/Venoms).
I'd like to add either a Wych or a Coven detachment to the mix.
- The Wych one would be an outrider with 3 units of 3 Reavers and maybe some Wyches to accompany the Succubus.
- The Coven one would be a Vanguard with 2 units of 3 Grotesques in Raiders (maybe a unit of Mandrakes to make up the 3 Elites). The Haemonculi can accompany one unit, whilst one of the Archons from the Battalion goes with the other.
Does either one of these stand out to you as being the better choice?
The more i play Coven the more i like them, i really enjoy the Grots and Talos, ive been playing with 9 Grots and 3 Talos with Urien (for the +1S), 3x3 Grot units and 1 Talos unit of 3 (for stratagems like Fire and Fade, and The Torturer's Craft) b.c stratagems works better on larger units.
I dont like Wracks unless im taking 40+ of them and 0 Kabals, they just dont do any damage, they are just tough guys that gets in the way, if you have Kabals i dont see the need for Wracks.
Dionysodorus wrote: I think you're assuming that the Warriors are between 15" and 18" from the enemy. If they also get to rapid fire with their splinter rifles then I believe the PPW numbers are 8.88 and 16.9 for GEQs and MEQs, respectively. That would make the Warriors about 50% more efficient on offense when they're at 15" and 50% more durable vs AP0 outside of cover (which is commonly going to be the case when you're trying to pick a target for 12" guns). You do not often see that kind of efficiency gap. I feel like at minimum you would want to consider spending a CP to deep-strike 20 Warriors before bringing shredder Scourges (and if you're doing this they can obviously be any Kabal).
I also don't think that the ability to guarantee a turn of full power shooting is a huge deal. It matters for Scourges, sure, because if they had to deploy on the table at an average of 15 points per model they'd get blown away immediately, and with decent AP weapons that they're even more vulnerable to relative to Warriors. But just in general you should only feel bad about things taking fire before they get to shoot if they're the best target for some of the other side's weapons. You're deploying something on the table, and your opponent's going to get to shoot at it; what does the rest of your army look like that you're unhappy that your opponent is shooting 24"+ guns at cheap Warrior units? Though this is why I'm leaning towards 0-1 special weapon per squad of 7-9 guys. The other issue here is that your Scourges don't get to do anything until turn 2. You can go second and lose a third of your Warriors before your turn 1 and another third before your turn 2 and the Warriors will still put out more firepower by the end of your second turn (and these are insane losses that I think are only likely with now-illegal mortar spam or deep striking).
I think blasters are a fine choice too, as is just running them naked. With blasters I think you definitely want just one per squad on foot to keep the average cost down as much as possible, and even moreso than with shredders you want Obsidian Rose so that you can shoot behind the front lines on turn 1. I've seen Infantry Squads with just a single plasma gun put in some work -- it feels really bad having to kill through a bunch of Guardsmen to shut up a single special weapon, but you can't just ignore it either.
That range bracket of 15-18" is the correct one to simulate though, as you need to take deployment distance and movement into account. With average deployment 24" apart and a 7" move distance you will at best end up 17" away from your target if you get first turn. Just about enough that you may bring the Shredders into range depending on terrain and assuming the opponent deployed right up front, but you won't get to rapid fire and you will only get a couple of squads in range at best.
If your opponent is just a couple of inches back, you won't even get the shredders in range until turn 2. With that in mind, Scourges deep striking turn 2 don't really lose out on much shooting vs the Kabalites, but they do get a turn of protection and a favorable position to drop to.
Here's what I'm looking at as a tournament competitive Dark Eldar list (OK, officially, it's mostly Ynnari, but there is exactly one non-Dark Eldar model in the list, let's be real here we're using the Ynnari rules to gain a competitive advantage for Dark Eldar)
Ynnari Battalion Detachment (All Kabal units Black Heart)
Yvraine (warlord)
Archon with Venom Blade, Writ of the Living Muse, splinter pistol, Phantasm
5x Kabals with Shredder
5x Kabals with Shredder
5x Kabals with Shredder
Venom with TL splinter
Venom with TL splinter
Venom with TL splinter
Raider with Dissie
Raider with Dissie
Ravager with Dissie
Ravager with Dissie
RWJF with Dark Lances, TL splinter (Flayed Skull)
RWJF with Dark Lances, TL splinter (Flayed Skull)
List Concept: Intended to counter a skew towards heavy gunline with scouting or infiltrating screens brought about by the new anti-DSFAQ. Thanks to the new Ynnari FAQ, I have access to the coveted Agents of Vect stratagem, while also enabling my Ynnari Reavers to pop No Method of Death for turn 1 screen evisceration.
I have one Raider, three Reaver squads, one succubus, and one wych squad that can get across no man's land extremely reliably turn 1 to charge, with many of those units having fly. Any Sentinels, nurgling units, or Scouts will be charged by exactly one wych with the rest staying out of attack range and doing their best to encircle the unit (I don't even need to with Scouts, stealth suits, or Rangers, with standard Nurgling and Sentinel units its extremely easy for me to encircle and I don't need to be as cautious about attacking with less of my unit). Shardnet prevents fallback 80% of the time vs infantry, and then on my next turn they'll be ready to advance right up the field.
When I lose turn 1, I'm assuming a gunline opponent is going to be smart enough to realize my 12-man reaver squad is the big threat. Lightning Reflexes and Hunt from the Shadows are no-brainer burns to try and keep them alive with 2+sv and -1 to hit. If they give up after I pop those and shoot different targets, the majority of my turn 1 strategy still works. Everything else in the list is pretty much redundant.
In the matchup vs turn 1 chargers myself, a sacrificial wych screen and 2 RWJF bases are the best I've got to hold against the rest of the army. That and my transports being really difficult to surround, with Fly, and the ability to stand nose-to-tail easily to prevent encircling. The list is designed for a theoretical gunline meta, I'm not under any delusions that it's the perfect TAC.
That range bracket of 15-18" is the correct one to simulate though, as you need to take deployment distance and movement into account. With average deployment 24" apart and a 7" move distance you will at best end up 17" away from your target if you get first turn. Just about enough that you may bring the Shredders into range depending on terrain and assuming the opponent deployed right up front, but you won't get to rapid fire and you will only get a couple of squads in range at best.
If your opponent is just a couple of inches back, you won't even get the shredders in range until turn 2. With that in mind, Scourges deep striking turn 2 don't really lose out on much shooting vs the Kabalites, but they do get a turn of protection and a favorable position to drop to.
Sure, for turn 1 that's reasonable (edit: unless your opponent has scouts or infiltrators). I was just pointing out that in addition to their turn 1 shooting, which is a pure advantage for the Warriors since you're pretty happy to be able to shoot with them on turn 1 in exchange for allowing them to get shot at, Warriors are probably going to be a lot more efficient than the Scourges on turn 2, when the Scourges actually show up. And you even have the option of deep-striking a huge group of Warriors instead of taking the Scourges if you really want to be able to drop an anti-infantry squad wherever you want.
Oh, I've got another question - are we allowed to take Splinter Pistols on Haemonculi now (via the Index) or not?
I ask because the flowchart says that we have access to Index options, but technically the Splinter Pistol wasn't an option - it was the default pistol.
The more i play Coven the more i like them, i really enjoy the Grots and Talos, ive been playing with 9 Grots and 3 Talos with Urien (for the +1S), 3x3 Grot units and 1 Talos unit of 3 (for stratagems like Fire and Fade, and The Torturer's Craft) b.c stratagems works better on larger units.
I dont like Wracks unless im taking 40+ of them and 0 Kabals, they just dont do any damage, they are just tough guys that gets in the way, if you have Kabals i dont see the need for Wracks.
I have the same feeling about Wracks.
Okay, I'll try Coven then. I'll probably have to stick with 2 units of 3 Grotesques for now, as that's all the models I have.
Talos and grotesques are definitely underrated. If you bring lots of them with Urien's buffs they can be really good.
I'm regularly fielding 8 grotesques and 6 talos, and I'm really enjoying my monsers. I haven't tried the cronos yet which seems a bit lackluster but it would allow me to take 2x3 talos instead of 3x2 talos in the coven spearhead and I'd prefer two units instead of three. But basically for a matter of bonus range since even with all my 14 monsters (15 with the cronos) I just need to have 4 of them near Urien. Even 3 if I bring the cronos since no one would shoot it when I have grots, talos, kabalites in venoms and ravagers.
I was talking about this over on thedarkcity and wanted to talk here as well.
There is another idea for Cronos, the value of many cheap units. Theya re 70pts, sure they dont do much damage, but the point is they are so cheap you can take about 28% your army in points and have such a heavy anvil they cant crack it. Take 9 at 630pts (for the Spirit probe) That is 63 T6/7 wounds with a 4++/6+++
Lets do some math
Assuming Re-roll 1's to hit
146 Plasma Over charging shots
84 Lascannon shots
Dont forget in CC they can heal 1 wound as well per Cronos.
I haven't been too impressed with Talos yet. I took a unit of 3 to a 26 player event this last saturday and in 2 out of 3 rounds they were killed in the first turn. I still got first place, but it was more on the backs of my grots and vehicles than the talos. I'm of the opinion grotesque are the more efficient choice and being infantry they're a bit easier to hide in buildings and get out of LOS when you need to too.
lessthanjeff wrote: I haven't been too impressed with Talos yet. I took a unit of 3 to a 26 player event this last saturday and in 2 out of 3 rounds they were killed in the first turn. I still got first place, but it was more on the backs of my grots and vehicles than the talos. I'm of the opinion grotesque are the more efficient choice and being infantry they're a bit easier to hide in buildings and get out of LOS when you need to too.
Talos are my MVP's atm.
And how many turns and shots did they fire at them? Something HAS to die, if your Grots were killed instead your Talos would most likely have done a lot better, or if your Ravagers died 1st, etc... 3 Talos is 21 T7 4++/6+++ wounds, thats a LOT to kill them, we are talking about full army shooting.
Against Dark Reapers with an Autarch for re-roll 1's, a 3 unit of Talos will eat 56 shots, if someone takes a Ynnari unit of 9 and double shoots them for 18 shots, there is a chance they dont kill a Talos.
Grots are actually super-durable. They're paying 8.75 points per T5 4++/6+++ wound, and they sometimes get overkilled by d6 damage weapons. Even the cheapest Cronos is still paying 9.28 ppw, and the only advantages it gets over Grots are a point of toughness and a 3+ save, while being basically useless offensively. A Talos with haywire blasters is a whopping 14.14 ppw.
A Cronos looks pretty durable next to most other things in the game -- it's sturdier than a pre-FAQ Leviathan flyrant -- but Grots have them beat, and do decently in CC too. I don't think I'd look too much into Cronos or Talos spam until I'd already maxed out on Grots (and that's 1050 points already).
Dionysodorus wrote: Grots are actually super-durable. They're paying 8.75 points per T5 4++/6+++ wound, and they sometimes get overkilled by d6 damage weapons. Even the cheapest Cronos is still paying 9.28 ppw, and the only advantages it gets over Grots are a point of toughness and a 3+ save, while being basically useless offensively. A Talos with haywire blasters is a whopping 14.14 ppw.
A Cronos looks pretty durable next to most other things in the game -- it's sturdier than a pre-FAQ Leviathan flyrant -- but Grots have them beat, and do decently in CC too. I don't think I'd look too much into Cronos or Talos spam until I'd already maxed out on Grots (and that's 1050 points already).
Yes Grots do have them beat, but why not both? The Cronos has 1 thing over the Grots tho and thats Fly (and +1" movement) the Grots will always deal way more damage for sure.
I just wanted to point out a few things is all. I love my Grots tho i have 20 and glad to use them all the time, i use at least 9 every game now, sometimes 18, i havent tried all 20 of mine yet.
The Warlord Archon goes with the Mandrakes in the Raider, the Djin Blade Archon goes with one of the Grotesque units while the Haemonculus goes with one of the other Grotesque units. The Scourges will deep strike somewhere.
And how many turns and shots did they fire at them? Something HAS to die, if your Grots were killed instead your Talos would most likely have done a lot better, or if your Ravagers died 1st, etc... 3 Talos is 21 T7 4++/6+++ wounds, thats a LOT to kill them, we are talking about full army shooting.
Against Dark Reapers with an Autarch for re-roll 1's, a 3 unit of Talos will eat 56 shots, if someone takes a Ynnari unit of 9 and double shoots them for 18 shots, there is a chance they dont kill a Talos.
Both games that I lost all the talos turn 1, I also lost a 4 man unit of grots and this was just from turn 1 shooting. The only other targets they would have had would have been my jets but I would have welcomed that because the damage would have been insignificant against those targets (poison needing 6's and being able to pop strat to put lots of negatives to hit). Ravagers I deepstruck so they weren't on the table as eligible targets anyways.
1 game it was against adeptus sororitas who had a lot of scout moving/advancing and melta guns and flamers to roast units. The other game I lost them turn 1 was against another drukhari army (kabal of the flayed skull) and they just drowned them in poison and had plenty of shooting to spare.
The Warlord Archon goes with the Mandrakes in the Raider, the Djin Blade Archon goes with one of the Grotesque units while the Haemonculus goes with one of the other Grotesque units. The Scourges will deep strike somewhere.
Any thoughts?
Mandrakes in a Raider is a bit of an odd choice for me, not sure why they wouldn't just deep strike. I'd definitely find the space for two Lhameans to stick one in each Grotesque raider (just to act as a suicide casualty so you don't lose a grot to an unlucky roll of 1 if the transport gets shot). Otherwise, looks pretty strong to me, good little mounted force.
The Warlord Archon goes with the Mandrakes in the Raider, the Djin Blade Archon goes with one of the Grotesque units while the Haemonculus goes with one of the other Grotesque units. The Scourges will deep strike somewhere.
Any thoughts?
It's good. I'd just cut a few upgrades in order to fit a ravager with 3 dissies. You can cut the mandrakes' raider, replace the dark lances on other raiders with dissies, cut the archon's blast pistol, all the agonisers and a blaster from the kabalite units replacing it with a shredder.
I'm not sure about the Obsession, the Poisoned Tongue one looks the less appealing to me.
And how many turns and shots did they fire at them? Something HAS to die, if your Grots were killed instead your Talos would most likely have done a lot better, or if your Ravagers died 1st, etc... 3 Talos is 21 T7 4++/6+++ wounds, thats a LOT to kill them, we are talking about full army shooting.
Against Dark Reapers with an Autarch for re-roll 1's, a 3 unit of Talos will eat 56 shots, if someone takes a Ynnari unit of 9 and double shoots them for 18 shots, there is a chance they dont kill a Talos.
Both games that I lost all the talos turn 1, I also lost a 4 man unit of grots and this was just from turn 1 shooting. The only other targets they would have had would have been my jets but I would have welcomed that because the damage would have been insignificant against those targets (poison needing 6's and being able to pop strat to put lots of negatives to hit). Ravagers I deepstruck so they weren't on the table as eligible targets anyways.
1 game it was against adeptus sororitas who had a lot of scout moving/advancing and melta guns and flamers to roast units. The other game I lost them turn 1 was against another drukhari army (kabal of the flayed skull) and they just drowned them in poison and had plenty of shooting to spare.
If he Scouted 12 Melta guns at you, then no matter what, 350pts of anything will die and you cant say a unit is bad b.c someone dropped 500pts on you for 1 unit to kill. Flamers dont do much at all, 15 flamers is only 5 wounds.
Sadly, the faq is going to ruin sob, no more than 3 squads can scout now.
Tyel wrote: I think the Cronus is the one obvious miss in the codex.
Its defensive stats are fine but its offensive stats are a joke. In combat you expect to kill one guardsman a turn. Shooting isn't much better.
It's a nice, cheap, durable buff machine. People happily pay what, 50 points for a jump pack lieutenant whose only job is to drop down and offer that aura? The cronos does that, shoots a flamer, lives a long time, and occasionally heals a wound off something, for 20 odd points more. That's fine with me, especially as I play a lot of wyches and I'm rerolling a LOT of wounds with it.
Mandrakes in a Raider is a bit of an odd choice for me, not sure why they wouldn't just deep strike.
I thought they'd make a nice unit to accompany one of my HQs (since they have the same range as his sniper pistol and are decent in melee as well).
I could ditch the Raider and use a WWP to deep strike the HQ with them?
the_scotsman wrote: I'd definitely find the space for two Lhameans to stick one in each Grotesque raider (just to act as a suicide casualty so you don't lose a grot to an unlucky roll of 1 if the transport gets shot). Otherwise, looks pretty strong to me, good little mounted force.
Okay, I'll mess around and try to find the points for those. Cheers.
If he Scouted 12 Melta guns at you, then no matter what, 350pts of anything will die and you cant say a unit is bad b.c someone dropped 500pts on you for 1 unit to kill. Flamers dont do much at all, 15 flamers is only 5 wounds.
Sadly, the faq is going to ruin sob, no more than 3 squads can scout now.
I didn't say they were bad, I said I'm not impressed with Talos. I think competitive lists are better off just taking more Groteque with the points instead. For the cost of the unit of 3 talos, you can get 8 grotesque which have 11 more wounds and (depending on which weapon you use) 22 more attacks.
For fun games, people should feel free to use Talos and I still will myself in that environment. For competitive play, Talos don't impress me and I don't think they're worth it over other choices though.
If he Scouted 12 Melta guns at you, then no matter what, 350pts of anything will die and you cant say a unit is bad b.c someone dropped 500pts on you for 1 unit to kill. Flamers dont do much at all, 15 flamers is only 5 wounds.
Sadly, the faq is going to ruin sob, no more than 3 squads can scout now.
