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While building Dark Eldar army lists, I often find myself confronted with two problems:

I love the Baron, but I can't stand Hellions.

Beastmasters have...issues. By the time they get into range, the battle is often already decided.

I'm often about 25 points over budget.

So I've been looking at alternatives to make the best of the Baron's 105 points. I'm willing to count about half of that toward the roll to deployment, but I'd really like to make use of his twilight shroud ability.

Wracks are an interesting unit. At 10 points for 3 units, they're the minimum point investment you can make to purchase a dedicated transport. This saves me 30 points relative to a Blaster/Warrior squad. They're also T4 models, and start with FNP. And if you've brought a Haemonculus, they're scoring. The downside is their miserably poor armor save.

Armor saves don't matter if you can take a cover save, and the Baron's twilight shroud gives his joined unit Stealth. So suppose I stick an objective in cover, fly the Wracks over in my Venom, and drop them there. When the Baron joins them, I'll have a 6-wound unit with T4 and 3+/FNP. This improves to 2+ if I elect to go to ground. Not too shabby.

While this unit is obviously vulnerable to assaults and templates, they should far enough removed from my opponent's table edge to make getting into range a difficult proposition. And considering the secondary benefits (+1 to deployment roll, ability to purchase another Venom), I think it's well worth the cost.

Do any of you have any experience with this kind of technique on either side of the table? I'd love to hear some feedback. WAAUGH!

It seems a bit of a waste of the baron if I'm honest.

It also is at risk from outflanking and DSing unit and armies with good ranged anti infantry (other DE, Mechdar, Bolterback lists etc.)

I would heartily recommend (I know you said you can't stand them, but I'll try to convince you) that you try 15-20 hellions with baron, buff em up with 2 haemies (FnP, FC, drugs and the barons rules turn them into a veritable death-star) who can then join your TB as ablative wounds and your set. They integrate well with a mech list often drawing away s6-7 firepower from your vehicles, are very effective against parking lots with mass S5 (something we DE players tend to struggle with) and provide a crazy durable scoring unit (G2G for 2+ cover and FnP, fearless as well if you've killed any units). I've used this set up (20+ baron) regularly and it's always served me well.

Of course the other option is beastmasters, but they don't share the same amount of utility as the hellions and fail to make use of many of the baron's rules.

I'll just summarize my objections to that by quoting Thor665. There's a lot more I could pick on specific to your suggestions (adding Haemonculi to Hellions means that the Hellions can't use their 12" movement or fleet, and the Haemonculi can't leave without taking a pain token with them), but this is enough.

Thor665 wrote:They are assault troops who are slower and less protected than Wyches in a Raider (and are obligated to pay out 20 points in upgrades just to get plasma grenades). They are also easier to kill than Wyches in the assault. Also, did I mention slower, yeah a Fast Attack option slower than a Troop slot – cute.

Oh, but they also have anti-infantry firepower, firepower that’s weaker and has less range than just getting a Dakka Venom on the board with 5 Warriors and a Blaster inside of it.

Let’s not even dwell on the fact that both of those other units bring anti-tank to the field, something Hellions can’t do at all and that, last time I checked, it was good if you could do that. Oh, and both of those other units are Troops and are thus scoring units. Other than that Hellions are…okay. They’re better than they were, they sort of have an okay harassing/assault role and can be pretty good at mixing it up with regular infantry. The problem is that our poison weapons are good at mixing it up with regular infantry too, and we have lots of those and don’t need to pay out the ying yang for a unit that specializes in it.

My friend, I run a venom spam list in the truest sense: 3 TB squads (2 of 3 and 1 of 4) with venoms, 5 warrior squads with venoms and 3 ravagers. The core of a venom spam build runs you around 1500 points, so it would seem obvious to either spend more points to increase you shooty output (Reavers/Scourges) or more preferably some form of counter assault (Beastmasters/Hellions). So the Hellions fit just fine into a 2k list, and below that I scale them down to a 15 man unit and drop a warrior and TB squad (to get them down to 1500). I wouldn't advise them at 1k as you'd have no points left after them. Considering that you were already inclined towards the baron it's less of a points investment than you made out.

Points aside it's an extremely flexible unit that covers many holes in a DE army. Namely t allows us to deal with heavy mech builds more easily. I won in annihilation vs mech guard and mechdar (2 of our harder matchups, in DE's least favourite mission) because of this unit; in the first game because of some large multi assaults catching 3-4 vehicles and the second because they allowed me to deal with warwalker squadrons in cover (which DL bounce off of).

