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Yeah, a Raider and 2x5-Kabalites with PGL comes in at 190. The PGL's do 2 mortal wounds vs ld7, and to get a higher conversation rate it requires more investment. I think Dark Creed + Poison Tounge is better - rely on a net -2 to attrition tests (except vs Space Marines)

I had a game today vs scion. He got first turn and hit reasonably hard but due to auras and bunching up taurox I took my 2 void ravens and dropped void mines on them in my turn. This killed the invulnerable save aura character he deployed on turn 1 which was his warlord as well as did some decent damage on a taurox. Then I killed off all 3 taurox in my first turn. I also killed a significant amount of the scions he dropped from his valkyries.

All he really had left for the remaining turns was 2 valkyries, limited scions, a couple characters and a bullgryns unit. By end of turn 4 the bullgryns died and only the priest remained so he conceded.

I think the points were sorta closer than he thought due to me choosing a really bad secondary and getting second turn but I crushed him pretty hard. He did kill all my vehicles barring one void raven at almost full health but I had most of my infantry intact and full board control at the end of turn 4 and probably even turn 3.

Guys I'm telling you 3 kabals with 3 master archons each with wargear and warlord traits can be pretty strong when they all fight the same powerful enemy at once and you activate their once per game double melee phase on that unit. The 3 archons mostly wiped out a full unit of bullgryns by themselves and one archon still had yet to fight twice. He was pretty pissed.

3 trueborn units are also ridiculously potent. Always hitting on 2s with no negative modifiers to shooting ever is great. I can move my transports with heavy weapons without issue and intervening terrain never bothers them with negative modifiers. It also works really well in a full vehicle mounted force.

@flamingkillamajig what was your list? Did the archon have their own ride?

I'm toying with 3 kabal patrols just to maximize the trueborns.

How do you grab objectives? Just plant a raider by it and plink away?

@whembly:

All 3 Kabals are Patrols and i took out all the stratagems for wargear and each archon getting a warlord trait.

-----------

Kabal of the Obsidian Rose:

Master Archon; warlord, hatred eternal (re-roll to hit and to wound), djin blade, huskblade, splinter pistol

Ravager; 3 dark lances

Ravager; 3 dark lances

Trueborn x10; 2 shredders, 1 dark lance - raider; 1 dark lance, grisly trophies, splinter racks

Void Raven; 2 dark scythes

Void Raven; 2 dark scythes

------------

Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue

Master Archon; Consummate Weaponmaster (+1 D to non-special melee), helm of spite, huskblade and splinter pistol

Trueborn x10; 2 shredders, 1 dark lance - raider; 1 dark lance, grisly trophies, splinter racks

------------

Kabal of the Flayed Skull

Master Archon; Famed Savagery (+1 A, +1 S), soulhelm, huskblade, splinter pistol

Ravager; 3 dark lances

Trueborn x10; 2 shredders, 1 dark lance - raider; 1 dark lance, grisly trophies, splinter racks

Scourge x5

Scourge x5

Scourge x5

-----------

2,000 pts

Sounds like you took a ridiculously casual list and crushed another ridiculously casual list (assuming your opponent was like full scions with bullgryns and tauroxes)

Scotsman is there a reason you always have to be so insulting to multiple people on this board. Seriously what's your problem dude?

This is like the 3rd time at least where you just insult me out of nowhere. The last post isn't even referring to you. It's just a random list. This is the 2nd Dark Eldar list i've made and the 2nd game i've had with the 9th edition dark eldar codex.

We don't all have the money to keep up with the meta and the amount of time to play every game possible against ultra competitive people. It's just a semi-casual game with a friend.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Sounds like you took a ridiculously casual list and crushed another ridiculously casual list (assuming your opponent was like full scions with bullgryns and tauroxes)

WTF is the point of your comment? You trying to say its too casual? or not causal enough? You are coming off as a

He has flyers, Ravagers, and No Cult, his list is themed and not that strong for 9th (no way to take and hold objectives), its a causal list for sure.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
Sounds like you took a ridiculously casual list and crushed another ridiculously casual list (assuming your opponent was like full scions with bullgryns and tauroxes)

WTF is the point of your comment? You trying to say its too casual? or not causal enough? You are coming off as a

He has flyers, Ravagers, and No Cult, his list is themed and not that strong for 9th (no way to take and hold objectives), its a causal list for sure.