I didn't say they were bad, I said I'm not impressed with Talos. I think competitive lists are better off just taking more Groteque with the points instead. For the cost of the unit of 3 talos, you can get 8 grotesque which have 11 more wounds and (depending on which weapon you use) 22 more attacks.
For fun games, people should feel free to use Talos and I still will myself in that environment. For competitive play, Talos don't impress me and I don't think they're worth it over other choices though.
Thats understandable if you like Grots better, mine has been great for me.
the_scotsman wrote: It's a nice, cheap, durable buff machine. People happily pay what, 50 points for a jump pack lieutenant whose only job is to drop down and offer that aura? The cronos does that, shoots a flamer, lives a long time, and occasionally heals a wound off something, for 20 odd points more. That's fine with me, especially as I play a lot of wyches and I'm rerolling a LOT of wounds with it.
I'd argue a lieutenant is better because he buffs shooting too (I think anyway?) and fills in an HQ slot which you need to fill for detachments.
Whereas the Cronus is just sort of there - messing with your obsessions unless you have a Coven detachment.
I think you need to get over 450~ points into the bubble for it to be better than just taking more stuff - and that will be difficult unless your opponent allows you to bunch up.
I mean how many units do you typically get in? Its not a bad buff for three units of Wyches I guess - but its not amazing. You could have the best part of a whole other unit (although balancing drugs can get complicated.)
And its really hard to see how you would be justified taking more than one.
I tested the Wych Cult/Poisoned Tongue combo in my most recent game and it may actually be my favorite wych cult/kabal combo in the game.
A couple tricks I found fun:
-The Poisoned Tongue special stratagem allows you to pick up and redeploy 3 poisoned tongue units, however it specifically states you can pick up a transport and take the units inside with it, keeping them embarked. What I did was deploy a unit of Red Grief Wyches from my army aboard a poisoned tongue raider, and put them behind a terrain piece in the backfield. Nearer the front line, I had a second raider that was a Red Grief model. The enemy army deployed an aggressive unit right on the deployment line, and I won first turn. I redeployed the unit (which had move drugs) up to the front line, disembarked them 4", advanced them 10"+D6" alongside a Red Grief raider moving 22", charged the red grief raider in first to soak overwatch and charged the wyches in to wipe the unit out, then used the Red Grief stratagem to pop them back into the Raider instead of consolidating.
That, THAT is how I've always wanted Dark Eldar to play. Tricky, lightning fast, brutal and elegant all in one move.
-Poison tongue archons paired with Lhameans and Sslyth are just unreal in combat. I had a full court of 3 sslyth 1 lhamean plus my warlord archon pop out and completely solo a leman russ tank commander between shooting it with a blast pistol (6 damage) and whacking it in combat with huskblades and sslyth battle-blades.
-Fire and Fade: says you can't advance, can't charge, doesn't say you can't embark on a vehicle. I had a unit of Kabalite warriors hop out of their raider, move 12" with the disembark into an archon's aura, shoot up a unit in rapid fire, Fire and Fade 7" and embark onto a different raider, which then charged something to evade shooting on my opponent's turn.
My favorite thing about this codex so far is that every game I play it seems like I'm falling in love with different stratagems. I've had games I went in basically just trying to set up awesome Eviscerating Flybys or trying to Soul Trap my archon up to stupid power levels. I've had games where I discovered the joys of the defensive stratagems, completely denying any attempt to focus firepower onto my stuff. This game, my CPs almost exclusively went into movement shenanigans, and I could catapult units of wyches and kabalites across the battlefield jumping in and out of my transports, it was a blast.
the_scotsman wrote: I tested the Wych Cult/Poisoned Tongue combo in my most recent game and it may actually be my favorite wych cult/kabal combo in the game.
A couple tricks I found fun:
-The Poisoned Tongue special stratagem allows you to pick up and redeploy 3 poisoned tongue units, however it specifically states you can pick up a transport and take the units inside with it, keeping them embarked. What I did was deploy a unit of Red Grief Wyches from my army aboard a poisoned tongue raider, and put them behind a terrain piece in the backfield. Nearer the front line, I had a second raider that was a Red Grief model. The enemy army deployed an aggressive unit right on the deployment line, and I won first turn. I redeployed the unit (which had move drugs) up to the front line, disembarked them 4", advanced them 10"+D6" alongside a Red Grief raider moving 22", charged the red grief raider in first to soak overwatch and charged the wyches in to wipe the unit out, then used the Red Grief stratagem to pop them back into the Raider instead of consolidating.
That, THAT is how I've always wanted Dark Eldar to play. Tricky, lightning fast, brutal and elegant all in one move.
-Poison tongue archons paired with Lhameans and Sslyth are just unreal in combat. I had a full court of 3 sslyth 1 lhamean plus my warlord archon pop out and completely solo a leman russ tank commander between shooting it with a blast pistol (6 damage) and whacking it in combat with huskblades and sslyth battle-blades.
-Fire and Fade: says you can't advance, can't charge, doesn't say you can't embark on a vehicle. I had a unit of Kabalite warriors hop out of their raider, move 12" with the disembark into an archon's aura, shoot up a unit in rapid fire, Fire and Fade 7" and embark onto a different raider, which then charged something to evade shooting on my opponent's turn.
My favorite thing about this codex so far is that every game I play it seems like I'm falling in love with different stratagems. I've had games I went in basically just trying to set up awesome Eviscerating Flybys or trying to Soul Trap my archon up to stupid power levels. I've had games where I discovered the joys of the defensive stratagems, completely denying any attempt to focus firepower onto my stuff. This game, my CPs almost exclusively went into movement shenanigans, and I could catapult units of wyches and kabalites across the battlefield jumping in and out of my transports, it was a blast.
PT batt with 2x10 warriors in raiders, 1x5 sharing a raider with 1x5 wyches, 2 more raiders with 9 wyches 1 succubus. 1Venom with court and archon, 1 more archon buffing the transports. 12 reavers, 5 scourges, 1 Ravager, 3x5 hellions.
Relic was the Glaive and I used Alliance to give her a 3++.
2 Battalions is where I start with every DE list these days, with 5cp in each it's just a no brainier. Our troop choices are crazy good.
the_scotsman wrote: PT batt with 2x10 warriors in raiders, 1x5 sharing a raider with 1x5 wyches, 2 more raiders with 9 wyches 1 succubus. 1Venom with court and archon, 1 more archon buffing the transports. 12 reavers, 5 scourges, 1 Ravager, 3x5 hellions.
Relic was the Glaive and I used Alliance to give her a 3++.
Interesting. Looks like more points than I usually play (and more Raiders than I currently own ), but I might try something along these lines. Thanks for posting that.
the_scotsman wrote: 2 Battalions is where I start with every DE list these days, with 5cp in each it's just a no brainier. Our troop choices are crazy good.
the_scotsman wrote: PT batt with 2x10 warriors in raiders, 1x5 sharing a raider with 1x5 wyches, 2 more raiders with 9 wyches 1 succubus. 1Venom with court and archon, 1 more archon buffing the transports. 12 reavers, 5 scourges, 1 Ravager, 3x5 hellions.
Relic was the Glaive and I used Alliance to give her a 3++.
Interesting. Looks like more points than I usually play (and more Raiders than I currently own ), but I might try something along these lines. Thanks for posting that.
the_scotsman wrote: 2 Battalions is where I start with every DE list these days, with 5cp in each it's just a no brainier. Our troop choices are crazy good.
I wish I could say the same for our HQs.
Im also donig 2 Battalions now, 1 Kabal, 1 Coven, and 1 Outrider Wych, the Wracks with Teleporting can be very strong, i take an extra Relic and the WL traits for Succubus and Haemonculus (+D3 CP for sure, can get lucky), 14+D3 Cp spending 2 at the start and regaining CP throughout the game, i feel fine on CP for the first 3 turns and thats all that matters to me.
People bag the hqs a lot but my current set up has me pretty happy.
With alliance of agony and the extra relics strat I am currently running
Archon with writ and venom pistol. 72 points to buff triple dissie ravagers is pretty nice
Archon with blast pistol and djin blade. Puts out 7 attacks and threatens most targets
Succubus with red glaive and 3++ puts out a decent amount of attacks and is hard to deal with with her 3++. For 50 points is a steal.
Succubus with shardnet. The weakest of the 4, but has proven annoying when supporting the other characters and units as a tie up unit.
Having to run any of them unupgraded would not be ideal, but with the amount of cp the army can easily generate it's not much of an investment to make them decent
Yeah, I think the hate for our hqs is massively overblown.
The archon who isn't the warlord is the only problem child. Even then, he's a character with a D6 damage pistol and a force sword with a 2++ , he's a characters worst nightmare. The warlord one who can reroll all wounds and take the djinn blade? An absolute monster.
Succubi can always be thrown a net and they'll be crazy useful. The Haemonculus needs an EC whip and he's sorted.
the_scotsman wrote: Yeah, I think the hate for our hqs is massively overblown.
The archon who isn't the warlord is the only problem child. Even then, he's a character with a D6 damage pistol and a force sword with a 2++ , he's a characters worst nightmare. The warlord one who can reroll all wounds and take the djinn blade? An absolute monster.
Succubi can always be thrown a net and they'll be crazy useful. The Haemonculus needs an EC whip and he's sorted.
The problem is he either walks, or takes up 4 slots in a vehicle unless you want under strength units....
Understrength units is fine if it's Grots, Incubi, Wyches with a net (all they need tbh), anything but warriors really.
Or theyre RG Succubi who can advance and charge and can take move drugs. Or they're in a venom with a court. Or they're walking with coven Gribbles.
There's options and they're not bad options. I was even feeling the Archon jogging with the transports that last game - raider dark Lance's and venom splinter cannons love to reroll ones and you can disembark warriors for the double reroll and the Fire and Fade shell game.
the_scotsman wrote: Understrength units is fine if it's Grots, Incubi, Wyches with a net (all they need tbh), anything but warriors really.
Or theyre RG Succubi who can advance and charge and can take move drugs. Or they're in a venom with a court. Or they're walking with coven Gribbles.
There's options and they're not bad options. I was even feeling the Archon jogging with the transports that last game - raider dark Lance's and venom splinter cannons love to reroll ones and you can disembark warriors for the double reroll and the Fire and Fade shell game.
And its Kabals that people are mostly complaining about, Reaver or Skyboard or Wings on an Archon, its not much to ask for honestly, CWE got a plastic Autarch with wings, why couldnt an Archon get one?
Blackie wrote: Talos and grotesques are definitely underrated. If you bring lots of them with Urien's buffs they can be really good.
I'm regularly fielding 8 grotesques and 6 talos, and I'm really enjoying my monsers. I haven't tried the cronos yet which seems a bit lackluster but it would allow me to take 2x3 talos instead of 3x2 talos in the coven spearhead and I'd prefer two units instead of three. But basically for a matter of bonus range since even with all my 14 monsters (15 with the cronos) I just need to have 4 of them near Urien. Even 3 if I bring the cronos since no one would shoot it when I have grots, talos, kabalites in venoms and ravagers.
I think Grots are hands down the best unit in the book. So far NOBODY has been able to kill my 10 man unit. I usually run 2-3 talos with HWB so I can advance and fire and fade them into their face turn 1 while my 10 man grot bomb comes running up behind. I call it the midnight meat train lol. Last game they charged a knight crusader to gain some movement and with the torturers craft they nearly killed it in one damned phase. On turn 2 you burn a cp to hit on a 2 then use torturers craft and you can blender anything. The AP -2 is the sweet spot as well since most things with good armor also come with an invuln. Don't even get me started on what they do with flesh gauntlets and that combo, lets make it rain mortal wounds. The coven units are an auto take IMHO, they provide some of the most durable units in the game which is not something people expect from Drukhari. I have thought about running all 22 that I own but have been to busy trying out all the other combos this book has. My wracks have been funny. They don't kill much, but for some reason I roll stupidly hot for them in particular and they soak silly amounts of damage. I like them best in 5 man squads to fill battalion slots. With the increase in CP's from battalions I have increased desire to take my coven from one rather then a vanguard or spearhead.
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lessthanjeff wrote: I haven't been too impressed with Talos yet. I took a unit of 3 to a 26 player event this last saturday and in 2 out of 3 rounds they were killed in the first turn. I still got first place, but it was more on the backs of my grots and vehicles than the talos. I'm of the opinion grotesque are the more efficient choice and being infantry they're a bit easier to hide in buildings and get out of LOS when you need to too.
Same here, but I can't leave them home or fault them too much because I generally move them a minimum of 16" turn 1 right into my opponents face. They always die, but they soak nearly all their turn one fire and usually don't die until turn 2. Also agree on all the points on grots only don't forget that now with fly the talos suddenly can get anywhere the grots can making it a bit closer. If grots could fire and fade turn 1 I might never take talos apart from the fact that I love my conversions.
The Warlord Archon goes with the Mandrakes in the Raider, the Djin Blade Archon goes with one of the Grotesque units while the Haemonculus goes with one of the other Grotesque units. The Scourges will deep strike somewhere.
Any thoughts?
Mandrakes in a Raider is a bit of an odd choice for me, not sure why they wouldn't just deep strike. I'd definitely find the space for two Lhameans to stick one in each Grotesque raider (just to act as a suicide casualty so you don't lose a grot to an unlucky roll of 1 if the transport gets shot). Otherwise, looks pretty strong to me, good little mounted force.
I've actually considered running mandrakes in a raider or venom actually. They synergize well with a venom since both have a -1 to hit, but in a raider you can also move and advance if it's red grief and still fire. I think Either option has merit. I have also played around not deep-striking scourge in order to move to better positions and fire turn 1. The FAQ made the option more worthwhile anyway.
the_scotsman wrote: Understrength units is fine if it's Grots, Incubi, Wyches with a net (all they need tbh), anything but warriors really.
Or theyre RG Succubi who can advance and charge and can take move drugs. Or they're in a venom with a court. Or they're walking with coven Gribbles.
There's options and they're not bad options. I was even feeling the Archon jogging with the transports that last game - raider dark Lance's and venom splinter cannons love to reroll ones and you can disembark warriors for the double reroll and the Fire and Fade shell game.
And its Kabals that people are mostly complaining about, Reaver or Skyboard or Wings on an Archon, its not much to ask for honestly, CWE got a plastic Autarch with wings, why couldnt an Archon get one?
HQ mobility is a crutch. A lot of armies lean on it - when was the last time you saw a unit that has a mobility option not use it? If we got a Reaver archon, every single Noble in the dark city would be buying a studded leather jacket and getting a hells Angels tattoo.
Would I have been fine with getting it, yeah. Do I think it's the #1 need for a new dark eldar kit? Noooo. We need MORE hq options. Not just ways to make them go 6" farther on the board.
One archon (the one with the trait/relic) gets a Court, one either signs on with some Incubi or just moves 8+D6 inches along with the transports if you don't want to give him five slots.
With the performances my HQs have put on in every game I've played the new codex, I'm having trouble keeping the misery train for them up.
People ragging on the HQ's none stop is why I took a week off from tactic threads. People don't actually play with things before complaining endlessly. My Djinn blade archon is hands down better then any demon prince I have fielded from my 4 chaos armies. Mobility is good but it also gets you killed. An archon can reliably get into assault turn 2 anywhere they want. With a bike (board or wings would be flat worse) your looking at the same deal only you are tempted to be stupid turn 1 and lose him. I would rather we got a dracon then a bike if I am being honest, and even despite that the archon is very strong for their points.
I don't get the transport argument either, I put my archon in the same raider as my red grief succubus and some wyches with the one net they need. I hide it out of line of sight turn 1 and first turn I pop enhanced aether sails and assault something on their weak flank where I cannot be surrounded. The midnight meat train trucking up center field HAS to be delt with or at least slowed down. meanwhile red grief bikes are tagging important shooters. This is how you play Drukhari, maximum threat overload. Turn 2 everything should be crashing their lines.
Red Corsair wrote: People ragging on the HQ's none stop is why I took a week off from tactic threads. People don't actually play with things before complaining endlessly. My Djinn blade archon is hands down better then any demon prince I have fielded from my 4 chaos armies. Mobility is good but it also gets you killed. An archon can reliably get into assault turn 2 anywhere they want. With a bike (board or wings would be flat worse) your looking at the same deal only you are tempted to be stupid turn 1 and lose him. I would rather we got a dracon then a bike if I am being honest, and even despite that the archon is very strong for their points.
I don't get the transport argument either, I put my archon in the same raider as my red grief succubus and some wyches with the one net they need. I hide it out of line of sight turn 1 and first turn I pop enhanced aether sails and assault something on their weak flank where I cannot be surrounded. The midnight meat train trucking up center field HAS to be delt with or at least slowed down. meanwhile red grief bikes are tagging important shooters. This is how you play Drukhari, maximum threat overload. Turn 2 everything should be crashing their lines.
I agree, I've never felt the need to have a fast drukhari HQ to be honest. The haemy does well footslogging or in a raider with grots, the archon usually has his own venom with a small court, buffs the ravagers standing near them or goes in a raider with incubi or other elites. Only the succubus can suffer from the lack of speed since you don't want to sacrifice the wyches special weapons by putting her in a raider. But with the +2''M and the fact that she can share the same venom with the archon I've never had any problem with the lack of wings/bike options for our HQs. It would be amazing model wise, sure, and variety is a quality, but I don't think it's something we really needed before the codex and we don't need it now.
-Fire and Fade: says you can't advance, can't charge, doesn't say you can't embark on a vehicle. I had a unit of Kabalite warriors hop out of their raider, move 12" with the disembark into an archon's aura, shoot up a unit in rapid fire, Fire and Fade 7" and embark onto a different raider, which then charged something to evade shooting on my opponent's turn.