In regards to the quote from Thor. The baron provides the grenades, striking at ini7 on the charge with 56 S5, 4 PW and 5 S7 attacks and combat drugs (and they'll typically get the charge) your opponent typically won;t get to hit back or at least not with much. 42 BS 4 poison shots before assault is not to be scoffed at. I'd say 5 S7 and 56 S5 attacks is anti tank enough, especially if you roll +1 attack or strength. Hellions are troops with the baron and the most durable scoring unit in the dex, try removing (outside of tankshock XD) a lump of hellions who've gone to ground on an objective fore 2+ cover and FnP (it takes on average 12 wounds to kill 1). Even with flamers are going to struggle with appropriate spacing and FnP. Thor is absolutely correct in regards to hellions generally, but with the above set up the overcome pretty much all of those shortcomings.

It's not as if I've simply sat here and theory hammered it, I've been using this unit for over 3 months and have playtested them more than enough.

"There's a lot more I could pick on specific to your suggestions (adding Haemonculi to Hellions means that the Hellions can't use their 12" movement or fleet, and the Haemonculi can't leave without taking a pain token with them), but this is enough."

1 token goes to the hellions and the other to the baron, the situation you described only occurs on having rolled a 6 for combat drugs where I have 3 tokens to 4 discreet units so one of the haemonculi has to take one.

I'm not sure where you come from, but I prefer annihilation games. DE are really bad at holding objectives, but we're really good at killing things.

As dashofpepper already put it, "annihilation is right up my alley."

*shrugs* All I know is that I've got an IG opponent that fields two Manticores. Getting a unit that large into cover is going to force you into a perfect pie plate target, if you can manage it at all. Even if you can, you now have instant death AP4 weapons falling on your ridiculously expensive models which will ignore armor, FNP, and wound on 2+.

Not a good thing.

I'm not sure where you come from, but I prefer annihilation games. DE are really bad at holding objectives, but we're really good at killing things.

As dashofpepper already put it, "annihilation is right up my alley."

Aye I always play to table, that doesn't mean I'm fool enough to think I can manage to do so every game.

*shrugs* All I know is that I've got an IG opponent that fields two Manticores. Getting a unit that large into cover is going to force you into a perfect pie plate target, if you can manage it at all. Even if you can, you now have instant death AP4 weapons falling on your ridiculously expensive models which will ignore armor, FNP, and wound on 2+.

I've fought Mech IG with dual manticores before with my current list (aforementioned annihilation game is one example, he also had a PBS XD good times) and it wan't that large of an issue, only half the unit has to be in cover typically allowing me to space my models. The manticores can also only really hide out of LOS of DE for a turn at most and then they get lit up.

At the end of the day I think your setup for the baron is far from ideal, given that it wastes a lot of potential and is particularly vulnerable to fast/outflanking units.

Another thing a mass blob of hellions is good for is providing cover for your vehicles and "bubble wrapping" your shooty elements against enemy assault squads. 20 Hellions in a line does a nice job of providing a 4+ cover save to everything behind them. Not to mention the fact that any thunder hammer/chain fist termies or short range meltas that want to get a shot at your vehicles have to go through the blob of hellions first. And they're relatively cheap for being able to do this. Consider that if you can use hellions to give your vehicles a cover save, you could save lots of points by removing flicker fields from your vehicles? a long shot but it's a theory.

I'm afraid it doesn't work like that. Take another look at the vehicle rules in the BRB.

page 52 wrote:"Vehicles do not benefit from cover in the same way as infantry -- their sheer size and bulk mean they cannot take advantage of cover as well as infantry and other smaller, more agile troops. They can, however, position themselves in such a way as to make it harder for the enemy to hit them in a vulnerable location. The difference from the way cover works for other models is represented by the following exceptions to the normal rules for cover.

At least 50% of the facing of the vehicle that is being targeted (i.e. its front, side, or rear) needs to be hidden by intervening terrain or models from the view of the firer to claim to be in cover.

So unless you can get those little stubbly Hellions to actually block TLoS to the Raiders or Ravagers, you aren't going to be getting any cover saves. Good luck with that one. Only non-mechanized units benefit from the cover save granted by "firing through the gaps between....an intervening unit." Vehicles are just too big for that.

Yeah, covering half of DE vehicles with hellions is pretty optimistic.

I'm with Archibald on the other points. The described unit is still not all that durable for the points, and wastes the Baron's HtH abilities.

Thor665 has a great track record with his DE, and has written some great stuff about the old book, but I think he's shortselling the new Hellions by quite a bit.

Counting the Baron as about a 50 point investment toward the scourges (I value the +1 initiative at least that much), spending 80 points on an objective holder with 2+/FNP sounds pretty good to me.

