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So this idea for a unit just popped into my head and I was wondering how effective something like this could be: A Royal Court of 5 Harbingers of Despair with one Veil of Darkness, comes out to 180 points, 270 if you include a requisite bare-bones Overlord. If you take another Overlord and an identical court you'd be at 540 (this includes the Overlords and both courts)

So deepstrike in and lay down 5 templates. These ignore cover and armour and considering common Ld values you'd be wounding on 3+ or 4+. Now I don't know if you necessarily need all 5 Crypteks maybe 2-4 could do enough damage, but point for point would this be one of the killiest units out there? Albeit a suicide squad no doubt.

Landing without scattering will be your main issue.

Attacking standard spess muhreens would mean wounding on 5's, S8 vs LD 9, 6's to wound against LD 10.

I think for weapons that wound on Ld you use majority Ld like how majority T is used against S based weapons. So SM would be a 4+ most of the time.

For 180 points though is this thing lethal enough for it's cost? I guess one could even throw in an Res Orb Lord to be safe, but you want a small footprint for deepstriking.

You could also put them in a Ghost Ark/Nightscythe if you really wanted.

Phased reinforcements and night scythes or ghost arks sound like your ticket. Of course I'm always more interested in plain crypteks for the anti infantry fire. Then again if you pull it off that ap1 is quite enviable.

Your plan sound really cool in a ghost ark if you can reliably kill transports. Then again Necrons have that the other way around. Expensive anti armor shot and cheap readily available infantry answers!

Remember the ark is still pretty durable against power fist attacks too. Won't scatter you neither.

I stick one with my deathmarks, now that is wounding on a 2+, two hqs, means two despair teks in my unit means 2 templates at 2+ bring on the heat.

If my math is right the 2 Despair-teks plus 5 Deathmarks is 185 points and quite lethal, I like that unit quite a bit. Leaves the rest of your court open too.

Also logistics aside, on a per-point and/or per-model bases is this one of the deadliest units out there? I'm just thinking in a vaccum on that bit. I'm equally interested in making this unit work in an actual game and its lethality, if only in theory and math hammer.

asimo77 wrote: considering common Ld values you'd be wounding on 3+ or 4+.

Common leadership is 8. It typically goes up from there.

Ld 7 and lower is fairly uncommon.

With the abundance of marines I'd say 8 is indeed common. The eldar varieties also have mostly 8. Then Tau and IG have mostly 7's. Now I'm not 100% sure on this and some clarification would be appreciated, but I seem to recall weapons that wound based on Ld use majority Ld. I can't think of any units that have 9's across the board except for Chaos. Necron's of course all have 10. So I think wounding on 4+ and occasionally 3+ is a reasonable assumption. Of course it does depend on who your opponent is. Tough luck if it's Necrons or Daemons

The squad leader shouldn't help so wounding shouldn't be a problem most of the time. But even if you're wounding on a 5+, being AP1 and ignoring cover, and auto hitting still means you'll get a decent amount of wounds. Then again if something has high Ld, simply don't attack it.

Lucre wrote:Phased reinforcements and night scythes or ghost arks sound like your ticket. Of course I'm always more interested in plain crypteks for the anti infantry fire. Then again if you pull it off that ap1 is quite enviable.

Your plan sound really cool in a ghost ark if you can reliably kill transports. Then again Necrons have that the other way around. Expensive anti armor shot and cheap readily available infantry answers!

Remember the ark is still pretty durable against power fist attacks too. Won't scatter you neither.

How is it durable against p.fists? Well, MEQ p.fists at least, they're going to glance on a 3 and pen on a 4 with fists.

The only thing saving the ark is moving 12" for that 6+ to hit, but that applies to anything in CC and not just p.fist, so I wouldn't single those out.

Kevin949 wrote:
How is it durable against p.fists? Well, MEQ p.fists at least, they're going to glance on a 3 and pen on a 4 with fists.

The only thing saving the ark is moving 12" for that 6+ to hit, but that applies to anything in CC and not just p.fist, so I wouldn't single those out.

Quantum shielding on the front and sides means its 5 to glance 6 to pen. The're av 13 till pen'd.

Tarrasq wrote:

Kevin949 wrote:
How is it durable against p.fists? Well, MEQ p.fists at least, they're going to glance on a 3 and pen on a 4 with fists.

The only thing saving the ark is moving 12" for that 6+ to hit, but that applies to anything in CC and not just p.fist, so I wouldn't single those out.

Quantum shielding on the front and sides means its 5 to glance 6 to pen. The're av 13 till pen'd.

But the Pfist hits the rear...which is 11 which is where he is coming from

Like someone said, deathmarks and a single DespairTek, works just as well for about the same points. I like to put a StormTek for the haywire in there too. You can nuke some vehicles good with that unit.

The problem with 5 DespairTeks is that you've used up half your possible number of crypteks with a unit that is really difficult to position. One false move and you've got nothing. When it works, it works O.K. but not spectacularly. For killing a standard MEQ unit, its just not worth it.