I'm afraid this doesn't work anymore, as per the updated rulebook faq:
‘If all models in a unit end their move within 3" of a
friendly transport in the Movement phase, they can
embark within it.'
Unfortunately fire and fade is used in the shooting phase and doesn't explicitly allow you to board transports like the red grief strat does (this greatly saddens my fire dragons).
the_scotsman wrote: Understrength units is fine if it's Grots, Incubi, Wyches with a net (all they need tbh), anything but warriors really.
Or theyre RG Succubi who can advance and charge and can take move drugs. Or they're in a venom with a court. Or they're walking with coven Gribbles.
There's options and they're not bad options. I was even feeling the Archon jogging with the transports that last game - raider dark Lance's and venom splinter cannons love to reroll ones and you can disembark warriors for the double reroll and the Fire and Fade shell game.
And its Kabals that people are mostly complaining about, Reaver or Skyboard or Wings on an Archon, its not much to ask for honestly, CWE got a plastic Autarch with wings, why couldnt an Archon get one?
HQ mobility is a crutch. A lot of armies lean on it - when was the last time you saw a unit that has a mobility option not use it? If we got a Reaver archon, every single Noble in the dark city would be buying a studded leather jacket and getting a hells Angels tattoo.
Would I have been fine with getting it, yeah. Do I think it's the #1 need for a new dark eldar kit? Noooo. We need MORE hq options. Not just ways to make them go 6" farther on the board.
One archon (the one with the trait/relic) gets a Court, one either signs on with some Incubi or just moves 8+D6 inches along with the transports if you don't want to give him five slots.
With the performances my HQs have put on in every game I've played the new codex, I'm having trouble keeping the misery train for them up.
So when almost every army gets something and only a couple dont its consider a crutch? No... thats not how it works, its not a crutch its a highly enjoyable QOL that we miss out on. I dont want it for OP sake, i want it for a QOL purpose. Also just b.c an HQ is goof for its points doesnt mean i dont want other options
Anyways, i dont really want an Archon/Succubus with wings, i've been asking for a Scourge HQ, that way its a generic HQ that has jump 14" for ALL subfactions.
Wyldcarde wrote: People bag the hqs a lot but my current set up has me pretty happy.
With alliance of agony and the extra relics strat I am currently running
Archon with writ and venom pistol. 72 points to buff triple dissie ravagers is pretty nice
Archon with blast pistol and djin blade. Puts out 7 attacks and threatens most targets
Succubus with red glaive and 3++ puts out a decent amount of attacks and is hard to deal with with her 3++. For 50 points is a steal.
Okay. Now try those HQs without relics and tell me they're worth their points.
Wyldcarde wrote: People bag the hqs a lot but my current set up has me pretty happy.
With alliance of agony and the extra relics strat I am currently running
Archon with writ and venom pistol. 72 points to buff triple dissie ravagers is pretty nice
Archon with blast pistol and djin blade. Puts out 7 attacks and threatens most targets
Succubus with red glaive and 3++ puts out a decent amount of attacks and is hard to deal with with her 3++. For 50 points is a steal.
Okay. Now try those HQs without relics and tell me they're worth their points.
Good news, they still are. The archon is still the only possible problem, and really only when you don't have any other melee units to back him up. Playing pure Kabal is definitely the hardest of the three (though, surprising nobody, playing "pure" any third of the codex is always going to be suboptimal as you don't have access to the best units and you have to use less optimal choices to fill holes in your list) but even then, he's a guy with 5 S4 AP-3 D3 damage attacks, a 2++, and a blaster/blast pistol who autohits in combat.
if you try to use anyone but the writ archon as a static buffbot, yep, you're going to have a bad time.
Succubus: A 5-man wych squad is well worth its points with a Shardnet and Impaler because of their ability to lock squads down. Incredibly, this means that a succubus with the same number of wounds, an always-on 4++, and the very same ability for 10 points more is ALSO well worth its points! How bout that. No Escape with a shardnet becomes an INCREDIBLE ability, something nobody else in the entire game can do.
Haemonculus: His basic loadout is solid, he synergizes well with running alongside covens providing extra damage and his buff, he's got really great Relics and the option for either a good CP walord trait or (as I've preferred him these days) a killer close combat build as well with Ichor/Electro/Hexrifle or stinger pistol.
the_scotsman wrote: The archon is still the only possible problem, and really only when you don't have any other melee units to back him up. Playing pure Kabal is definitely the hardest of the three (though, surprising nobody, playing "pure" any third of the codex is always going to be suboptimal as you don't have access to the best units and you have to use less optimal choices to fill holes in your list) but even then, he's a guy with 5 S4 AP-3 D3 damage attacks, a 2++, and a blaster/blast pistol who autohits in combat.
The Huskblade is AP-2 and his 2++ is lost the first time it's failed. Given that he has no mobility outside of transports and that build costs 86pts, colour me unimpressed.
Succubus: A 5-man wych squad is well worth its points with a Shardnet and Impaler because of their ability to lock squads down. Incredibly, this means that a succubus with the same number of wounds, an always-on 4++, and the very same ability for 10 points more is ALSO well worth its points! How bout that. No Escape with a shardnet becomes an INCREDIBLE ability, something nobody else in the entire game can do.
Could you be any more disingenuous?
No, please, just ignore the fact that a Wych squad can have a Shardnet and Impailer *and* an Agoniser to actually do damage as well. And that's in addition to having almost 4 times as many attacks as the Succubus.
The fact that you're having to resort to this level of deceit to defend the Succubus really doesn't speak well of her.
Haemonculus: His basic loadout is solid, he synergizes well with running alongside covens providing extra damage and his buff, he's got really great Relics and the option for either a good CP walord trait or (as I've preferred him these days) a killer close combat build as well with Ichor/Electro/Hexrifle or stinger pistol.
His damage is bearable, but hardly something you'd ever take him for, and his toughness buff comes an edition too late.
Also, I think it's telling how quickly you had to take it back to using Artefacts and Warlord Traits. Because that was the entire point I was making - our HQs are far too reliant on having artefacts and warlord traits to be even remotely worth their points.
Jesus. That got really aggressive really fast. Calm down, it's rules for miniatures in a board game.
I ignored the fact that the wych squad can have an agonizer because it isn't worth it to take one on a 5-man squad that dies to a stiff breeze. The reason you take the 5-man wych squad isn't for damage, it's for the utility of the No Escape rule. The wych squad is definitely better at one thing - it is super nice to be able to attack with only a single wych and then pile in on your opponent's turn to hit with all of them.
The benefit of the succubus is the fact that her 4++ works against shooting, and she doesn't need any babysitter to get her past overwatch like the wyches frequently do. The wyches do 2-3 times as much damage as she does, she's 2-3 times as difficult to kill with the always on 4++ and the all important character rule. I'm at the point where I basically never use my Relic on my succubi because this build provides so much utility.
this isn't disingenuous. This is an objectively good HQ unit that I would take in a heartbeat in any of my other close combat oriented armies that provides a utility to a melee army that nobody else does.
Artifacts and warlord traits come up so often because they give options above and beyond the basic builds. A basic Electro/hexrifle haemie is fine, won't cause any problems, but the build is basically fixed at that and you know what he's going to do. Similar to a blaster archon, or a shardnet succubus. They're providing plenty to the army, but there's just not much there to discuss, wheras with artifacts (that I've generally been using two of per army) and warlord traits (which we can have up to three of) you get a whole lot more permutation and customizability.
I've actually come around to the Archon. He's not amazing but he's decent in combat with a Huskblade and the PGL with the Torment Grenade Strat is a brilliant source of mortal wounds.
I like the Succubus because for 50pts she's relatively killy (even with the ridiculous -1 to hit on the Archite Glaive) but most of all has a whole series of effective load outs. Does that require relics and warlord traits? Yes, but who cares, I spend the CP for an extra relic and trait every game because unlike most codecies we have a lot of really good options for both. Combined with the Obsessions and the Succubus is surprisingly versatile and can be very dangerous without ever being particularly expensive.
We all know the utility of the Haemonculus, that hasn't changed since the index.
ha, I have the opposite feeling about the succubus when it comes to WL traits. Relics, sure, she's got tryptch whip and blood glaive and those are great, but phial bouquet is just hot garbage.
I've found if you're going WL trait on her, she's got three options:
-Precision blows with Hydra Gauntlets (only option for Cursed Blade)
-Blood Dancer with Triptch whip
-Quicksilver Fighter auto-take if you're going RG, hands down the best trait.
But if I'm just going for Cursed Blade with just one other subfaction detachment, I'll usually skip the CP for Alliance of Agony and just run two shardnet succubi. 5 attacks S4 Ap-1 D2 plus drugs is awesome for a 55 point character.
I've been thinking (going to start testing when the opportunity provides) about the RG 2 cp strat. I was kinda unimpressed originally, but now I want to use it for a longrange guided consolidation. Strat says you can 6" consolidate to the nearest transport (then the boarding bits), so why not position a transport near a unit you want to engage, but beyond 10"?
I figure a squad of shardnet wyches would be best. Lets them bounce from one fight to another with no overwatch. An effective 7" melee bubble isn't anything to scoff at.
novaspike wrote: I've been thinking (going to start testing when the opportunity provides) about the RG 2 cp strat. I was kinda unimpressed originally, but now I want to use it for a longrange guided consolidation. Strat says you can 6" consolidate to the nearest transport (then the boarding bits), so why not position a transport near a unit you want to engage, but beyond 10"?
I figure a squad of shardnet wyches would be best. Lets them bounce from one fight to another with no overwatch. An effective 7" melee bubble isn't anything to scoff at.
That is definitely a thing you can do with them, a little niche to be sure, but doubling the range of your consolidate and allowing you to move towards something you control rather than something your opponent controls is very nice.
I'm probably biased because assault micro is one of my favorite aspects of the shift from 7th to 8th edition, but finding new ways to play with that RG strat has been one of my favorite aspects of playing the new DE so far. That and vastly superior eviscerating flybys has me on Team Red Grief for the forseeable future.
Succubi are cheap enough that it's not that big a deal even if they don't have a relic.
Haemonculi also have a nice aura that works well spread around the beefy Coven elements, and have some neat equipment options, so they also don't absolutely have to have a relic.
They also have very solid special characters, so taking Urien/Lelith and a generic with a relic is very easy.
I do see the problem for Kabals, though, and I agree that would take a cheaper Dracon HQ over jetbike options any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Archons are quite expensive, and really do need a relic to not be dead weight. Husk blade and blaster make them good in melee and shooting, but that's almost 100-point HQ choice that is one failed save away from not having a save at all.
Drazhar also sucks, so the special character caveat that applies to Covens and Cults is not really an option for Kabals.
With the increase to CPs for Battalions and Brigades, Raiding Party should be changed to +6CPs.
If your opponent is just a couple of inches back, you won't even get the shredders in range until turn 2. With that in mind, Scourges deep striking turn 2 don't really lose out on much shooting vs the Kabalites, but they do get a turn of protection and a favorable position to drop to.
I wouldn't foot-slog a shredder squad up the board, but I would abuse the hell out of them with Obsidian Rose. Either Trueborn in a Flayed Skull Venom dancing around at 18", or a big blob of 20 dropping down via the Webway. The latter can punish the enemy with the Failure is Not an Option stratagem.
HandofMars wrote: Succubi are cheap enough that it's not that big a deal even if they don't have a relic.
Haemonculi also have a nice aura that works well spread around the beefy Coven elements, and have some neat equipment options, so they also don't absolutely have to have a relic.
They also have very solid special characters, so taking Urien/Lelith and a generic with a relic is very easy.
I do see the problem for Kabals, though, and I agree that would take a cheaper Dracon HQ over jetbike options any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Archons are quite expensive, and really do need a relic to not be dead weight. Husk blade and blaster make them good in melee and shooting, but that's almost 100-point HQ choice that is one failed save away from not having a save at all.
Drazhar also sucks, so the special character caveat that applies to Covens and Cults is not really an option for Kabals.
With the increase to CPs for Battalions and Brigades, Raiding Party should be changed to +6CPs.
If your opponent is just a couple of inches back, you won't even get the shredders in range until turn 2. With that in mind, Scourges deep striking turn 2 don't really lose out on much shooting vs the Kabalites, but they do get a turn of protection and a favorable position to drop to.
I wouldn't foot-slog a shredder squad up the board, but I would abuse the hell out of them with Obsidian Rose. Either Trueborn in a Flayed Skull Venom dancing around at 18", or a big blob of 20 dropping down via the Webway. The latter can punish the enemy with the Failure is Not an Option stratagem.
This, 24" Shredders in a fast moving vehicles will get to shoot what it wants when it wants, ShredderBorns are amazing.
HandofMars wrote: Succubi are cheap enough that it's not that big a deal even if they don't have a relic.
Haemonculi also have a nice aura that works well spread around the beefy Coven elements, and have some neat equipment options, so they also don't absolutely have to have a relic.
They also have very solid special characters, so taking Urien/Lelith and a generic with a relic is very easy.
I do see the problem for Kabals, though, and I agree that would take a cheaper Dracon HQ over jetbike options any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Archons are quite expensive, and really do need a relic to not be dead weight. Husk blade and blaster make them good in melee and shooting, but that's almost 100-point HQ choice that is one failed save away from not having a save at all.
Drazhar also sucks, so the special character caveat that applies to Covens and Cults is not really an option for Kabals.
With the increase to CPs for Battalions and Brigades, Raiding Party should be changed to +6CPs.
If your opponent is just a couple of inches back, you won't even get the shredders in range until turn 2. With that in mind, Scourges deep striking turn 2 don't really lose out on much shooting vs the Kabalites, but they do get a turn of protection and a favorable position to drop to.
I wouldn't foot-slog a shredder squad up the board, but I would abuse the hell out of them with Obsidian Rose. Either Trueborn in a Flayed Skull Venom dancing around at 18", or a big blob of 20 dropping down via the Webway. The latter can punish the enemy with the Failure is Not an Option stratagem.
This, 24" Shredders in a fast moving vehicles will get to shoot what it wants when it wants, ShredderBorns are amazing.
Where are you getting the 24" from. Shredders have 12" range, 18 with Obsidian Rose. If you include the movement of the vehicle for threat range thats still 26/28" normally, 29/31" with Flayed Skull and 32/34" for Obsidian rose for Raider/Venom.
HandofMars wrote: Succubi are cheap enough that it's not that big a deal even if they don't have a relic.
Haemonculi also have a nice aura that works well spread around the beefy Coven elements, and have some neat equipment options, so they also don't absolutely have to have a relic.
They also have very solid special characters, so taking Urien/Lelith and a generic with a relic is very easy.
I do see the problem for Kabals, though, and I agree that would take a cheaper Dracon HQ over jetbike options any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Archons are quite expensive, and really do need a relic to not be dead weight. Husk blade and blaster make them good in melee and shooting, but that's almost 100-point HQ choice that is one failed save away from not having a save at all.
Drazhar also sucks, so the special character caveat that applies to Covens and Cults is not really an option for Kabals.
With the increase to CPs for Battalions and Brigades, Raiding Party should be changed to +6CPs.
If your opponent is just a couple of inches back, you won't even get the shredders in range until turn 2. With that in mind, Scourges deep striking turn 2 don't really lose out on much shooting vs the Kabalites, but they do get a turn of protection and a favorable position to drop to.
I wouldn't foot-slog a shredder squad up the board, but I would abuse the hell out of them with Obsidian Rose. Either Trueborn in a Flayed Skull Venom dancing around at 18", or a big blob of 20 dropping down via the Webway. The latter can punish the enemy with the Failure is Not an Option stratagem.
This, 24" Shredders in a fast moving vehicles will get to shoot what it wants when it wants, ShredderBorns are amazing.
Where are you getting the 24" from. Shredders have 12" range, 18 with Obsidian Rose. If you include the movement of the vehicle for threat range thats still 26/28" normally, 29/31" with Flayed Skull and 32/34" for Obsidian rose for Raider/Venom.
Sorry, i was thinking Blasters, even so, doesnt matter, you still in range. People dont place chaff behind their good stuff, its always in front. bubble wrap, objective, etc...
This is part of the reason why I think Ynnari will shake out to be the best subfaction for Kabals rather than any of the obsessions.
Kabalites care less about pfp, have multiple subfaction you want on the board for Stratagem access, and love having access to 3 really good choices for HQs. Not only can you take the triumvirate figures, but your Archons can be any subfaction for relics, traits etc. Want agents of vect but really like the famed savagery djinn blade build? Ynnati let's that happen.
IDK, I often get crazy good mileage from inured to suffering on my warrior units. Then at turn 3 (usually run black heart) the fearless is gravy too on larger raider squads. I am not really feeling Ynarri especially after all the nerfs via FAQ's. It's clear they want to cut back on their power as each FAQ further nerf bats the gak out of them.
BTW didn't the FAQ also nerf the relic situation? You can only use the stratagem for one faction to get multiple relics?
Red Corsair wrote: IDK, I often get crazy good mileage from inured to suffering on my warrior units. Then at turn 3 (usually run black heart) the fearless is gravy too on larger raider squads. I am not really feeling Ynarri especially after all the nerfs via FAQ's. It's clear they want to cut back on their power as each FAQ further nerf bats the gak out of them.
BTW didn't the FAQ also nerf the relic situation? You can only use the stratagem for one faction to get multiple relics?
All the relics are Faction: Drukhari though. You don't lose the Drukhari keyword when you gain the Ynnari keyword, you are just not entirely a <subfaction> detachment because you have to have one of the Ynnari HQs in the detachment.
Officially, there's no such thing as a Ynnari detachment anymore. The keyword for the detachment you have the Ynnari HQs in is technically Drukhari.