...And a heck of a lot better than 450 points of hellions.

With a WWP, the hellions suddenly become good, able to get to cc very quickly. However, if you're using a WWP list, there's no need for the baron any more, so there's no point. Just don't bother, wyches work better.

Mannahnin wrote:Thor665 has a great track record with his DE, and has written some great stuff about the old book, but I think he's shortselling the new Hellions by quite a bit.

Oh posh, the new Hellions are just slightly superior to the old ones, and consequently are still basically overpriced and underfocused. They're, at best, a decent shooting force that has an option to assault.
Are DE really suffering for some more poison shooting?

I'll admit I'm not particularly enamored by Baron+Wracks though. You can do it, sure, but I don't see much value in investing an HQ into an objective holder, and it's not like they'll be much faster than the Beastmasters this way if you want to use them for assault (and will also be weaker both in surviving shooting and in assault). It's an idea, it has some minor pros, I don't see a big gain over just 3 Wracks in a Venom though, other than just 'hey! Baron goes here'.

The combination of Power from Pain, poison shooting, and the ability to be scoring and +1 to your cover saves with the Baron represent substantial improvements.

They're definitely better but I'm still a Grinch when it comes to Hellions. They're mediocre at best. They need way too many points dropped into their laps to be good. To be worth anything, they need the Baron. Then you put a Haemy in there to make them last? Ehhh that means the points you drop on the Haemy are solely for the pain token because he's going to get left stranded by the Hellions or slow them down...

It's just...Too much. You have to build the army around them.

It's just...Too much. You have to build the army around them.

I don't necessarily thinks this is true. At higher points they fit in easily round a venom spam template and they fit very well with WWP.

It's about four hundred points for 15+Baron with Haemy? That's without an agoniser on a Helliarch...Whatever they're called, not too familiar with the Hellions. Space punks.

I'm adding the baron +12 hellions to my list because I like jump infantry in general, but I fully understand there are killier choices out there. I like the fact that they can hide in terrain with the Baron, when even my Daemon Prince often has to think twice about flying into cover. I see them as a good distraction that can actually cause a lot of pain if he enemy chooses to ignore.

Mannahnin wrote:The combination of Power from Pain, poison shooting, and the ability to be scoring and +1 to your cover saves with the Baron represent substantial improvements.

I can substantially increase my wealth when I go from $0.01 to $0.20 it still doesn't mean I have much money.

Yeah, if we invest around 200 points of support into our expensive jump infantry option we can come up with a unit that does stuff and doesn't inherently fail...besides the fact that for all those points I could get multiple better things. That's the gist of the issue - sure, i can build a Hellion unit that can kill stuff, but by the time I do it are my points being well spent? The answer is invariably no. That means that the Hellions are too expensive and/or not very good. You can pick any particular combo of that you wish, but the end result is the same - they are sub-optimal.

Beastmasters are good without the Baron.
Wyches are good without Haems to give them PTs to start.
Hellions are...pretty pathetic without 1-2 Pain Tokens *and* the Baron except for providing splinter fire support - and I can get that cheaper and better via Venoms.

It's about four hundred points for 15+Baron with Haemy? That's without an agoniser on a Helliarch...Whatever they're called, not too familiar with the Hellions. Space punks.

A venom Spam template runs aroun 1500 though, so the points issue isn't so great.

Corollax wrote:I'll just summarize my objections to that by quoting Thor665. There's a lot more I could pick on specific to your suggestions (adding Haemonculi to Hellions means that the Hellions can't use their 12" movement or fleet, and the Haemonculi can't leave without taking a pain token with them), but this is enough.

What are you talking about? When the Haemy leaves, because you only have 1 PT, you can choose to have the Haemy keep it or give it to the squad he is attached to.

What are you talking about? When the Haemy leaves, because you only have 1 PT, you can choose to have the Haemy keep it or give it to the squad he is attached to.

Well it's 2 T really (2 Haemies) 1 token goes to the baron and 1 to the hellions to solve this issue though.

It's cheaper and more functional to snag the tokens from a Haem and some Wracks actually - it gives the Haem somewhere to go afterwards, and the minimized Wracks can at least go to ground and hug an objective - which is more useful and cheaper than two Haems standing around waving 'good luck' to their expensive brain child of Hellions flying off to glory.

I'm just going to put this here...

http://rumorsofheresy.blogspot.com/2011/11/nova-open-2011-tournament-report.html

See game four for some strongly pro-hellion evidence.