I have 10 grotesques and only 10 incubi but getting more incubi is tough right now. I've been basically priced out of the hobby anyway.

I agree I need more melee again. Before my last couple games it'd been a month or more easily before my last game.

As far as games go I prefer to stay in my boats where possible because once we hit land on foot we tend to squish pretty hard.

I want to change my list but it took me weeks to scrounge up enough just to buy a raider while I had other expenses to pay.

Yeah I would for sure get some melee, they are incredibly useful in 9th.

Yeah I suppose it depends who gets to the points first and who can defend them. As I said it was the first time I ran the list. If nothing else I usually have board control and usually have the points these days.

Wych cult do sound good since the covens invulnerable saves mostly went away.

I was actually aiming for several things in either current or future lists. If I use venoms at all maybe take them to block deep strike units if I have that to worry about. Stay in boats where possible if your not durable since raiders are stupidly durable compared to previous iterations. Take weapons that are maybe 24" at least where possible to avoid being charged or facing every gun possible

I'm a little worried for durability of reavers and somewhat hellions given their profiles and the range of their guns. Perhaps just better to use them a really tough minor units for board control and sneakiness. The points per model is really high too though.

I sort of want to try a chronos or maybe 2 and see if I can use the stratagem where if a unit kill something nearby a chronos it can give the full unit all of the power from pain smilies and that sounds really good for a couple things.

That's an interesting list.

My triple kabal patrol list idea is to simply outgun the opposition. Here's a list that I have models for that I'm toying with at the moment:


The boats and truborns plink away.

Beastmaster + Clawed Fiends are on objective/counter-assault duty.

Hellions are screening duty and/or potential "Fly-by" strategems.

I'm struggling on what secondaries to take though....

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
@whembly:

All 3 Kabals are Patrols and i took out all the stratagems for wargear and each archon getting a warlord trait.

Spoiler:

-----------

Kabal of the Obsidian Rose:

Master Archon; warlord, hatred eternal (re-roll to hit and to wound), djin blade, huskblade, splinter pistol

Ravager; 3 dark lances

Ravager; 3 dark lances

Trueborn x10; 2 shredders, 1 dark lance - raider; 1 dark lance, grisly trophies, splinter racks

Void Raven; 2 dark scythes

Void Raven; 2 dark scythes

------------

Kabal of the Poisoned Tongue

Master Archon; Consummate Weaponmaster (+1 D to non-special melee), helm of spite, huskblade and splinter pistol

Trueborn x10; 2 shredders, 1 dark lance - raider; 1 dark lance, grisly trophies, splinter racks

------------

Kabal of the Flayed Skull

Master Archon; Famed Savagery (+1 A, +1 S), soulhelm, huskblade, splinter pistol

Ravager; 3 dark lances

Trueborn x10; 2 shredders, 1 dark lance - raider; 1 dark lance, grisly trophies, splinter racks

Scourge x5

Scourge x5

Scourge x5

-----------

2,000 pts

One thing occurs to me - wouldn't an Agoniser be better than a Huskblade on the Poison Tongue Archon?

Each to their own but I'd rather be wounding on a 3+ with AP-3 D2 than have S3 AP-2 Dd3+1


As a semi-related aside, it really bothers me how much anti-synergy Poison Tongue has with other poison units and equipment.

Venom Blades seem like they should be perfect for the theme (The Duke even used a version of one!), yet they get zero benefit because PT provides no bonus whatsoever to weapons that are already Poison 2+. Why? Could they not have at least been given a pip of AP instead? Or maybe just let them auto-wound or something?

And the Lhamaean (a unit that seems perfectly in-theme for Poison Tongue) gets a double-whammy of anti-synergy. Firstly, her weapon is also Poison 2+, so again no benefit whatsoever from the bonus. But then her ability lets Archons and Trueborn auto-wound on rolls of 6s to hit . . . thus making the extra wounding bonus from PT utterly irrelevant on all such rolls.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Yeah I suppose it depends who gets to the points first and who can defend them. As I said it was the first time I ran the list. If nothing else I usually have board control and usually have the points these days.

Wych cult do sound good since the covens invulnerable saves mostly went away.