That wasn't what I was referring to. I thought I remember the FAQ limiting an army to one factions relics for the multiple relic stratagem, of course I could have totally got it wrong, I can't look at the FAQatm.
Either way, I don't really see why taking ynari over drukhari for kabal is that appealing. Not knocking the idea mind you, I just don't think it's the best subfaction. Ynari works best or I should say worked best for super hard hitting elite eldar craftworlds units. Even those have kind of had a nail driven into their coffin.
Red Corsair wrote: That wasn't what I was referring to. I thought I remember the FAQ limiting an army to one factions relics for the multiple relic stratagem, of course I could have totally got it wrong, I can't look at the FAQatm.
Either way, I don't really see why taking ynari over drukhari for kabal is that appealing. Not knocking the idea mind you, I just don't think it's the best subfaction. Ynari works best or I should say worked best for super hard hitting elite eldar craftworlds units. Even those have kind of had a nail driven into their coffin.
It might have. Luckily all the relics I'm considering are Drukhari. And all the models in the lists are Drukhari.
To help illustrate: a recent list I made was 1 drukhari ynnari detachment and 1 red grief detachment, both Battalions.
Red Grief had 3x5 net wych squads, 1 net succubus, 1 blast pistol/blood glaive succubus and all the transports needed by the whole list. The Ynnari detachment had a 10 man wych squad and 12 Reavers, both Strife. Yvraine and the Djinn blade archon, two Kabalite squads and a Ravager, all black heart. Then some scourges for additional Soulburst shooters.
That gets me units that use the three good soulburst types extremely effectively, Agents of Vect and No Method of Death while still letting me take an optimal Red Grief detachment for turn 1 pressure. Plus the 5cp from a battalion without a non-relic tax archon.
Seems decent, I just wouldn't suggest ynari is default for kabals. I will say however, if your in a place collection wise where it is much easier to field your stuff in one detachment and would thus lose your obsessions then it definitely does seem like a no brainer to go ynari for that detachment.
When the leaks confirmed that cults, kabals and covens were indeed split I figured I'd just mix like before since most traits from other books were meh at best and the stratagems were the real perk but that quickly changed after the obsessions dropped considering they are all really good. More over, they emphasize the way the army should play from the fluff. I just think your better off ditching Ynari, and gaining the strong obsessions. Soul burst is OK, but not anywhere near what it was (which is good, free actions should be rare).
Hey guys I've never played Dark Eldar, but am working on getting mine built and painted before they see the table. I've played against them so I have a feel of their overall style so I made a list and I was hoping I could get some critique. Just a basic synopsis
Heavy Support Detachment:
Kabal of the black heart
HQ:
(Warlord - Labyrinthine cunning) Archon -Venom blade, basic pistol. Writ of living muse
HS
X3 Ravagers - 3 Dissy cannons
Flier
X2 Razorwing Jetfighter 2 Dissy cannon
DS:
2x Venoms with double Splinter cannons
2x Venoms with single splinter cannon
Raider W/ Dissy cannon
So yeah basic ideas in mind. DS the three ravagers in my own deployment around the archon to avoid being alpha struck. Obsidian rose dudes with extra range to ride in the slightly beefier kabal of the black heart transports. Alternative idea was to just move the transports over to the battalion and make that battalion flayed skull. I was also wondering if I was going above and beyond what I need in Dissy guns and should find points for some dark lances. I am thinking volume of fire + blasters might be enough to handle anti-tank duty.
I was also thinking of bumping up the list to 250 to include a meaty unit of reavers, but I was wondering if I can still give an auxilary detachment a chapter tactic equivalent. I don't see anything saying you wouldn't get it, but I've heard that you don't. If so my 1750 would be to throw in 250 points exactly of 10 Reavers with 3 blasters and 3 grav talons.
I almost want to say you should spend a command point to get one of those Archon's a Djinn Blade. You end up spending so much on those three Archons as a tax, getting some actual potency out of one of them would help to balance the point sink
Fafnir wrote:I almost want to say you should spend a command point to get one of those Archon's a Djinn Blade. You end up spending so much on those three Archons as a tax, getting some actual potency out of one of them would help to balance the point sink
I'd say why bother, one archon decked for combat isn't going to fix the hole in the list. Adding other elements and I'd agree.
Tibs Ironblood wrote:Hey guys I've never played Dark Eldar, but am working on getting mine built and painted before they see the table. I've played against them so I have a feel of their overall style so I made a list and I was hoping I could get some critique. Just a basic synopsis
Heavy Support Detachment:
Kabal of the black heart
HQ:
(Warlord - Labyrinthine cunning) Archon -Venom blade, basic pistol. Writ of living muse
HS
X3 Ravagers - 3 Dissy cannons
Flier
X2 Razorwing Jetfighter 2 Dissy cannon
DS:
2x Venoms with double Splinter cannons
2x Venoms with single splinter cannon
Raider W/ Dissy cannon
So yeah basic ideas in mind. DS the three ravagers in my own deployment around the archon to avoid being alpha struck. Obsidian rose dudes with extra range to ride in the slightly beefier kabal of the black heart transports. Alternative idea was to just move the transports over to the battalion and make that battalion flayed skull. I was also wondering if I was going above and beyond what I need in Dissy guns and should find points for some dark lances. I am thinking volume of fire + blasters might be enough to handle anti-tank duty.
I was also thinking of bumping up the list to 250 to include a meaty unit of reavers, but I was wondering if I can still give an auxilary detachment a chapter tactic equivalent. I don't see anything saying you wouldn't get it, but I've heard that you don't. If so my 1750 would be to throw in 250 points exactly of 10 Reavers with 3 blasters and 3 grav talons.
I like the individual parts but the list isn't wowing me. You built a gun line army using a codex that is arguably the most dynamic in the game currently and possibly ever. Beyond that DE don't do gunlines well. Sure you guaranteed the ravagers have at least 1 volley, which is a good tactic but without meaningful turn 1 threats to the opponent they will still lose out to better gun lines. That said, none of the units you have there are bad, your just going to end up with more options in the end. You really do want coven or cult in there.
Personally if I were starting from scratch I would go coven first easily. For 350 pts 10 grotesques are just stupidly good, and they fill all the holes DE have. You also then get talos that can fire and fade up the table turn 1, with HWB so you can advance and fire your looking at a minimum move of 16" out the gate. This is the type of forward pressure the DE need. Basically force them to deal with something that is inefficient to deal with while your shooting units fly around scoring and shooting.
Sounds like you want to go cult though, so I'd suggest MSU for them. 250 pts for reavers is too much IMO. That unit is not actually meaty at all. It also seduces you into burning all your CP's on them. Your making an incredible target of them, so then you burning 2 for LF reflexes, and generally 2 for moral and we haven't even done damage yet, couple that with the 3 ravagers using screaming jets and your basically out of CP's. Better to split them int 3x3, tie down 3 targets turn one, make them more annoying as targets and put them into an outrider for +1 rather then -1 CP. Use the blaster cost and odd bike to buy the succubus and arm her.
I am also not a massive fan of going all in on dissys. I find them incredibly fickle at AT, I hate letting my opponent roll saves, the more saves they roll, the more they pass. So sure mathhammer can tell me how great they are on a 5 turn average, but if ! roll flat or my opponent makes a few saves turn 1 I am hosed. Personally I still seem to do all my AT with darklight. Dissys murder elite infantry but you don't see much of that these days. Darklight can be equally fickle don't get me wrong, last game I played a rolled 3 1's in a row for blasters to wound rolls, but the difference is when I do hit and wound my opponent usually doesn't get to make a roll. Everyone has different experience with it though so I'd suggest you just use magnets and try both.
Has anyone given any thought to how Dark Eldar might sync up with Harlequins in light of the new DE codex? Obviously, much will likely change given that the Quins will be getting a new codex in a few weeks.
I have a very large Harlequin force, and am looking at Dark Eldar for some gap plugging and a little variety. I like the idea of using Cabal for cheap troops, as Harlequins often have a hard time dealing with hordes/chaff. Cult also looks good for the same reason, plus Shardnet wyches sounds like they could really help if you need to keep something locked up
I like the individual parts but the list isn't wowing me. You built a gun line army using a codex that is arguably the most dynamic in the game currently and possibly ever. Beyond that DE don't do gunlines well. Sure you guaranteed the ravagers have at least 1 volley, which is a good tactic but without meaningful turn 1 threats to the opponent they will still lose out to better gun lines. That said, none of the units you have there are bad, your just going to end up with more options in the end. You really do want coven or cult in there.
Personally if I were starting from scratch I would go coven first easily. For 350 pts 10 grotesques are just stupidly good, and they fill all the holes DE have. You also then get talos that can fire and fade up the table turn 1, with HWB so you can advance and fire your looking at a minimum move of 16" out the gate. This is the type of forward pressure the DE need. Basically force them to deal with something that is inefficient to deal with while your shooting units fly around scoring and shooting.
Sounds like you want to go cult though, so I'd suggest MSU for them. 250 pts for reavers is too much IMO. That unit is not actually meaty at all. It also seduces you into burning all your CP's on them. Your making an incredible target of them, so then you burning 2 for LF reflexes, and generally 2 for moral and we haven't even done damage yet, couple that with the 3 ravagers using screaming jets and your basically out of CP's. Better to split them int 3x3, tie down 3 targets turn one, make them more annoying as targets and put them into an outrider for +1 rather then -1 CP. Use the blaster cost and odd bike to buy the succubus and arm her.
I am also not a massive fan of going all in on dissys. I find them incredibly fickle at AT, I hate letting my opponent roll saves, the more saves they roll, the more they pass. So sure mathhammer can tell me how great they are on a 5 turn average, but if ! roll flat or my opponent makes a few saves turn 1 I am hosed. Personally I still seem to do all my AT with darklight. Dissys murder elite infantry but you don't see much of that these days. Darklight can be equally fickle don't get me wrong, last game I played a rolled 3 1's in a row for blasters to wound rolls, but the difference is when I do hit and wound my opponent usually doesn't get to make a roll. Everyone has different experience with it though so I'd suggest you just use magnets and try both.
Thanks for the awesome feedback! I'm a little hesitant to go into covens due to $. Currently all the models in that list are what I own. Yes I am aware of the great conversions you can do with ogryn and crypt horrors, but I might hold off on that for at least a bit. I really do see what you mean by the grots presenting a great threat though. Yeah the big block of reavers would be a big target, but I figured with the -1 to hit that would give them a lot of survivability, but you are right in that I would be sinking too much into one blob when I could easily spread out the love. Do you think the blasters are not worth it? Their main job would be tying things up in meele for sure, but if they had a blaster that really gives them some anti-vehicle threat.
Kabals offer some great ranged support and a wealth of bodies, but I don't see cults offering anything that Harlequins would be interested in. At least, not to the extent that kabalites already would.
Asmodas wrote: Has anyone given any thought to how Dark Eldar might sync up with Harlequins in light of the new DE codex? Obviously, much will likely change given that the Quins will be getting a new codex in a few weeks.
The problem I have with Harlies is that they heavily overlap with Wyches. They've got roughly the same attack and defense profiles (when compared to cost). They threaten the same types of units, and they've got the same mobility. Their only notable difference is that Wyches get a serious defense boost during the Fight phase, while Harlies can get more of their (expensive) fusion pistols. I guess if you're going Ynarri, Harlies have more damage in a single unit than Wyches.
Point being, I don't see a Harlequin detachment adding anything better than a Wych cult would.
Command Points: Alliance of Agony
Total Command Points: 7 (+d3)
The general idea of this list is to flood the board with maximum threat overload by turn 2. While the Kabal forces are there to provide fire support, everything else in the army is there to provide some close combat punch. With the Grotesques riding around in a Raider, the Reavers zooming around, the Mandrakes coming in from reserve and the Wyches coming out of the webway, I'm looking at multiple nasty close combat threats swarming the enemy lines by turn 2. The Archon, Haemonculous and Succubus will all form a nice HQ party in the Venom with the Sslyth. The Scourges can either DS by turn 2, or can stay on the board (though I'm more inclined towards the former given the short range of blasters).
The only concern I have is that what I will have on the board will get wrecked by things like Astra Militarum, etc, by the time turn 2 rolls around. My biggest question is, am I leaving too little stuff on the board?
Also I'm seriously debating changing Strife to Red Grief to make better use of the Reavers, though if I do that, do you think it will still be worthwhile to take the Wyches as a DSing blob?
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: I'm considering ditching the Scourges for more Kabalites, and somehow fitting in a second Archon to turn the Flayed Skull Patrol into a Battalion (or alternatively, I could just drop the Coven
Asmodas wrote: Has anyone given any thought to how Dark Eldar might sync up with Harlequins in light of the new DE codex? Obviously, much will likely change given that the Quins will be getting a new codex in a few weeks.
I have a very large Harlequin force, and am looking at Dark Eldar for some gap plugging and a little variety. I like the idea of using Cabal for cheap troops, as Harlequins often have a hard time dealing with hordes/chaff. Cult also looks good for the same reason, plus Shardnet wyches sounds like they could really help if you need to keep something locked up
The best way IMO is to take basic Troupes with Embraces and Starweavers, 2 units with a Troupe Master as Anti-horde units
IMODE works better with CWE, with Warlock and Farseers powers to back up our Ravagers, Talos, Grots, whe you can lower a Save and re-roll all wounds and some rangers for -2 to hit problems while staying on objectives (something DE doesnt want to do) i feel CWE will be a key part of all comp lists.
With that said, take DE for long range shoot will help Harlequins, some RWJF, Ravagers, etc.. does help them a lot!
Running dark eldar in conjunction with harlequins could easily work.
The harlequins can run similar to a cult battalion, just more expensive and harder hitting. Alternatively can utilise twilight pathways on the skyweavers in conjunction with reaver jetbikes to get stuck into a large chunk of enemy turn 1. Even make the weavers jetbikes for word of the Phoenix move as well.
Then a couple of starweavers with fusion pistols running in conjunction with warriors or wyches in venoms for a bunch of light transports
Asmodas wrote: Has anyone given any thought to how Dark Eldar might sync up with Harlequins in light of the new DE codex? Obviously, much will likely change given that the Quins will be getting a new codex in a few weeks.
I have a very large Harlequin force, and am looking at Dark Eldar for some gap plugging and a little variety. I like the idea of using Cabal for cheap troops, as Harlequins often have a hard time dealing with hordes/chaff. Cult also looks good for the same reason, plus Shardnet wyches sounds like they could really help if you need to keep something locked up
If Harlequins themselves get an anti-chaff option that's point efficient, you likely won't need it, but as they stand the Dark Eldar wych cults bring the most to the table as a combo partner. They move at similar speed to the harlequins, hit at the same turn 1 tempo, hold units in place to prevent fallback, and deal with the hordes that the harlequins struggle with. 10 man wych squads with 2x Razorflail 1x Shardnet would be optimal pairings with a harlequin army IMO.
A bit late - but as a core this is similar to what I am doing.
How married are you to the Obsidian Rose though? The +6" range on blasters is nice I guess but I am not convinced its worth the tax of another Archon.
I'd look at a Black Heart battalion and then shave off some points to get 3 Razorwings in an Airwing detachment.
I think putting blasters on reavers is a mistake as it adds dramatically to their cost.
I say if you're allying in kabal, then no reason for reaver blasters. If you're playing either pure WC or WC/Coven, then youre so strapped for anti tank I'd slap a blaster on everything that can hold one.
Thanks everyone for all the ideas. I am working on a Kabal battalion at the moment, as that seems like the best way to go to get started. I bought both of the Start Collecting boxes (new and old) so I have a fair few Reavers now, as well. I am thinking about doing a Red Grief Outrider to go with the Harlies, as reavers just seem to do the job so much better than Skyweavers. Hopefully skyweavers get a significant buff in the codex, as they are way overpriced for what they do. Not sure what exactly they need, but I don’t think a price drop would be enough - they need a boost to attacks and probably a rework of their weapons too. Star bolas are useless in their current form - probably should go back to the old format where they could be fired at the same time as the underslung weapon. The haywire cannon needs a rework too.
Asmodas wrote: Thanks everyone for all the ideas. I am working on a Kabal battalion at the moment, as that seems like the best way to go to get started. I bought both of the Start Collecting boxes (new and old) so I have a fair few Reavers now, as well. I am thinking about doing a Red Grief Outrider to go with the Harlies, as reavers just seem to do the job so much better than Skyweavers. Hopefully skyweavers get a significant buff in the codex, as they are way overpriced for what they do. Not sure what exactly they need, but I don’t think a price drop would be enough - they need a boost to attacks and probably a rework of their weapons too. Star bolas are useless in their current form - probably should go back to the old format where they could be fired at the same time as the underslung weapon. The haywire cannon needs a rework too.
Skyweavers can have a 3++ and still charge turn 1, they are -1 to hit and 4++ always and more melee focus with S4 -2ap 2D weapons, they can also always fallback>shoot>charge.
Skyweavers are more of an elite unit where Reavers are a cheap unit, its like Wyches vs Troupes, same idea. Both do different jobs differently.
Asmodas wrote: Thanks everyone for all the ideas. I am working on a Kabal battalion at the moment, as that seems like the best way to go to get started. I bought both of the Start Collecting boxes (new and old) so I have a fair few Reavers now, as well. I am thinking about doing a Red Grief Outrider to go with the Harlies, as reavers just seem to do the job so much better than Skyweavers. Hopefully skyweavers get a significant buff in the codex, as they are way overpriced for what they do. Not sure what exactly they need, but I don’t think a price drop would be enough - they need a boost to attacks and probably a rework of their weapons too. Star bolas are useless in their current form - probably should go back to the old format where they could be fired at the same time as the underslung weapon. The haywire cannon needs a rework too.
