Wyldhunt wrote:
@vipoid: don't get me wrong. I'd love to have more weapon options for our HQs (remember archons with incubus weapons?), and what we have *is* often overpriced for what you get. I guess I just don't rely on my HQs having AP2 most of the time.

It's not about relying on my HQ's AP2 - just that I'd like the option to send them against 2+ save units.

You mention there being lots of 2+ save targets running around that you wish you could throw your archon at, but I'm having trouble thinking of what they would be. Any sort of HQ with a 2+ save is probably scary enough in melee for me to want to bully him with poison and disintegrators. Centurions are a great target for disintegrators and blasters. Terminators without storm shields are generally frowned upon, but they make excellent targets for any of our sources of AP2 except maybe the MCs. TH/SS termies are tough against anything, so you pretty much have to just keep shooting them until they drop; not a target for archons.

The thing is though, it depends on what else your opponent has and what's happened in the game. Ideally, you'd use Disintegrators on Centurions, but what if you don't have any in your army? What if your disintegrator platforms were destroyed by enemy fire? What if they are simply needed elsewhere?

Also, I've played some armies like GKs where literally every model has a 2+ save. There are no easy targets to just send my Archon against with his breadknife.

Maybe I'm missing something. Outside of grey knights, what's the 2+ save enemy that your archon is dying to get into close combat with? I ask with respect. I'm genuinely having trouble thinking of a target that your archon could handle with AP2 that you can't handle with something else.

As I said earlier, I don't use melee Archons. Without AP2, I simply have no desire to run one (let alone any tactical incentive to do so). I don't see the point. Their wargear is badly overpriced, flavourless and they just don't add anything to the army. You talked about us not needing AP2 in our HQ slot, and yet we need AP3 even less. Most 3+ save units can just be torrented down with poison fire, or else killed by the same disintegrators we'd use against 2+ save units.

As for the HQs, I see them breaking down like this:
Haemonculus: My least favorite generic one, but he's meant to be a support unit. Probably best taken with coven rules where their various formation buffs are quite nice. Can be geared up with some unorthodox melee options for niche targets.

If he's meant to be a support unit, maybe they should have given him some worthwhile support rules? But, I guess that would also require the pfp table to be worth a damn.

Succubus: Super glass cannon. Is the only one who can get a strength boosting AP2 weapon in our HQ slot ouside of drazhar. Will die easily, but hits hard in melee.

Not really. She hits with all the impact of a guardsman sergeant wielding a power axe. When we have HQs running around with S9-10 Power Fists, and S6-7 weapons that strike at I5, it's hard to see a few S4 attacks as being very threatening. Especially when you compare her T3 with a 4++ in combat to the T5 2+/3+/FNP of many other HQs at the moment.

I'm seeing a lot of glass, but very little cannon.

Archon : Still hits pretty hard in melee if you give him an agoniser, but less hard than a succubus (thus keeping him from being better than her like he was in the last book). Can take a blaster (an option that I like) and a shadowfield (making him our most durable option). I know archons get pricey fast, but it's hard to feel bad about fielding a 2+ invulnerable save that can wound an MC on a 4+ and ignore its armor save.

Really? I've never once seen the value there. Ok, you wound MCs on 4s in melee... our basic troops can do that from 24" away. And, I'd far rather be 24" away than in combat. Yeah, you have a 2++ save, but it's gone the first time you fail it - and usually so is your archon.

However, I'll grant that MCs with 2+ saves can often be a pain. So I'll just equip my Archon with an AP2 weapon to help out and... oh, nevermind.

With regard to Blasters, I don't see the appeal. Not when for 10pts less you can get a Lhamaean HQ and a Dark Lance Raider with twice the range of a blaster. Still crap anti-tank, but better than an Archon at least.

Is it "fair" that our HQs don't have more AP2 options? Not really, though it does help cement the succubus's role. Are we significantly weaker for this lack of AP2? Again, not really. We can take ap 2 guns on our HQs. We can take AP2 heavy bolters on our basic transports. We can take entire squads of AP2 attacks with strength boosts. We have some of the most cost effective MCs in the game. We have AP2; just not necessarily in the same slot other armies do.

I would argue that the Archon *is* significantly weaker after losing AP2. It's a massive range of targets that he simply can't threaten - and this on a S3 model who dies t a stiff breeze. Furthermore, he doesn't even back this up with any tactical ability. Autarchs at least bring reserve modifiers to the table. Archons bring nothing but their overpriced butter-knives.

The Haemonculus is hampered less by his lack of AP2... but is instead hampered by being bloody awful in every other way.