I was actually aiming for several things in either current or future lists. If I use venoms at all maybe take them to block deep strike units if I have that to worry about. Stay in boats where possible if your not durable since raiders are stupidly durable compared to previous iterations. Take weapons that are maybe 24" at least where possible to avoid being charged or facing every gun possible

I'm a little worried for durability of reavers and somewhat hellions given their profiles and the range of their guns. Perhaps just better to use them a really tough minor units for board control and sneakiness. The points per model is really high too though.

I sort of want to try a chronos or maybe 2 and see if I can use the stratagem where if a unit kill something nearby a chronos it can give the full unit all of the power from pain smilies and that sounds really good for a couple things.

If you're looking to stay pure Kabalite, Mandrakes are your choice for melee (as well as deployment and redeployment shenanigans). They're not as insanely killy as Bloodbrides, but they have reasonable duality and can be a royal nuisance if used correctly. Plus, with innate forward deployment and the ability to boop around the table at will once per game they're great for Secondaries.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vipoid wrote:

One thing occurs to me - wouldn't an Agoniser be better than a Huskblade on the Poison Tongue Archon?

Vastly. The huskblade is really only a choice if you're going for the Djinn Blade.

 vipoid wrote:

And the Lhamaean (a unit that seems perfectly in-theme for Poison Tongue) gets a double-whammy of anti-synergy. Firstly, her weapon is also Poison 2+, so again no benefit whatsoever from the bonus. But then her ability lets Archons and Trueborn auto-wound on rolls of 6s to hit . . . thus making the extra wounding bonus from PT utterly irrelevant on all such rolls.

Sadly outside of cheesing WWSWF in the pre-MFM2021 days, I dont see a real role for the court. Theyre just...not compatible with the way the army wants to play.

Sterling191 wrote:

Sadly outside of cheesing WWSWF in the pre-MFM2021 days, I dont see a real role for the court. Theyre just...not compatible with the way the army wants to play.

No, I know exactly what you mean.

Ur-Ghuls remain perpetually uninspiring.

Medusae could maybe see use if you're not using Coven and want some Liquifier guns (since DT no longer have vastly superior flamers). Though I'm not sure they're substantially better than Shredders (plus you can get 5 Scourges with Shredders for less than 4 Medusae, and the Scourges don't need a transport).

Lhamaeans are a neat idea but I remain utterly baffled as to how GW expects them to be used. There's now a slot for one to ride with 10 Trueborn in a Raider . . . but doing so cancels out their aura. Otherwise, I guess you could pay 16pts to have one join an Archon and improve whichever piece of faeces he has the misfortune to be wielding. Except if you do that then you can't, for example, include 5 Incubi unless you take a Raider (with 4 wasted seats). And lets be honest - do you really expect that 5/6th of a single attack auto-wounding to make an actual difference, compared to the entire Incubi squad?

Really, the only court members I could see myself using would be Sslyth in a PT detachment. Their stats have been cut to the bone but at 18ppm they're pretty cheap for 3-wound models with 3 S5 AP-2 attacks, a 5+++ (plus all the benefits of FNP), Bodyguard, and a Shardcarbine. And because I'm a masochist I'd give the Archon the Soul Seeker so that he could join in their 18" shooting.

Probably not super-competitive by any stretch of the imagination but it's still 12 Poison 3+ shots at 18", plus another 2 at Poison 2+ AP-2 Dd3 from the Archon. And then in melee you've got 12 S5 AP-2 Sslyth attacks, plus whatever the Archon is armed with.

I'm sure Incubi + a Djin Blade Archon will be better, but if I'm using one of those already I think this could make for a fun secondary unit.

Biggest issue with Medusae Eye Bursts is that they're Pistol, not assault. If a transport zooms, they flat out can't shoot.

I can maaaaaaybe see the PT Sslyth gunboat, but I don't know that the duality and wound sponge nature is enough to justify the cost over simply taking more Warriors, plus the added vulnerability to No Prisoners (an MSU Sslyth court is 1.2 VP by itself). It's an interesting thought though, and possibly worth looking at if Venoms ever come back into style (or if you're just tossing together a fun game).

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
Sounds like you took a ridiculously casual list and crushed another ridiculously casual list (assuming your opponent was like full scions with bullgryns and tauroxes)

WTF is the point of your comment? You trying to say its too casual? or not causal enough? You are coming off as a

He has flyers, Ravagers, and No Cult, his list is themed and not that strong for 9th (no way to take and hold objectives), its a causal list for sure.