Skyweavers can have a 3++ and still charge turn 1, they are -1 to hit and 4++ always and more melee focus with S4 -2ap 2D weapons, they can also always fallback>shoot>charge.
Skyweavers are more of an elite unit where Reavers are a cheap unit, its like Wyches vs Troupes, same idea. Both do different jobs differently.
Oh I agree they are more of an elite unit, but they unfortunately are not a good investment of points most of the time, as they have very little killing power with only 3 S3 attacks per 45 point model. They don’t even kill a guardsman, on average, on the charge unless you pour more points into them to give them a glaive. They used to have a little niche in 7th due to the fact that they had 2W per model, unlike all other Eldar jet bikes at the time, but now all the other types have 2W as well. They also used to be able to throw a whole bunch of star bolas on the turn they charged as well as opening up with their cannons, but now only one model can throw a bola (thanks to the grenade rule) and there is little reason to do that when you could just shoot with your cannons and reliably get 3 S6 shots.
I still use them every once in a while, but they are pretty pricy for a single first turn charge that probably won’t kill its target. If I want to just tie up a unit with a first turn charge, it strikes me that Reavers do that much more efficiently. /rant
Asmodas wrote: Thanks everyone for all the ideas. I am working on a Kabal battalion at the moment, as that seems like the best way to go to get started. I bought both of the Start Collecting boxes (new and old) so I have a fair few Reavers now, as well. I am thinking about doing a Red Grief Outrider to go with the Harlies, as reavers just seem to do the job so much better than Skyweavers. Hopefully skyweavers get a significant buff in the codex, as they are way overpriced for what they do. Not sure what exactly they need, but I don’t think a price drop would be enough - they need a boost to attacks and probably a rework of their weapons too. Star bolas are useless in their current form - probably should go back to the old format where they could be fired at the same time as the underslung weapon. The haywire cannon needs a rework too.
Skyweavers can have a 3++ and still charge turn 1, they are -1 to hit and 4++ always and more melee focus with S4 -2ap 2D weapons, they can also always fallback>shoot>charge.
Skyweavers are more of an elite unit where Reavers are a cheap unit, its like Wyches vs Troupes, same idea. Both do different jobs differently.
Oh I agree they are more of an elite unit, but they unfortunately are not a good investment of points most of the time, as they have very little killing power with only 3 S3 attacks per 45 point model. They don’t even kill a guardsman, on average, on the charge unless you pour more points into them to give them a glaive. They used to have a little niche in 7th due to the fact that they had 2W per model, unlike all other Eldar jet bikes at the time, but now all the other types have 2W as well. They also used to be able to throw a whole bunch of star bolas on the turn they charged as well as opening up with their cannons, but now only one model can throw a bola (thanks to the grenade rule) and there is little reason to do that when you could just shoot with your cannons and reliably get 3 S6 shots.
I still use them every once in a while, but they are pretty pricy for a single first turn charge that probably won’t kill its target. If I want to just tie up a unit with a first turn charge, it strikes me that Reavers do that much more efficiently. /rant
I agree for now they are to costly, but remember they are Index stilla nd will go down for sure at least 10-12pts, For game play wise, they dont have "Alpha strike" damage at all, they are Jack of all Trades and should be played as so, turn 1 charge, tie up units, fallback, shoot, recharge, repeat all game, always give them a 3++ and laugh as your opponents either fallback.
I think it's very much a case of wait a few weeks for the new codex to see what Harlies are really going to be like, at that point we'll be able to work out much better how the 3 Eldar factions work together.
One thing I'm hoping for is an expanded ability to attack via Leadership. Combined with Dark Creed Covens and Mind War Farseers and Hemlocks it could make for a very interesting return for the Freakshow.
A Haemy CREED detachment with one purchased Raider.
A Kabal Obsidian Rose detachment with a Kabalist unit (7 kabalist, 1 splinter cannon, 2 blaster)
Could I embark this kabal unit in a Raider purchased from the Creed detachment... and THEN:
1) spend CP to deep strike the Raider (turn 2 of course)
2) spend CP to use the Creed stratagem on the Raider to target an enemie's character.
Does the embarked kabal unit also get the benefit of that Creed stratagem by virtue of the Raider's open-top rule???
A Haemy CREED detachment with one purchased Raider.
A Kabal Obsidian Rose detachment with a Kabalist unit (7 kabalist, 1 splinter cannon, 2 blaster)
Could I embark this kabal unit in a Raider purchased from the Creed detachment... and THEN:
1) spend CP to deep strike the Raider (turn 2 of course)
2) spend CP to use the Creed stratagem on the Raider to target an enemie's character.
Does the embarked kabal unit also get the benefit of that Creed stratagem by virtue of the Raider's open-top rule???
A Haemy CREED detachment with one purchased Raider.
A Kabal Obsidian Rose detachment with a Kabalist unit (7 kabalist, 1 splinter cannon, 2 blaster)
Could I embark this kabal unit in a Raider purchased from the Creed detachment... and THEN:
1) spend CP to deep strike the Raider (turn 2 of course)
2) spend CP to use the Creed stratagem on the Raider to target an enemie's character.
Does the embarked kabal unit also get the benefit of that Creed stratagem by virtue of the Raider's open-top rule???
So serious question. Why bother with Ravagers when a Raider full of Kabalites can pack more guns, without profile degradation and you need to chew through both the vehicle and the Kabalites inside?
Ravager + 3 Dark Lance = 140 points
Raider + Dark Lance + Kabalites w/ 2 Blasters = 179 points
39 points gets you 8 Splinter rifles & 10 more wounds. Likewise:
Ravagers benefit from reroll auras, passengers in transports do not. So the Archon's Overlord or Writ of the Living Muse auras (pretty much the only value you'll ever be able to get out of your obligatory second Archon) ends up wasted on Raiders.
Moreover, 39 points might not seem like much, but across three ravagers, that's a difference of 117 points, which is pretty significant.
Well 39pts x3 is now 117pts and with a BH Archon the ravagers are getting re-roll 1's to hit and to wound. Poison it self isnt very good, those kabals with 7 Splinter rifles are only doing 1/65 or 3.11 wounds vs IG, and against SM 0.78/1.56, the re-rolls and saving points is why.
A Dissie Ravager also has many D2 weapons, where the Shredders are good but only 1D. This will kill 5 Primaris Marines a turn, it will kill bikes outright, and even hurt Custode bikes
Kabals with blasters/Lances or shredders/sc are good, but you dont want to over saturate with them, you will want the cheaper solid fire base that 3 Ravagers will bring.
Cheers for the input, the Archon aura is a good point but I disagree with the 117pts gap since you need to account for all those extra wounds. My logic on this flows as:
Dark Lance Ravager + 10 Kabalites = 200 points
Dark Lance Raider + 10 Kabalites w/ Blasters = 179 points
Same wounds, same firepower (well, 2 splinter rifles down but, eh), save 21 points and layer the wounds like an onion so your opponent has to crack the vehicle first. You then keep your re-rolls to hit by using Flayed Skull since blasters in Raider have more than enough range.
I get the Disintegrator uses though, however vs multi-wound infantry/bikes I would argue for the Razorwing Jetfighter being the preferred option for the extra durability of -1 to hit it.
Command Points: Alliance of Agony
Total Command Points: 7 (+d3)
The general idea of this list is to flood the board with maximum threat overload by turn 2. While the Kabal forces are there to provide fire support, everything else in the army is there to provide some close combat punch. With the Grotesques riding around in a Raider, the Reavers zooming around, the Mandrakes coming in from reserve and the Wyches coming out of the webway, I'm looking at multiple nasty close combat threats swarming the enemy lines by turn 2. The Archon, Haemonculous and Succubus will all form a nice HQ party in the Venom with the Sslyth. The Scourges can either DS by turn 2, or can stay on the board (though I'm more inclined towards the former given the short range of blasters).
The only concern I have is that what I will have on the board will get wrecked by things like Astra Militarum, etc, by the time turn 2 rolls around. My biggest question is, am I leaving too little stuff on the board?
Also I'm seriously debating changing Strife to Red Grief to make better use of the Reavers, though if I do that, do you think it will still be worthwhile to take the Wyches as a DSing blob?
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS: I'm considering ditching the Scourges for more Kabalites, and somehow fitting in a second Archon to turn the Flayed Skull Patrol into a Battalion (or alternatively, I could just drop the Coven
Your list is actually 2009, you forgot to add the 10pts for the archons blast pistol.
I like the individual parts but the list isn't wowing me. You built a gun line army using a codex that is arguably the most dynamic in the game currently and possibly ever. Beyond that DE don't do gunlines well. Sure you guaranteed the ravagers have at least 1 volley, which is a good tactic but without meaningful turn 1 threats to the opponent they will still lose out to better gun lines. That said, none of the units you have there are bad, your just going to end up with more options in the end. You really do want coven or cult in there.
Personally if I were starting from scratch I would go coven first easily. For 350 pts 10 grotesques are just stupidly good, and they fill all the holes DE have. You also then get talos that can fire and fade up the table turn 1, with HWB so you can advance and fire your looking at a minimum move of 16" out the gate. This is the type of forward pressure the DE need. Basically force them to deal with something that is inefficient to deal with while your shooting units fly around scoring and shooting.
Sounds like you want to go cult though, so I'd suggest MSU for them. 250 pts for reavers is too much IMO. That unit is not actually meaty at all. It also seduces you into burning all your CP's on them. Your making an incredible target of them, so then you burning 2 for LF reflexes, and generally 2 for moral and we haven't even done damage yet, couple that with the 3 ravagers using screaming jets and your basically out of CP's. Better to split them int 3x3, tie down 3 targets turn one, make them more annoying as targets and put them into an outrider for +1 rather then -1 CP. Use the blaster cost and odd bike to buy the succubus and arm her.
I am also not a massive fan of going all in on dissys. I find them incredibly fickle at AT, I hate letting my opponent roll saves, the more saves they roll, the more they pass. So sure mathhammer can tell me how great they are on a 5 turn average, but if ! roll flat or my opponent makes a few saves turn 1 I am hosed. Personally I still seem to do all my AT with darklight. Dissys murder elite infantry but you don't see much of that these days. Darklight can be equally fickle don't get me wrong, last game I played a rolled 3 1's in a row for blasters to wound rolls, but the difference is when I do hit and wound my opponent usually doesn't get to make a roll. Everyone has different experience with it though so I'd suggest you just use magnets and try both.
Thanks for the awesome feedback! I'm a little hesitant to go into covens due to $. Currently all the models in that list are what I own. Yes I am aware of the great conversions you can do with ogryn and crypt horrors, but I might hold off on that for at least a bit. I really do see what you mean by the grots presenting a great threat though. Yeah the big block of reavers would be a big target, but I figured with the -1 to hit that would give them a lot of survivability, but you are right in that I would be sinking too much into one blob when I could easily spread out the love. Do you think the blasters are not worth it? Their main job would be tying things up in meele for sure, but if they had a blaster that really gives them some anti-vehicle threat.
I can see merit in running blasters, depends on the list and how your intending on using them. I have been using them to tie shooters down with red grief, so I don't bother since 17 points is nearly another body and I need to make sure I have models survive, after all not all shooting units suck at assault and the bikes are not that durable despite being good for the DE. I think if you give blasters to them, they become even more of a problem for the opponent and definitely will need to die in their eyes, I just wouldn't plan on them doing much ever if you do take the blasters. I'd consider them extra icing and make sure I have plenty of AT else where, but that's me.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
the_scotsman wrote: Haywire Cannons are almost certainly going to be D6 shots instead of D3, as it stands the Cannon is identical to the Blaster, it just costs more.
I could also see it just having 3 shots.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Lithanial wrote: Cheers for the input, the Archon aura is a good point but I disagree with the 117pts gap since you need to account for all those extra wounds. My logic on this flows as:
Dark Lance Ravager + 10 Kabalites = 200 points
Dark Lance Raider + 10 Kabalites w/ Blasters = 179 points
Same wounds, same firepower (well, 2 splinter rifles down but, eh), save 21 points and layer the wounds like an onion so your opponent has to crack the vehicle first. You then keep your re-rolls to hit by using Flayed Skull since blasters in Raider have more than enough range.
I get the Disintegrator uses though, however vs multi-wound infantry/bikes I would argue for the Razorwing Jetfighter being the preferred option for the extra durability of -1 to hit it.
I'm in no way advocating the replacement of ravagers, but that 117pt gap is also pretty misleading. Your required to take troops from a battalion anyway and those kabalites are fulfilling just that, so it would only be considered "extra" points if you went over the troop requirement and weren't taking a battalion. That said, in a battalion your looking at 3 units, and you'd be looking at 6 with that configuration, so you could either pay for more archons and take another battalion (more points and another detachment used on kabal) or combine those 5 man squads and then take a dark lance as well. Now your 199 (+20) but you have 4 dark light shots per boat which makes the configuration more appealing since you now have the output of 1.33 ravagers which is ~192 points.
So again, while not advocating for the replacement, I think a more appropriate framing for the idea would be to take them in addition since your stuck at a max of 3 ravagers now and you probably would be better off taking disintegrators on the ravagers at that point since you would have plenty of lances coming from your troops.
I think people don't like taking a dark lance on Kabalites because of the -1 to hit while moving. Which upsets disproportionately to how often you go and roll a 3. Its a bit like the -1 to hit on the Succubi's Archite Glaive - you don't roll that many 2s. Its just that the weapon itself kind of sucks compared to say a thunder hammer with the same downside.
Anyway as said the main downside of people in a raider is you can't get rerolls - but then you could just jump out and shoot. Sure you risk being shot back (or assaulted) but kabalites are cheap even with a blaster so its not the end of the world.
On the other hand 36" range is another upside for ravagers too vs 18/24" on blasters. You should be able to get whatever you want even if you DS in turn 1.
I think they are great. At 10 points more than a triple darklance ravager they put out roughly the same firepower at t6 and 12 wounds. I want to get 3 just to park 3 of them and 3 ravagers around the writ archon.
I'm in no way advocating the replacement of ravagers, but that 117pt gap is also pretty misleading. Your required to take troops from a battalion anyway and those kabalites are fulfilling just that, so it would only be considered "extra" points if you went over the troop requirement and weren't taking a battalion. That said, in a battalion your looking at 3 units, and you'd be looking at 6 with that configuration, so you could either pay for more archons and take another battalion (more points and another detachment used on kabal) or combine those 5 man squads and then take a dark lance as well. Now your 199 (+20) but you have 4 dark light shots per boat which makes the configuration more appealing since you now have the output of 1.33 ravagers which is ~192 points.
So again, while not advocating for the replacement, I think a more appropriate framing for the idea would be to take them in addition since your stuck at a max of 3 ravagers now and you probably would be better off taking disintegrators on the ravagers at that point since you would have plenty of lances coming from your troops.
I don't think it's misleading since 3 ravagers are only 375 points if kitted with dis cannons or 420 with dark lances. You can stick all the troops you want. I always bring 3 ravagers (and a mandatory archon), while everything else can change. I prefer playing a kabal battallion with 3 ravagers and 3-5 5 man units of kabalites in venoms with a blaster each but sometimes I focus the army on wych cults or coven stuff, so I'm just using a kabal spearhead. But those ravagers are too amazing to consider more warriors in raiders or the air wing detachment and I don't own any FW vehicle.
whembly wrote: What do ya'll think of the forgeworld Reaper unit?
Seems like a decent TAC for DE armies looking to maximize darklight shooting.
I had 3 Ravagers... and boy was I glad that I didn't get 6 more that I had queue'ed up just before the rule of 3 Beta rule dropped!
This is why I am happy about the rule of 3. Not trying to single you out, after all GW encouraged it, but that is awful for the game state lol.
BTW I think the reaper is a pass. It's to random and lacks the assault keyword on top of it's price. If you are hell bent on more gun ships then take the jetfighter.
I'm in no way advocating the replacement of ravagers, but that 117pt gap is also pretty misleading. Your required to take troops from a battalion anyway and those kabalites are fulfilling just that, so it would only be considered "extra" points if you went over the troop requirement and weren't taking a battalion. That said, in a battalion your looking at 3 units, and you'd be looking at 6 with that configuration, so you could either pay for more archons and take another battalion (more points and another detachment used on kabal) or combine those 5 man squads and then take a dark lance as well. Now your 199 (+20) but you have 4 dark light shots per boat which makes the configuration more appealing since you now have the output of 1.33 ravagers which is ~192 points.
So again, while not advocating for the replacement, I think a more appropriate framing for the idea would be to take them in addition since your stuck at a max of 3 ravagers now and you probably would be better off taking disintegrators on the ravagers at that point since you would have plenty of lances coming from your troops.
I don't think it's misleading since 3 ravagers are only 375 points if kitted with dis cannons or 420 with dark lances. You can stick all the troops you want. I always bring 3 ravagers (and a mandatory archon), while everything else can change. I prefer playing a kabal battallion with 3 ravagers and 3-5 5 man units of kabalites in venoms with a blaster each but sometimes I focus the army on wych cults or coven stuff, so I'm just using a kabal spearhead. But those ravagers are too amazing to consider more warriors in raiders or the air wing detachment and I don't own any FW vehicle.
Sure, but that's why you need to consider the context of what I wrote. It's misleading to simply look at the point deficit without considering how the army is organized which is what I pointed out. If your taking a spearhead then why on earth would you be taking troops? I was simply pointing out the merit if your taking a kabalite battalion.