Note that I do not personally advocate Hellions in every build, however, this is a good example of their successful use. An advantage over Wyches that I find is somewhat understated in the permanency of their mobility; it is incredibly easy to shoot out the raider from underneath Wyches, leaving they no option but to attempt to footslog.

Thor665 wrote:I'll admit I'm not particularly enamored by Baron+Wracks though. You can do it, sure, but I don't see much value in investing an HQ into an objective holder, and it's not like they'll be much faster than the Beastmasters this way if you want to use them for assault (and will also be weaker both in surviving shooting and in assault). It's an idea, it has some minor pros, I don't see a big gain over just 3 Wracks in a Venom though, other than just 'hey! Baron goes here'.

Well, like I said -- I feel that the majority of the Baron's value comes in his 'Bones of the Seer' rule. Anything extra he can do is just a bonus. So if I can take a wrack unit and literally quadruple its survivability (3 wounds at 3+/FNP to 6 wounds at 2+/FNP), I think that's a pretty good investment for whatever value the Baron has left over.

And considering that the Wracks existed for no other reason than to purchase another Venom, scoring an objective is a pretty good deal. And I call that a One-Hundred-Percent Positive Result.

There's not a question in my mind that Hellions can kill stuff effectively. But any army list featuring them has a big issue - and that issue is the Hellions. They're functionally a Death Star on points while lacking a Death Star's usual durability. Making it kind of a hit or miss army in my opinion and that's because the Hellions themselves don't consistently deliver to the level their cost suggests they should.

I think Game 3 is a better argument for pro Hellions, as it shows them doing what they do best at a couple of points, and also shows a personal list trumping a net list based mostly off of generalship, which is sexy to see in action.

Game 6 is a prime showcase of the inherent problem of the list.

I want to play more tournaments with that terrain - that was some sexy, sexy board layouts for DE players.

Thanks for the plug! There are lots and lots of Dark Eldar batreps on the blog actually, every single one of them featuring Hellions.

And, I might add, being the MVP in almost every single game.

Just look for the 'Batrep log'' link on the top right, and you'll find them, mostly in big tournaments

Not much better way to spend 450ish points in the game, I'm convinced. As to the rest of the codex... I'm still trying to figure it all the way out. Venoms for the fail, mostly (which sounds counter-intuitive to what the rest of the internets says but... when you have Hellions, why take Venom spam?). :-p

/shrug

Xaereth wrote:Not much better way to spend 450ish points in the game, I'm convinced. As to the rest of the codex... I'm still trying to figure it all the way out. Venoms for the fail, mostly (which sounds counter-intuitive to what the rest of the internets says but... when you have Hellions, why take Venom spam?). :-p

That is actually a good explanation of what the real debate is.

For the way I play Venoms work better to get kills and provide the support I want and I prefer a different type of assault tool (and think they're superior in multiple ways while costing less, natch )

Have you found the de-meching of your force to really help much? The lists you fought that I would call truly terrible for mech DE didn't seem to give you less problems than I would expect playing them with my skimmer spam list, was it just that particular go around, or do you find it a bit of a wash as far as a list meta shake-up?

Xaereth wrote:Thanks for the plug!

No problem; you've put a ton of time and effort into your batreps, and hence I would encourage people to read them

Back on-topic; I wouldn't say hellions w/ baron even have survivability issues. They will give a 4+ cover to your vehicles, and they have 3+ cover and FNP thanks to the Baron. In combat... well, the only stuff that will hit you back is the stuff that survives the initial flurry of I6/7 blows.

Considering that vehicles only benefit from 50% obscurement TLoS cover, I find it difficult to believe that even a large group of hellions could provide a cover save to your vehicles -- must less getting cover for a unit with that kind of footprint at the same time.

When you spend that kind of points on a unit, they should be your MVP. But when it dies in a single round, I think that does a pretty good job of illustrating their survivability issues. On a roughly 385 point (15 Hellion, Baron, Haemonculus) unit, that is a huge problem. If you want them to get furious charge, then you've still got another 50 points to account for...

My wyches do some pretty awesome stuff too -- but they cost half the points and retain their dodge save against power weapons, bring a lance and liquifier to the table, and I can get more than one.

The whole issue seems a little strange to me. Wyches work better in assault than hellions, warriors and venoms work better at shooting, and Dark Eldar really don't want stuff that's an all-rounder. They want specialised. Wyches in venoms do everything that hellions can do for a similar number of points, and can then claim objectives. They're also more survivable in combat. There's no need for hellions. If you must take the baron, take him and keep him away from killy things, or use him as a distraction, or something, but don't spend 500pts making him Ok at killing some things in one turn before being flamered to death. Just don't.