Not intended to be a dunk or anything - sorry if it was taken as that, that's totally a fair reading.

Mostly, I was just responding to "Guys I'm telling you 3 kabals with 3 master archons each with wargear and warlord traits can be pretty strong when they all fight the same powerful enemy at once and you activate their once per game double melee phase on that unit. The 3 archons mostly wiped out a full unit of bullgryns by themselves and one archon still had yet to fight twice. He was pretty pissed."


I don't think the performance of a trio of master archons against bullgryns objectively proves their worth given the amount of stuff you have to expend to get them on the board all equipped like that, that's all. In a casual game, you can make basically any faction and subfaction and whatever work - and that's all good, by all means if you enjoy having 3 archons on the board as a way to kill elites in melee, that's fine, good on you.

The limiting factor here is just going to be your model collection, though. Presumably you have 3 archons, and you don't have...whatever equivalent points of Incubi+drazar, which would do the exact same job with less resource expenditure, just to throw an example out there.

Sorry. I was unnecessarily harsh. I have a great time with incredibly casual lists all the time, I just probably wouldnt say "guys I'm telling you 3 squads of storm guardians with meltaguns and the avatar of khaine can be really strong" even though I know that for me that group of generally totally underestimated, objectively underpowered models quite often surprises my opponents with how much value they can return/what they can do. Often, in casual games, something being a thing that nobody really sees all that often can be a big game-swinger, and triple master archons DEFINITELY fits that bill, because theyre little unassuming infantry models with a once-per-game double fight and super wonky defenses, so its really easy for an opponent to over or undercommit to countering them, which is a lot similar to my experience with how people take on the avatar, where the 5++/5+FNP+Pheonix Gem throws them for a loop and they expect to commit some marginal resources to taking him and and instead end up allowing him 2-3 turns of rampaging thru their army melta swording things to death.

Mostly, just because I dont want to be taken as an authority by newer players who might make a purchase that is, objectively, a worse choice than other options for the role/slot.

Sterling191 wrote:
Biggest issue with Medusae Eye Bursts is that they're Pistol, not assault. If a transport zooms, they flat out can't shoot.

Ah, well caught. I'd overlooked the pistol part.

It's kinda funny because in 8th they probably would have benefitted from it being a Pistol (back when Eyeblasts didn't auto-hit and they wanted to hang out by the Archon in order to reroll hit rolls), but now they really want them to be Assault as they have zero synergy with the Archon and so they want to be riding around, doing their own thing.

Sterling191 wrote:

I can maaaaaaybe see the PT Sslyth gunboat, but I don't know that the duality and wound sponge nature is enough to justify the cost over simply taking more Warriors, plus the added vulnerability to No Prisoners (an MSU Sslyth court is 1.2 VP by itself). It's an interesting thought though, and possibly worth looking at if Venoms ever come back into style (or if you're just tossing together a fun game).

I was thinking in terms of a semi-competitive list but that's a good point regarding Take No Prisoners.

Out of interest, how would you rate this idea against putting the same Archon with a unit of Mandrakes in a Venom (which was my alternative plan )?

 vipoid wrote:

Out of interest, how would you rate this idea against putting the same Archon with a unit of Mandrakes in a Venom (which was my alternative plan )?

Mandrakes in vehicles is a tough one. Their shooting is the wild card since the mortals can be exceptionally swingy. Their melee is solid against T3 and T4, and will generally ruin the day of something like Guard, Tau or even Sisters if they get into smaller non-fighty units (-1 to hit versus WS4 / WS5 is just brutal).

For 3 points more you get less than half the wounds, but IMO better shooting (S4 means you can plink any T7 or lower vehicle on 5s, and that's before taking into account the mortals) and a wash on melee (sneks have better quality attacks but at smaller volume, and Mandrakes have Blade Artists to help close the AP gap with their weight of dice).

Where the real difference comes in is how you use them after they pop out of the transport. Mandrakes really want to play the area denial and secondary game, whereas the Sslyth are pure bully units. Using the former as just a beatstick (while they can certainly do the job) feels like a waste of their rules.

Sterling191 wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

Out of interest, how would you rate this idea against putting the same Archon with a unit of Mandrakes in a Venom (which was my alternative plan )?