Yeah but even in a kabal battallion you can easily bring 3-6 troops and 3 ravagers, like I usually do. Replacing those ravagers with more troops just looks sub-optimal, that's what I think. Even flyers are IMHO sub-optimal compared to ravagers but if you want a pure wych cult army they at least have a purpose.
I don't think ravagers compete with kabalites, but with flyers or FW vehicles.
I'm a big fan of the jet over the ravager myself. They have fairly equal firepower and cost about the same, but the flyer has -1 to be hit. They each have their own scoring advantages (ravagers being better at holding objectives but jets being better at scoring itc missions like recon or behind enemy lines). Last big difference to me is that with ravagers I feel like I have to deepstrike them costing me several cp. The jets I can deploy on the farthest back corners of my deployment and combined with the -1 to be hit they rarely get killed/crippled.
My Comp list has 3 of each lol..... BH Ravagers and a couple kabals/archons for 5cp, Flayed skull air wing detachment then vanguard coven with 3x3 grots, 1 unit of 3 talos and urien, a couple raiders for kabals and a few less drops
I just want to point out the rule of 3 is a tournament suggested rule, not a beta rule, but it seems many groups are taking it and using it anyways (mine is and I like it a lot honestly).
Having said that I always take a BH detachment of archon and 3 ravagers. I then have been toying with the obsidean rose for my main kabilite force. It's been working well so far. The rest of my points go to either wyches (reavers) or a homunculus with 3 talos units as my main hold the line force. Ravagers never disappoint, I understand trying to maximize an armys effectiveness but 3 ravagers and an archon is a straight forward and easy to use anti tank force. Mixing raiders and blasters to try to make a pseudo ravager that needs to get closer for extra wounds is kind of odd I think. I like my warriors as cheap as I can, mass splinter fire can make anything think twice about getting close.
Azuza001 wrote: I just want to point out the rule of 3 is a tournament suggested rule, not a beta rule, but it seems many groups are taking it and using it anyways (mine is and I like it a lot honestly).
While true it is only a suggested rule, it is a rule being adopted by nearly all tournaments. And considering a fair portion of competitive or semi competitive players are usually testing out tournament lists (even in local FLGS casual games), it's what is being used. Also, most (but not all) people that only play casual and/or narritive type 40k don't spend a ton of time on forum tactics threads. So I think it's fairly safe to treat the 'rule of three' as a real rule without the obligatory disclaimer posts that keep popping up all the time.
And I think the rule is overall good for the game too, even more so once everyone gets past the initial 'whine-about-every-change-that-affects-my-army'/ temporary-rage-quit phase.
The rule of three comes with problems based on the design of some armies (guard don't care at all, while Dark Eldar can have some pretty notable problems with it). As the game goes forward though, this should become less of an issue. That said, it's an overall very positive change for the game. The same could be said of all the core rule changes of the big FAQ. The main problem is not what they did, but that they didn't do enough. If they slow the offensive pace of the game and bring gunlines to heel, 8th edition should stand in a pretty good place.
Fafnir wrote: The rule of three comes with problems based on the design of some armies (guard don't care at all, while Dark Eldar can have some pretty notable problems with it). As the game goes forward though, this should become less of an issue. That said, it's an overall very positive change for the game. The same could be said of all the core rule changes of the big FAQ. The main problem is not what they did, but that they didn't do enough. If they slow the offensive pace of the game and bring gunlines to heel, 8th edition should stand in a pretty good place.
What problems do we have? Only min squads of reavers could be a great choice without the rule of three. But we can still bring 36 bikes in total at 2000 points games. Maybe also ravagers but only because they're honestly undercosted and since we can bring 3 of them plus 6 flyers and other effective sources of anti tank I don't see the issue.
The main two things rule of three hurts for us is our HQs and courts. You can't take double Kabal battalions without the Drazhar tax, and no more than 3 Sslyth/Lhamaeans.
However other than that I don't see any problems for us. 3 Ravagers and 3 Razorwings is just as good as 6 Ravagers, and Talos can be taken in squads.
HQ limitations are the big one. It's not an enormous problem, since DEHQs outside of Haemonculi don't actually contribute a whole lot (which in itself is a bigger problem), but it can cause some annoying list building problems.
IMHO it's a positive thing. Going 2x of the same type of battallion sounds really boring with 4+ of the same HQ, I can't even play with more than 2 actually. The max 3 limitation encourages variety and I think it's a very good thing. Not to mention that we can still bring two different detachments of the same subfaction, even three if one of them is the air wing.
Blackie wrote: IMHO it's a positive thing. Going 2x of the same type of battallion sounds really boring with 4+ of the same HQ, I can't even play with more than 2 actually. The max 3 limitation encourages variety and I think it's a very good thing. Not to mention that we can still bring two different detachments of the same subfaction, even three if one of them is the air wing.
Not for kabals tho, MANY DE players loves kabals, started with kabal back in 3rd and still play them, it is by far the more popular option. Also we can not take Bridges without taking merchants and FW units for Kabals and Wyches, this is making us take 2-3 detachments no matter what. And if you "like" Kabals in Raiders, 2 Battles are very nice. No one complains when nids take 2 battalions or IG, even SM, DE shouldn't be any different, we have the options to take 3 battalions, its not our place to say they shouldnt due to "its boring"
With that said for tournaments DE rule of 3 wont effect us much at all, most liekly b.c we will be soup with CWE.
whembly wrote: Would a CWE with warpspiders be effective in a shooty Kabal list?
Trying to think of a decent CWE detachment that fills a need...
I like Swooping Hawks, but honestly even if Dark Reapers did go up in price they are still a must take and you will still see the 8-9 man unit as Ynnari, its 28-32 and still the 4D6 Tempest shots as Ynnari. Thats to good to past up.
I like Swooping Hawks b.c you can do MW's and still pump out 40 shots killing 8-9 GEQ, and those can be at different targets, then if you are not shot and killed can fly back up into the sky to do it again, b.c the ability is 12" and the guns are 24" you can do safer DS and not care.
So much talk about kabals and no love for covens lately.
The question is - are all-footslogging covens (with grots DS bomb) is viable? By viable I don't mean "will tear a new one for every opponent in tournament", but rather "won't be wiped out by third turn".
Gimmicky, yes, but if you go nuts, you oughta go nuts with style.
Yes very so much yes, Grots and Talos are amazing, PoF with Urien and Haemonculus with the Vex Mask to stop Overwatch is really good.
Ive play many games now with 3 Talos plus 7-12 Grots and its been great. Especially when you have BH Ravagers and RWJF's to back them up along with your Kabals in Raiders, maybe if you have room some Wyches with Shardnets.
For comp? I dont think pure will do to well, they are like Necrons, easy to handle if you know how to.
A unit of Grots (6-10) some Talos will do wonders tho, they wont be a turn 1 threat like RWJFs and Ravagers are, so depending on deployment and play/rest of lists/opponent they could not even be shot at turn 1.
Right now I'm thinking of 2 units of 10 grots in DS, some wracks in backfield camping objectives and 3 Talosi as general backup and anchor for 1,500 points. Grots without haemis will notice it only for like lasguns and and odd STR 5/10 weapons, same with urien - his buff will be useful for T3 models - and we are living in a harsh marinated world (me at least, there are only 2 guard, 1 Tyranids and 1 mechanicum player VS 6 marine players and 2 orks)
So i'm curious what i should use for my main dark eldar army with the new rules. DS on turn 2 instead of 1 would nerf scourge significantly (as if they needed it). I'm just unsure what to get. Should i keep my dissie ravagers and go dark lance on other units (like flyers)? Should i also keep my reavers and add a 2nd squad (two 9 man squads for 18)? I just dunno.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So i'm curious what i should use for my main dark eldar army with the new rules. DS on turn 2 instead of 1 would nerf scourge significantly (as if they needed it). I'm just unsure what to get. Should i keep my dissie ravagers and go dark lance on other units (like flyers)? Should i also keep my reavers and add a 2nd squad (two 9 man squads for 18)? I just dunno.
Nothing wrong with Scourges, they're a support unit not the main threat so there's no problem with them coming in turn 2. I'm looking at going 1 Tripple Lance, 2 Tripple Dissie with my Ravagers since I occasionally come across the harder targets that I'd rather have the lances for. Not sold on huge squads of Reavers myself, I'm thinking 2 or 3 squads of 6 since they seem to work best as fast objective grabbers and harrassment units.
Fafnir wrote: The rule of three comes with problems based on the design of some armies (guard don't care at all, while Dark Eldar can have some pretty notable problems with it). As the game goes forward though, this should become less of an issue. That said, it's an overall very positive change for the game. The same could be said of all the core rule changes of the big FAQ. The main problem is not what they did, but that they didn't do enough. If they slow the offensive pace of the game and bring gunlines to heel, 8th edition should stand in a pretty good place.
It does heavily (and I mean heavily) reduce the number of mortar teams you see in a standard guard artillery list, which is enough to make me happy it was implemented.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Vexler wrote: Reassuring, thanks.
But what if we go deeper, go full monthy and go pure covens?
I've seen pure covens be pretty nasty, actually. You can get a Brigade fairly cheaply and effectively by bringing in lots of Scourges and Mandrakes which provide anti chaff, anti tank and board control, and unlike other dark eldar list setups, Covens and Prophets in particular don't really care that they'll be tanking the entirety of the enemy army for a turn or 2 before the deep strikers arrive.
The setup I've seen is
Urien
Haemonculus with Murderbuild (Vexator mask, EC whip, Hexrifle, Ichor Injector, +1 to wound trait)
Haemonculus with EC whip and Hexrifle
Wracks X6 with Hexrifles
2x Haywire scourges, 1x Shredder scourge
10x Grots
2x5 Mandrakes
2x3 Taloi with double cleaver+Haywire
Cronos
This list starts with enormous durability on the board, all in invuln saves which many opponents tend to struggle with.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So i'm curious what i should use for my main dark eldar army with the new rules. DS on turn 2 instead of 1 would nerf scourge significantly (as if they needed it). I'm just unsure what to get. Should i keep my dissie ravagers and go dark lance on other units (like flyers)? Should i also keep my reavers and add a 2nd squad (two 9 man squads for 18)? I just dunno.
Nothing wrong with Scourges, they're a support unit not the main threat so there's no problem with them coming in turn 2. I'm looking at going 1 Tripple Lance, 2 Tripple Dissie with my Ravagers since I occasionally come across the harder targets that I'd rather have the lances for. Not sold on huge squads of Reavers myself, I'm thinking 2 or 3 squads of 6 since they seem to work best as fast objective grabbers and harrassment units.
Well i liked shredder scourge (is that odd?). That said LoS and ruins made them have an iffy time even when they DS in turn 1. Reavers are ok-ish. I think the main power of reavers just comes in with holding gun-lines down. If you're facing a gun-line that's great but otherwise it's really not. Usually i don't think i'd need more than one big squad but vs guard i might. I suppose i don't see guard or tau much though. I still think shredder scourge combined with reavers assaulting after worked out sorta ok though.
Rule of 3 is tournament only so that's not a huge deal for me since i'm not into the tournie scene much.
One of my big issues is i feel like i need to axe dissie ravagers, shredder scourge or reavers and so far looking at my non-gunline meta it's probably gonna be the bikes but shredder scourge only have about a turn on their own before getting destroyed and don't seem to kill as much as i'd want them to. I still feel like i'd like to fix up my tactics with both a bit before completely getting rid of them but i dunno.
I kinda need a melee unit that can hit a DS'ing MEQ or TEQ army and i'd probably prefer covens to do that job (grotesques) but that can only happen if i drop the reavers and wych units and have 1/3 of my army go covens instead of wyches.
I understand some people felt ok about incubi but as time goes on this is increasingly a t4 or t5, 2 wounds and 3+ armor save battle with possible invulnerable saves or FnP. Incubi tend to do horrendous against some of those unless you have a lot of freaking incubi (maybe 20 at least). Anyway that's just what i think. Back in the day you could get away with 5 man squads and it could even do damage vs fairly elite marines and TEQ (though maybe die in the process) but now you either need numbers or stay home.
Looking for some feedback on a list. I had originally wanted to build around the Dark Creed, but leadership is just hopelessly broken as a mechanic at this point, and not worth investing in building an army around its exploitation until morale becomes an actual mechanic. So instead, I had something like this in mind:
While the goal would be to take advantage of leadership penalties, no unit would be relying on it as its entire gimmick. Flayed Skull could be changed for anything really, I'm not hugely attached either way. The second ravager was originally intended for a second unit of grotesques in an earlier draft, but the move to a spearhead instead leaves it dead weight at the moment, and I'm not sure what to do with it. I could easily drop the lone Talos and Cronos (who, let's face it, is pretty mediocre anyway, especially with Eldrad dropping Doom like it's hot) for another unit of grots to fill it, but then I'd also need one more elite, and the only thing I can comfortably fit under that point allowance would be Incubi. And as much as I love them aesthetically and fluff-wise, they're pretty trash.
Still, one unit of Incubi in a raider (the Incubi absolutely cannot be expected to footslog), one unit of grots with the combat Archon, and one unit of grots chilling with Urien might be the better choice than this current loadout.
Eldrad exists for psychic control, tossing out doom, mind warring suitably debuffed targets, and general mortal wound spam with executioner/smite. Irillyth adds further leadership pressure, and is a surprisingly versatile and well performing character in my experience. The lack of an invulnerable save hurts, but his toolbox usually makes up for it. The spiritseer would be given a power dependant on the matchup, and additional psychic control. Another toolbox character.
Basic strategy would be to harass with the Kabalites and Ravagers while running the raiders up the field, dropping their cargo and joining in the combat to block off space and scare things with their grisly trophies (for this reason, I'm thinking of going back to the Incubi/Grots/Grots/3Talos draft to improve the turn-2 combat saturation). The Talos would also threaten their way up the table in the meantime.
I'm looking for all kinds of feedback, but the biggest thing I'm stuck between is the grot/cronos/3talos/talos loadout, or the grot/grot/incubi/3talos one. I'm not looking to hurt anyone's feelings, but I do want to make a list that can at least stand a chance in a semi-competitive environment.
I personally dont like venoms at all, so not a fan of list 2. I cant wait to see counter meta and see how well DE does then.
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Fafnir wrote: Really surprised to see the Kabal detachment in that first list not actually utilizing kabalites.
Im not, my Kabals dont do much at all other than the blaster, the 12 of them (3 with blaster, but im talking about the SPlinter) they might get in 3-4 wounds all game, Wracks just do a bit better IMO and being PoF you can spend CP's to throw them somewhere else and bring back a few bodies.
The problem is counting drukhari isnt exactly easy. Certain builds anyway. For dealing with raiders especially you go to far to being able to handle a dozen of them, and you weaken yourself to the usual tanks and vehicles the meta expects
Automatically Appended Next Post: What has been peoples experiences so far? What has your drukhari force really struggled against? Especially looking at full mech drukhari, I have had a couple of games against some matchups that I thought would be tough and they have not been as challenging as I expected.
Wyldcarde wrote: The problem is counting drukhari isnt exactly easy. Certain builds anyway. For dealing with raiders especially you go to far to being able to handle a dozen of them, and you weaken yourself to the usual tanks and vehicles the meta expects
Automatically Appended Next Post: What has been peoples experiences so far? What has your drukhari force really struggled against? Especially looking at full mech drukhari, I have had a couple of games against some matchups that I thought would be tough and they have not been as challenging as I expected.
I suffered my first really spectacular defeat at the hands of a (post-FAQ) pure Militarum Tempestus army. Most of the units didn't deep strike at all, just started aboard Valkyries and Taurox Primes, and the fact that my vehicles are actually really susceptible to hellguns when they use the special reroll wounds order on them combined with those Tauroxes packing a pair of autocannons plus another nasty weapon each really hurt.
I even got first turn, but I (I guess somewhat foolishly) spent most of my anti-tank firepower taking down a Forgeworld Vulture he had, which I figured would be the biggest threat to just grinding out my transports or sweeping the squads inside.
After that a lot of the tanks went down on both sides, but my kabalites were faced with the fact that our troops were around the same cost, but he got 4+ armor saves and I did not get any armor saves vs hellguns.
Wyldcarde wrote: The problem is counting drukhari isnt exactly easy. Certain builds anyway. For dealing with raiders especially you go to far to being able to handle a dozen of them, and you weaken yourself to the usual tanks and vehicles the meta expects
Automatically Appended Next Post: What has been peoples experiences so far? What has your drukhari force really struggled against? Especially looking at full mech drukhari, I have had a couple of games against some matchups that I thought would be tough and they have not been as challenging as I expected.
Has hordes with backup fire power that we cant get to and Invuls, Daemons, IG, even some nids lits. If they can put 100+ on the table and still have enough S5+ with at least -1ap it hurts us badly, IMOSoB Horde with HB's and SB's is our hardest opponent, they can have 110+ models with 70+ special weapons (Melta, SB's HB's etc..) Poison doesnt care if they are T3, everything is 3+ so again poison wont do much, dissie Ravagers will kill 3.8 a turn with re-rolls hits and wounds of 1's, unless you are shooting seraphim then its only 2 a turn.
Ive done the math once (B.c I play both armies and wanted to know who would win) with 3 Ravagers, 3 RWJF and 3 Kabals in Dissie Raiders (Rest assuming Coven or Wyches for turn 2 charges), it was only 16 kills. SoB returns with way more damage than 3 BSS with 2 SB's and a HB each equaling up to 147pts, SB esaily killed 2 Raiders, all kabals/Wyches in them and some other damage (3-4 grots), but thats without Celestine, Relic Canoness and 3 units of Seraphim fighting.
flamingkillamajig wrote: So i'm curious what i should use for my main dark eldar army with the new rules. DS on turn 2 instead of 1 would nerf scourge significantly (as if they needed it). I'm just unsure what to get. Should i keep my dissie ravagers and go dark lance on other units (like flyers)? Should i also keep my reavers and add a 2nd squad (two 9 man squads for 18)? I just dunno.
Nothing wrong with Scourges, they're a support unit not the main threat so there's no problem with them coming in turn 2. I'm looking at going 1 Tripple Lance, 2 Tripple Dissie with my Ravagers since I occasionally come across the harder targets that I'd rather have the lances for. Not sold on huge squads of Reavers myself, I'm thinking 2 or 3 squads of 6 since they seem to work best as fast objective grabbers and harrassment units.
Well i liked shredder scourge (is that odd?). That said LoS and ruins made them have an iffy time even when they DS in turn 1. Reavers are ok-ish. I think the main power of reavers just comes in with holding gun-lines down. If you're facing a gun-line that's great but otherwise it's really not. Usually i don't think i'd need more than one big squad but vs guard i might. I suppose i don't see guard or tau much though. I still think shredder scourge combined with reavers assaulting after worked out sorta ok though.
Rule of 3 is tournament only so that's not a huge deal for me since i'm not into the tournie scene much.
One of my big issues is i feel like i need to axe dissie ravagers, shredder scourge or reavers and so far looking at my non-gunline meta it's probably gonna be the bikes but shredder scourge only have about a turn on their own before getting destroyed and don't seem to kill as much as i'd want them to. I still feel like i'd like to fix up my tactics with both a bit before completely getting rid of them but i dunno.
I kinda need a melee unit that can hit a DS'ing MEQ or TEQ army and i'd probably prefer covens to do that job (grotesques) but that can only happen if i drop the reavers and wych units and have 1/3 of my army go covens instead of wyches.
I understand some people felt ok about incubi but as time goes on this is increasingly a t4 or t5, 2 wounds and 3+ armor save battle with possible invulnerable saves or FnP. Incubi tend to do horrendous against some of those unless you have a lot of freaking incubi (maybe 20 at least). Anyway that's just what i think. Back in the day you could get away with 5 man squads and it could even do damage vs fairly elite marines and TEQ (though maybe die in the process) but now you either need numbers or stay home.
I've found that Shredders work better on Trueborn than Scourge, getting ignores cover from Flayed Skull and a 19" move with the Venom they're in or an extra 6" of range with Obsidian Rose has been great in making sure I can get them to hit the targets I want and kill them, deep striking Scourge aren't always able to go after the targets they want to with only 12" range on Shredders. I've found Scourge work best with anti tank so Blasters or Haywire Blasters are the go to option there for me.
Rule of 3 is a suggestion for organised play but my group is addopting it for our games as it's generally a good idea, though it does cause a few problems none of them are really major.
I've found that running Kabal and either Cult or Coven tends to be the best way to do things. People complain that there's little synergy between our 3 subfactions but I think thats only true with special rules, the way the army is designed means that Kabal tends to naturally just synergise with Cult and Coven via their playstyles but it also means that since Cult and Coven are generally trying to do the same thing (though in two different ways) you don't really need to run both of them. Given what you've said about your usual opponents I can see dropping Cult for Coven being a good choice.
Yeah, Incubi are a little laking in their damage output but their real problem is the complete lack of synergy with anything else in the army, everything thats supposed to benefit them does so in a "yes, but not really" kind of way.
ThePie wrote: Any people who gotten any use out of wyches?
What is optimal between running them in a 20 blob, 2 ten man teams in raiders or 4 five man teams in venoms (all units with shardnet of course)
I've run 1 shardnet 2 hydra, 1 shardnet 2 razor, and 1 shardnet configs for my wyches and all have gotten me serious mileage.
The really powerful "Wych Trick" I've figured out and haven't seen anyone really talking much about is:
Wych unit charges enemy unit. One model moves into base to base, shardnet moves within 3" but not within 1", all other models outside 1".
Your turn, do not pile in any units within 1" of enemy models or within 1" of the one model in contact. Feel free to use pile-in for positioning. Attack with the single wych, then pile in the squad the full 3" afterwards.
Now you get your 80% chance to keep the enemy unit stuck in combat, there's no risk of them being able to use casualties or leadership casualties to get out of combat or letting you wipe the unit so they can shoot your Wyches.
It is a commonly useful technique, not always useful (obviously you don't want to do it if the target your charging is dangerous in close combat enough to threaten your wyches, or if you don't feel like you're going to cause significant damage to the unit such that you just want all your attacks) but I've found it supremely invaluable as a way to turn my opponent's 5-man squads of fire warriors, 2-man drone squads, guard infantry squads etc into one-turn mario invincibility stars for my wyches.
I've tried 3x10 cult of strife wyches in raiders: agoniser and blast pistol for the hekatrix, 1 shardnet and impaler and two razorflails or hydra gauntlets. Lelith has her own venom, the other succubus goes on foot or shares the same transport. Those wyches from that cult are a very good unit IMHO.
I've also tried the blob of 20 which costs exactly like 10 in a raider, but I think it's a suboptimal choice.
Then I've run 3x5 wyches, that belong to a red grief battallion, in venoms: hekatrix with agoniser and a model with shardnet and impaler in each squad. If you play aggressively, for example in a detachment with 3x3 reavers or 2x3 reavers and a squad of hellions, they may be a nice unit as well. Blast pistols are optional for units that small, I never have the spared points.
The 3x10 wyches in raiders are very common in my games, while the 3x5 squads were brought to battle only sometimes in addition to those 3x10 wyches.
I feel like the +1 str is pretty much needed for wyches so 'cult of the cursed blade' sounds pretty legit for wyches to me. Sadly vs any with fast melee assault units the red grief might still be king. We'll have to see.
@Imateria: I wouldn't mind incubi if you could boost them to strength 5 or do something to boost them more. Anything with toughness 5 or even 4 and decent armor and multiple wounds just sorta laughs str 4 incubi off even with the good AP. It just makes me unsure if i should use them. As i keep saying they could be legit but would need to be spammed.
I am constantly thinking about doing coven over wych cult due to good toughness and decent invulnerable saves as well as some killing power. Wyches could do anti-horde maybe but i think the str 4 is pretty much needed to work it right. I think that's the one good thing for 'cursed blade' but anti-gunline is still very much 'red grief'. I do very much think specialties do work that way for obsessions. Red grief is for reavers whereas cursed blade do wych spam better. Strife are probably better with hellions if anything due to more attacks.
Incubi need S5 and D2/Dd3 on their attacks. 2W would also be really nice, but not absolutely necessary. Make them more expensive if you have to, at least it would give them a purpose. They lack the raw volume of attacks and durability to take on hordes, and they lack the hitting power to handle elite infantry. They're very much a unit that is living in an older edition, back when terminators got 1W and Custodians weren't a thing.
+1A is usually better than +1S, that's why I prefer the wych cult of strife over the cursed blade. Lelith also allows to bring two wych cult battallions if you want them. The stratagem that allows to fight twice can be devastating and I love it, even if it's not easy to use at its maximum potentiality.
The cursed blade really shines when fielding 2 or more blobs of 20 wyches that are basically immune to morale.
IMHO incubi could even be fine with the current stats, but they'd need some faction bonus at least. The black heart, poisoned tongue, strife or cursed blade buffs would make incubi a decent unit.
Blackie wrote: +1A is usually better than +1S, that's why I prefer the wych cult of strife over the cursed blade. Lelith also allows to bring two wych cult battallions if you want them. The stratagem that allows to fight twice can be devastating and I love it, even if it's not easy to use at its maximum potentiality.
The cursed blade really shines when fielding 2 or more blobs of 20 wyches that are basically immune to morale.
IMHO incubi could even be fine with the current stats, but they'd need some faction bonus at least. The black heart, poisoned tongue, strife or cursed blade buffs would make incubi a decent unit.
I find the +1S much more useful. The difference between wounding on 4's instead of 5's and 5's instead of 6's has been the difference between victory and defeat for me.
In my games having +1A or +1S didn't make a huge difference, but a unit of 10 Wyches with 5A base (3+drug+wych cult bonus) not counting the special weapons that multicharges, destroys an enemy unit and then unleashes all the attacks against another target is unbeliavable. At its maximum strenght a unit of 10 Wyches can have more than 100 attacks in a single turn. Hitting on 2s from turn 3 and re-rolling ones with a Succubus nearby.
The 3CPs tax of the Strife stratagem is high but with 14+ CPs available it's not a real problem.
Alternatively I give them +1S using the drug. I usually play with 3x10 Wyches and 6+ wych cult units in total so 2 of those 10 man squads will get the best drug. +1S is useless on Reavers and usually on Succubus as well. It's a very effective buff to Hellions, especially large squads that also benefit from the morale bonus, but I don't field them very often.
Cursed Blade dedicated stratagem, trait and relic are not amazing, maybe the archite glaive could be nice if the model is killed by an enemy HQ but I have no experience with that relic. I love the Blood Dancer trait on Lelith: she has 6A hitting on 2s re-rolling 1s; combined with her trait it means an average of 10 hits at S4 (with the drug), AP-4, re-rolling wounds against characters.
I like the Cursed Blade buff but IMHO the wych cult of Strife bonuses and combos are amazing, definitely my favorite obsession for a battallion.
Blackie wrote: In my games having +1A or +1S didn't make a huge difference, but a unit of 10 Wyches with 5A base (3+drug+wych cult bonus) not counting the special weapons that multicharges, destroys an enemy unit and then unleashes all the attacks against another target is unbeliavable. At its maximum strenght a unit of 10 Wyches can have more than 100 attacks in a single turn. Hitting on 2s from turn 3 and re-rolling ones with a Succubus nearby.
The 3CPs tax of the Strife stratagem is high but with 14+ CPs available it's not a real problem.
Alternatively I give them +1S using the drug. I usually play with 3x10 Wyches and 6+ wych cult units in total so 2 of those 10 man squads will get the best drug. +1S is useless on Reavers and usually on Succubus as well. It's a very effective buff to Hellions, especially large squads that also benefit from the morale bonus, but I don't field them very often.
Cursed Blade dedicated stratagem, trait and relic are not amazing, maybe the archite glaive could be nice if the model is killed by an enemy HQ but I have no experience with that relic. I love the Blood Dancer trait on Lelith: she has 6A hitting on 2s re-rolling 1s; combined with her trait it means an average of 10 hits at S4 (with the drug), AP-4, re-rolling wounds against characters.
I like the Cursed Blade buff but IMHO the wych cult of Strife bonuses and combos are amazing, definitely my favorite obsession for a battallion.
I think the two choices depend more on other wych cult units. Ultimately +1S and +1A result in the same statistics for anything they are fighting with Toughness 3-5 (most other infantry). The two buffs have a big effect on other units. Reavers bladevanes do not benefit from the +1S, making the cursed blade trait somewhat of a waste on reavers. On hellions +1S is pretty amazing as it put them to S5 when they attack, S6 if you take the +1S combat drugs. S6 is a nice break point in tournaments as against T3 models your wounding on 2s, and if you run into T5 models your wounding on 3s.
Shredders are great, this edition hordes of basic units are a large part of the game. Splinter rifles ironically are not so great against hordes of T2 or T3 models. Yes kabalite warriors are 6pts a model, but when shooting 4 of them(the fifth is shooting a blaster at something out of a venom...) at IG infantry, and you kill on average about 1-2 in rapidfire range, you have a problem.
The more I look at units the more I think Obsidian rose/Cult of strife is a powerful combo. 18" Shredders, 24" blasters, 30" splinter rifles(15" rapid fire..) is quite powerful. The ability to start putting on damage to units from a greater range, then get cult of strife units charging into multiple units increases your chance to kill one and activate attack again on the other.
Don't forget Cursed Blade has two other advantages that make it the superior choice for Wyches & Hellions compared to Strife:
- The +1 strength is for all rounds of combat, rather than just one involving a charge
- The morale check thing which is excellent for units of more than minimum size
I will grant you it's crap for Reavers, but I'd rather them be Red Grief anyway.
How big was the tournaments? I mean without knowing the rules set, size, etc... its hard to see if he actually did well, he took 3rd, 3rd out of 9? or 90? Did they have bonus points for killing full units? etc...
Amishprn86 wrote: How big was the tournaments? I mean without knowing the rules set, size, etc... its hard to see if he actually did well, he took 3rd, 3rd out of 9? or 90? Did they have bonus points for killing full units? etc...
Looks like there were 14 players at both, according to Best Coast.
Amishprn86 wrote: How big was the tournaments? I mean without knowing the rules set, size, etc... its hard to see if he actually did well, he took 3rd, 3rd out of 9? or 90? Did they have bonus points for killing full units? etc...
Looks like there were 14 players at both, according to Best Coast.
Thats very small, and we dont know the mission types either. Looking at Tournament list are very fun and i do it too, i just dont want to put any merit into them until i see all the details.
Tho, with that said, Grots are very good and i can see Grots and Ravagers getting a points increase in the next Faq/CA dates.
Anyway, I thought I'd share my first impression of DE and this army:
- I really felt the lack of long-range firepower, especially with Scourges not being able to deploy until turn 2. Unfortunately, I don't own much more in the way of long-range stuff.
- I think I deployed my stuff too far back. I was trying to use cover as much as possible, not realising that most of the nid guns were long-range, and the Hive Tyrant and Biovores don't need LoS (it's been ages since I last played nids). It meant that my Warriors weren't in range of a lot of stuff on turn 1.
- Whilst I messed up a bit with them, Mandrakes seem really good. I quite liked them as an escort for my HQ. Shame that HQ won't see play again.
- Incubi, on the other hand, failed to impress. Their melee damage seems barely better than Mandrakes, and they lack the shooting, deep strike, -1 to hit, and 5++ of such. I took them because I wanted to try a pure Kabal list (I'm still learning all the rules so I didn't want to complicate things too much), and wanted some melee in it. However, I really can't see any reason to take them over either Mandrakes or melee units in other factions. Especially given their reliance on transports.
- Using melee units in transports felt very awkward.
- For anyone who says Poison Tongue Warriors are bad in combat . . . they're completely right. Let's just say I don't think I'll bother with Agonisers on Warrior squads in future.
- Actually, on the subject of Warriors, I found them thoroughly unimpressive - even taking into account their low cost. It seems like they might as well be 1 Blaster and 4 balloons, for all the good their splinter fire did me.
- I found Shredders to be unimpressive, to say the least. Even against gaunts, they barely did anything, and they bounced off the Neurothrope completely. Definitely won't take them again.
- The Djin Blade was okay, thohgh I don't think it performed significantly better than a regular Huskblade. Not bad or anything, but I don't think I'd have it as my primary relic, if you see what I mean.
- I only got to fire the Soul Seeker a couple of times. First time it killed a gaunt or two, second time it bounced off the Hive Tyrant, so not a great first run for it. I'd like to try it again though, before giving up on it entirely.
- Rolling a 1 for my Warlord Archon on his first Shadowfield save was depressing, to say the least (he was torn apart by genestealers, which I suppose is slightly fitting given that his model got irreparably broken during the game). I'm now seriously considering running Flayed Skull, if only for the Obsidian Veil.
- On that note, Poison Tongue proved thoroughly unimpressive. The rerolls in melee and for disembarked Warriors did virtually nothing. The Venoms got slightly more use out of them, but still very little. I might give Poison Tongue another chance, but I'm definitely considering alternatives now. Flayed Skull in particular seems like a far superior choice.
Good insights. Some things dont match to my experiences though.
- I dont agree with any range issues for the army. Their primary guns are 36" mounted on vehicles that can move 14" and shoot at full effect. There shouldn't be anything you cant reach.
- deploying back seems fine. You should outshoot a nid list so force them to come to you.
-nothing wrong with melee units in transports. Raiders are surprisingly tough to kill. Can get them across the board unmolested. Then transport charges in and takes overwatch for them.
- kabal warriors shouldn't be in combat. I wouldn't bother with agonisers.
-i haven't had an issue with shredders. They are the best anti horse available. Those scourges should kill 9 or 10 gaunts. Neurothropes with 3++ aren't their best target tbh.
-archons have a habit of losing their field super early. Sometimes they tank plenty tho.
I was literally thinking of "How good would 3 Ravagers and 3 Fire Prisms be, especially with Warlock/Farseer for Guide/Doom/Jinx?" and even was talking about it with someone today.
I disagree. Our transports used to benefit melee units, now they do nothing for them. In order to charge, we basically have to put a juicy target right in front our opponents and hope they choose to ignore it.
-archons have a habit of losing their field super early. Sometimes they tank plenty tho.
Nothing to do with tactics, but I really, really hate Shadowfields. I find it incredibly annoying that we're no longer allowed the option of a Clone Field instead.
Bharring wrote: Melee units still get +3" of movement by disembarking, added durability, and faster redeployment on prior turns.
So does every other transport in the game.
Why do we even bother making ours open topped? So that our 1 ranged unit can shoot out of them? Whoop-de-do.
And apparently cutting off their top and stripping their armour doesn't even make them fast, since Raiders are actually slower than the more heavily-armoured Eldar tanks.
I don't think winning an 8 man tournement is worth crowing about too much.
Without any additional info that's kind of speculative though. I have been to 32 player events where 90% of the field were seals and I have also been to a few 6 person 3 game RTT's where every player that attended was a nail chewer. 32 person event was less valuable as a data point since first game can see two sharks play to a draw and eliminate themselves while a 3rd clubs a seal and coasts all day. Without missions or scoring rubrics any of these results are hard to judge as well. It's still nice to see DE actually attending evens let alone placing at the top regardless of details.
Bharring wrote: Melee units still get +3" of movement by disembarking, added durability, and faster redeployment on prior turns.
So does every other transport in the game.
Why do we even bother making ours open topped? So that our 1 ranged unit can shoot out of them? Whoop-de-do.
And apparently cutting off their top and stripping their armour doesn't even make them fast, since Raiders are actually slower than the more heavily-armoured Eldar tanks.
What is the point in rehashing the same complaints over and over? Our transports are very durable and useful for their cost. I assume your comparing raiders to serpents now? The WS is clearly busted and possibly the most annoying vehicle in the game to face, acting like it's the standard for which all other transports should be measured by is useless.
What is the point in rehashing the same complaints over and over?
Because people keep repeating the same, easily-disproved nonsense over and over.
Red Corsair wrote: Our transports are very durable and useful for their cost.
Because who cares whether they fit the fluff, so long as they're cheap.
Red Corsair wrote: I assume your comparing raiders to serpents now? The WS is clearly busted and possibly the most annoying vehicle in the game to face, acting like it's the standard for which all other transports should be measured by is useless.
Okay, fine. Which Eldar tank would you prefer I compared the Raider's movement with?
The Falcon? The Night Spinner? The Fire Prism? Every single one of them is faster than a Raider.
In my limited opinion, Mandrakes are one of the best units in the Codex, Shredder Scourges are solid glass cannons against infantry heavy armies, and Reavers are a bit overrated but still very good in their specific niche.
(The warlord-Archon went with the Mandrakes, the other Archon and the Succubus went with the Lhamaeans.)
First game was against an Ultramarine army with 2 Leviathan dreadnoughts, which basically tore my army to shreds. I managed to kill one but couldn't do enough damage to the other.
Second game was against a different UM player, this time using Guilliman (though probably not to his full potential). I managed to table him on turn 4, with Guilliman having been damaged a little by massed fire, and then finished by the non-warlord Archon, Succubus and 2 Lhamaeans. He failed his resurrection roll, even with a CP reroll.
Third game was against an Admech player with an Imperial Knight. He conceded at the beginning of turn 3, having been reduced to a single tech priest dominus and the Knight clinging to life on 2 wounds.
I thought I'd give some more thoughts based on my experience:
- I felt I got a bit more use out of the PT rerolls this game, especially with quite a few of my Kabalites being disembarked early on. Still not sure about it, though.
- The Soul Seeker is interesting, but so far hasn't proved amazing. I mean, my Archon definitely took out some models with it, and ignoring LoS and cover is fun. However, I still haven't managed to get any use out of it as a sniper weapon (got a couple of shots off at a Librarian, but he passed both his saves). Amusingly, it did take a wound off the IK. Might even have killed it if I hadn't already used my CP reroll that phase. Now that would have been funny. Anyway, maybe I just need to be a bit more aggressive with my Warlord? So far I've taken the cautious approach and had him more on the outskirts.
- I still like Mandrakes as an escort, and putting them in a Raider proved quite useful - since it meant they could stay mobile and were protected from enemy fire, and they could hop 11" out next turn to charge something. However, since I'm not using my Archon very aggressively, I'm wondering if I'd be better off just putting him with Kabalites or such (or maybe with a single Ur-Ghul in a Venom, just so there's something to take the fall if his transport is destroyed and he rolls a 1).
Anyone have any experience using this weapon? I love the idea of a sniper-Archon, so I'd like to try and make it work.
- Anyway, the other Archon, Succubus and Lhamaeans proved surprisingly resilient. I was pretty aggressive with them, but they managed to survive every game and even killed Guilliman. The one thing I wasn't sure about was the Archon's Venom Blade. I'd taken it to balance the points, but I'd often find myself wishing I had an Agoniser for the AP or a Huskblade for the d3 damage. I mean, it definitely got some wounds in, but I felt that the Succubus and Lhamaeans were the real powerhouses in the group.
- In case it's not clear, the Blood Glaive was very nice.
- Haywire Scourges were unreliable (really not a fan of d3 shots), but brutal when they worked. One unit managed to strip 8 wounds off the Imperial Knight on the turn they arrived. Though other times they would only manage 1-2 wounds.
- The Ravager was absolutely devastating against infantry - in the first game it vaporised an entire Hellblaster squad in a single shooting phase. However, in spite of what the mathhammer apparently indicates, it was abysmal against vehicles.
- I liked having so many Warriors. It was very useful to have a lot of small, cheap squads - especially having 2-per-Raider. I could practically play a game of attrition with them, and it felt like I had a ton of 'reserves' in my transports.
- Not sure about Reavers. I think I might actually like them better as Blaster-platforms than as melee units. Basically, they struggled to lock anything meaningful in combat and invariably died either in the attempt or in the subsequent turn, and I couldn't help feeling I'd be better off holding them back and just using them as gun-platforms.
Overall, I enjoyed this list, and it certainly proved stronger than I'd expected.
In my limited opinion, Mandrakes are one of the best units in the Codex, Shredder Scourges are solid glass cannons against infantry heavy armies, and Reavers are a bit overrated but still very good in their specific niche.
what makes mandrakes so good? These are just the coolest looking models in the collection and I am thinking of adding a dark eldar force to my harlequins.
In my limited opinion, Mandrakes are one of the best units in the Codex, Shredder Scourges are solid glass cannons against infantry heavy armies, and Reavers are a bit overrated but still very good in their specific niche.
what makes mandrakes so good? These are just the coolest looking models in the collection and I am thinking of adding a dark eldar force to my harlequins.
-1 to hit and their 5++ alongside the 6+++ from PFP makes them some of our most durable non-Coven infantry. They're also some of our most damaging units both at range and in close combat, point for point - the Baleblast with its -1 AP and mortal wound potential in particular is great. Being able to Deep Strike for free is icing on the cake.
The only thing holding them back is their inability to gain Obsessions, but on the plus side that means they can fit easily into any Dark Eldar detachment.
In my limited opinion, Mandrakes are one of the best units in the Codex, Shredder Scourges are solid glass cannons against infantry heavy armies, and Reavers are a bit overrated but still very good in their specific niche.
I did like shredder scourge but as time goes on i have to say they don't really do a lot. Maybe it was just a bad match up today but i'm thinking what with the new deep strike rules (turn 2 mostly) and due to short ranged units just getting destroyed i don't think shredder scourge really work. Even shredders in general might not work. Trueborn with blasters in venoms or raiders might work. Scourge with blasters or dark lance might work (dps for blasters and range for dark lance) but honestly more and more -1 to hit vs shooting armies like guard or tau is good as are anti-tank. The fact most DS is slow now means longer ranged fast or fairly durable units (dark lance, void lance and dissies) are actually pretty good. I'm not sure what we should use for anti-horde now that doesn't have to close (wyches, shredders, etc. mostly just die when they get there).
If i had to say in my last game vs guard with lots of flame units and very limited long ranged shooting i could've probably just used dissies and dark lances for the first 2 turns rather than trying to go into combat turn 2. I realized so much flame units close to me with so many flashlights would be bad news but perhaps i should've held back longer. Either way i think dark lance, void lance or dissie are on my 'next to buy' list. Anyway we'll see but i'm starting to think shredder scourge and bikes might be first to get axed very soon or i should wait to bring them in (or just flat out stop DS'ing them). If i do take bikes it will be to hold down some nasty ranged units for another unit to shoot or melee without as much worry or i may just go for covens units.
Mandrakes however sound like they have some promise only due to -1 to hit but the other stuff doesn't work. Sadly scourge and mandrakes are both considered mercenary units and therefore don't benefit from any of the 3 sub-faction rules.
I think shredders on trueborn might be decent however as was suggested while putting said unit in a venom or raider. Worth a shot right?
I'm not a fan of shredders as well. Trueborn are overcosted and scourges are glass cannon which means investing 92 points for a unit that kills just a few infantries models on average rolls doesn't look a good deal. IMHO scourges are basically decent if you need a third FA choice for an outrider detachment and/or you lack anti tank since your list is mostly wych cult or coven stuff.
I prefer poisoned shots, grotesques or wyches to handle light infantries.
Anyone have any experience using this weapon? I love the idea of a sniper-Archon, so I'd like to try and make it work.
- Anyway, the other Archon, Succubus and Lhamaeans proved surprisingly resilient. I was pretty aggressive with them, but they managed to survive every game and even killed Guilliman. The one thing I wasn't sure about was the Archon's Venom Blade. I'd taken it to balance the points, but I'd often find myself wishing I had an Agoniser for the AP or a Huskblade for the d3 damage. I mean, it definitely got some wounds in, but I felt that the Succubus and Lhamaeans were the real powerhouses in the group.
If I take a kabal battallion I usually play one of the archon in a very aggressive mode, with a blaster and phantasm granade launcher and on his own on a venom, sometimes he shares a trasnport with a succubus. If you have an army that also has an aggressive style he's a nice option. The blaster and the granade launcher can cause a lot of damage.
If I take a kabal battallion I usually play one of the archon in a very aggressive mode, with a blaster and phantasm granade launcher and on his own on a venom, sometimes he shares a trasnport with a succubus. If you have an army that also has an aggressive style he's a nice option. The blaster and the granade launcher can cause a lot of damage.
Do you think that could work with the Soul Seeker, though?
Well the relic has the same range of a blaster so yeah, I think it should be ok. It's not as versatile as the blaster but I'd definitely give it a try.
I've got a question for you guys - how do you equip your Haemonculi? Electrocorrosive Whip seems to be the go-to melee weapon, but what about Ranged Weapons?
- Do you take the standard Stinger Pistol?
- Do you take the Liquifier Gun and hope for good AP rolls?
- Do you take the Hexrifle for some long-range shots (and for the same price as the standard pistol)?
- Do you take the Parasite's Kiss or Spirit Sting artefact pistols?
Also, what about Artefacts? If you don't take one of the aforementioned artefact pistols, do you take the Vexator Mask? The Helm of Spite? Something else? Nothing at all?
So, what are peoples' thoughts on the importance of psychic defense for competitive viability? Namely, in peoples' minds, to what extent is the souping of Craftworld detachments for psyker/anti-psyker firepower worth prioritizing? Or is it something that can within reason be ignored entirely?
Fafnir wrote: So, what are peoples' thoughts on the importance of psychic defense for competitive viability? Namely, in peoples' minds, to what extent is the souping of Craftworld detachments for psyker/anti-psyker firepower worth prioritizing? Or is it something that can within reason be ignored entirely?
I don't leave home without a Farseer and Warlock. YMMV, but in my experience Doom and Jinx give such a huge power boost to the rest of the army that they're absolutely vital inclusions.
Fafnir wrote: So, what are peoples' thoughts on the importance of psychic defense for competitive viability? Namely, in peoples' minds, to what extent is the souping of Craftworld detachments for psyker/anti-psyker firepower worth prioritizing? Or is it something that can within reason be ignored entirely?
I don't leave home without a Farseer and Warlock. YMMV, but in my experience Doom and Jinx give such a huge power boost to the rest of the army that they're absolutely vital inclusions.
For Competetive my list is BH with the Ravagers/RWJF's, Battalion of PoF coven for Haemon x2, Vex and Helm for Relics, 7-10 Grots and some Wracks, (spending 3 CP on relics), then Battalion CWE 3x5 Rangers, Warlocks/Farseer, spending the 1CP for more WL traits (PoF one is D3 command points, so you never lose CPs for doing it and you can gain +1/+2).
IMO if you are playing to win, you need CWE powers and Ranger, the Helm to force Perils is just really good as well.
- The Ravager was absolutely devastating against infantry - in the first game it vaporised an entire Hellblaster squad in a single shooting phase. However, in spite of what the mathhammer apparently indicates, it was abysmal against vehicles?
It's not very fair to judge the disintegrator cannon as being ineffective against vehicles when you are firing a grand total of one of them. That's like saying, I shot a dark lance at a vehicle and it missed, so they are terrible against vehicles.
Shooting 9 disintegrator cannon shots at a vehicle might not do the job, but shooting 48 disintegerator cannon shots at a vehicle will kill it.
I mean, in terms of cost. Needing more raw disintegrators to take down a tank means you need more things to actually hold them. Once you begin to factor that in, the point comparison becomes a little less one sided, since the higher concentration of raw firepower on a lance means you'll need to buy fewer platforms to get the destructive power. Disintegrators are still going to be the better weapon overall, but it means that lances won't be entirely without purpose.
Fafnir wrote: I mean, in terms of cost. Needing more raw disintegrators to take down a tank means you need more things to actually hold them. Once you begin to factor that in, the point comparison becomes a little less one sided, since the higher concentration of raw firepower on a lance means you'll need to buy fewer platforms to get the destructive power. Disintegrators are still going to be the better weapon overall, but it means that lances won't be entirely without purpose.
But 7 is nothing, normal DE armies so far are taking 15 or so. At least ones that i'm seeing, 3 Ravagers is 9, 2 Raiders, and 1-3 RWJF's would be 13-15
It's not very fair to judge the disintegrator cannon as being ineffective against vehicles when you are firing a grand total of one of them.
Apparently 3 Disintegrators = 1 Disintegrator. Who know?
Wyldcarde wrote: Shooting 9 disintegrator cannon shots at a vehicle might not do the job, but shooting 48 disintegerator cannon shots at a vehicle will kill it.
So the Disintegrator Cannon is horribly inefficient, but apparently this is a point in its favour.
It's not very fair to judge the disintegrator cannon as being ineffective against vehicles when you are firing a grand total of one of them.
Apparently 3 Disintegrators = 1 Disintegrator. Who know?
Wyldcarde wrote: Shooting 9 disintegrator cannon shots at a vehicle might not do the job, but shooting 48 disintegerator cannon shots at a vehicle will kill it.
So the Disintegrator Cannon is horribly inefficient, but apparently this is a point in its favour.
Its the same for the most part tho vs Lances, all vehicles takes many shots to kill now unless you get a couple lucky shots and even then you dont want to count on that. It will on average still take 2 DL Ravagers to kill 1 Rhino, where DIs cannons will need 1-2 more cannons to kill it, the big difference is, if he saves 1 Lance shot above average, then you just lost a lot more damage compare to him saving 1 DC shots.
Remember these weapons are for MC's as well and elite infantry, and many of those units have invuls, once you factor in invuls the DC becomes a lot better. Thats why it is being taken as a TAC weapon. But if you know you are fighting lots of tanks, then you might want to take a couple HWB's and Blasters as back up.
Its the same for the most part tho vs Lances, all vehicles takes many shots to kill now unless you get a couple lucky shots and even then you dont want to count on that. It will on average still take 2 DL Ravagers to kill 1 Rhino, where DIs cannons will need 1-2 more cannons to kill it, the big difference is, if he saves 1 Lance shot above average, then you just lost a lot more damage compare to him saving 1 DC shots.
Granted, but if you use Disintegrators then you basically need a third Ravager to do the same damage against vehicles.
Remember these weapons are for MC's as well and elite infantry, and many of those units have invuls, once you factor in invuls the DC becomes a lot better. Thats why it is being taken as a TAC weapon. But if you know you are fighting lots of tanks, then you might want to take a couple HWB's and Blasters as back up.
That's the thing though - my experience was that Disintegrators did naff-all to Monsters or vehicles with invulnerable saves. Even when firing at them over successive turns.
They seem to excel at killing elite infantry, but struggle to even scratch anything tougher. Wounding on 5s meant that virtually every shot bounced off (even before the Invulnerable Save), and even when one got through the meagre 2 damage barely registered.
Its the same for the most part tho vs Lances, all vehicles takes many shots to kill now unless you get a couple lucky shots and even then you dont want to count on that. It will on average still take 2 DL Ravagers to kill 1 Rhino, where DIs cannons will need 1-2 more cannons to kill it, the big difference is, if he saves 1 Lance shot above average, then you just lost a lot more damage compare to him saving 1 DC shots.
Granted, but if you use Disintegrators then you basically need a third Ravager to do the same damage against vehicles.
Remember these weapons are for MC's as well and elite infantry, and many of those units have invuls, once you factor in invuls the DC becomes a lot better. Thats why it is being taken as a TAC weapon. But if you know you are fighting lots of tanks, then you might want to take a couple HWB's and Blasters as back up.
That's the thing though - my experience was that Disintegrators did naff-all to Monsters or vehicles with invulnerable saves. Even when firing at them over successive turns.
They seem to excel at killing elite infantry, but struggle to even scratch anything tougher. Wounding on 5s meant that virtually every shot bounced off (even before the Invulnerable Save), and even when one got through the meagre 2 damage barely registered.
Yes it takes more, you should be using other weapons too tho, like missiles, HWB's, Blasters, etc... if you are taking only Dis Cannons as your only AT then yeah, its not going to be amazing at it, the point is they are almost as good as DL at killing tanks, so you dont need to take Lances, use cheaper other things are are just as good for the points if not better. Or take 1 DL Ravager for back up damage if you feel you rather have that.
No one is saying Dis are perfect, just in the current meta with low Tanks on the table they are a good pick, but if you are going against 6+ tanks, then yeah i would add something else.
Yes it takes more, you should be using other weapons too tho, like missiles, HWB's, Blasters, etc... if you are taking only Dis Cannons as your only AT then yeah, its not going to be amazing at it, the point is they are almost as good as DL at killing tanks, so you dont need to take Lances, use cheaper other things are are just as good for the points if not better. Or take 1 DL Ravager for back up damage if you feel you rather have that.
No one is saying Dis are perfect, just in the current meta with low Tanks on the table they are a good pick, but if you are going against 6+ tanks, then yeah i would add something else.
I'm not using Disintegrators as my only Anti-tank. All I'm saying is that so far Disintegrators have consistently been abysmal against vehicles.
Hence, I really wouldn't want to take many of them in place of Lances.