Mandrakes in vehicles is a tough one. Their shooting is the wild card since the mortals can be exceptionally swingy. Their melee is solid against T3 and T4, and will generally ruin the day of something like Guard, Tau or even Sisters if they get into smaller non-fighty units (-1 to hit versus WS4 / WS5 is just brutal).

For 3 points more you get less than half the wounds, but IMO better shooting (S4 means you can plink any T7 or lower vehicle on 5s, and that's before taking into account the mortals) and a wash on melee (sneks have better quality attacks but at smaller volume, and Mandrakes have Blade Artists to help close the AP gap with their weight of dice).

Where the real difference comes in is how you use them after they pop out of the transport. Mandrakes really want to play the area denial and secondary game, whereas the Sslyth are pure bully units. Using the former as just a beatstick (while they can certainly do the job) feels like a waste of their rules.

That's fair. Okay, in that case I'll lean towards the Sslyth and use my Mandrake units for other tasks.

Thanks for the advice.

To be clear, Mandrakes can absolutely do the hybrid infantry role well, either in supplement to Wyches and Warriors or as a substitute for the former from inside transports. They're legitimate threats (albeit somewhat pricey from a Drukhari perspective), especially if you commit and go for 10-man squads. There's definitely play in that kind of a list and I'd be very curious to see how it works.

I personally just value their infiltration and redeployment shenanigans for non-killy tactical play, and expect to use other units for dedicated assault and shooting roles.

Now that liquifiers don't totally outshine the eyeburst, I could see a venom with 4 medusa flying around sweeping objectives as being pretty solid.

The pistol profile means you can't advance and flame, but makes them a decent enough melee threat to the things they would hunt as well since you could always overwatch (after losing the venom) as well as fire into melee on your shooting phase.

 Red Corsair wrote:
Now that liquifiers don't totally outshine the eyeburst, I could see a venom with 4 medusa flying around sweeping objectives as being pretty solid.

The pistol profile means you can't advance and flame, but makes them a decent enough melee threat to the things they would hunt as well since you could always overwatch (after losing the venom) as well as fire into melee on your shooting phase.

And, more pertinently in my eyes, if something tags the venom you are not required to exit in order to continue shooting with your unit of medusae.

 the_scotsman wrote:

 Red Corsair wrote:
Now that liquifiers don't totally outshine the eyeburst, I could see a venom with 4 medusa flying around sweeping objectives as being pretty solid.

The pistol profile means you can't advance and flame, but makes them a decent enough melee threat to the things they would hunt as well since you could always overwatch (after losing the venom) as well as fire into melee on your shooting phase.

And, more pertinently in my eyes, if something tags the venom you are not required to exit in order to continue shooting with your unit of medusae.

Thats true. Could even be useful to charge the venom at certain units for this reason.

If I can buy them after everything is done being sold out i may buy 2 boxes of incubi so i have 20 total after combining with what I already have. Im not sure an archon and drazhar are good here. I think theyre supposed to be. Anti horde is probably best left with wych armies in melee. I wonder how the other wych units do.

Are covens units more back to holding up big nasty blobs of enemies rather than killing them..it could make a lot of sense honestly.

-----
Wow this is creepy. I kinda forgot about writing this message. Maybe I was tired.

If you're going that hard into Incubi, not taking their force multipliers (RR1s and +1 to wound) seems a bit of an odd choice.

Sterling191 wrote:
If you're going that hard into Incubi, not taking their force multipliers (RR1s and +1 to wound) seems a bit of an odd choice.

In my (admittedly limited experience), 5 Incubi will tend to delete most things they attack, and they then get shot to pieces. Bigger units, or adding Drazhar, results in overkill, and present an obvious and very tempting target for enemy focus fire from the start.

Sterling191 wrote:
If you're going that hard into Incubi, not taking their force multipliers (RR1s and +1 to wound) seems a bit of an odd choice.

Honestly for 20 or more it wouldn’t be a bad idea. I just don’t know how expensive it’ll be to take all that. Also may be an issue of too many eggs in one basket. I’m also not thrilled by how slow transports are. I may take a flayed skull detachment or similar with them just so the transport moves a bit quicker.

As I said I don’t mind melee but I suppose I’m still shifting from the 8th ed mindset and I thought our old shoot and scoot style did well in earlier editions.

Other issue I have is buying models. I may want to try 40k on tabletop simulator a little before I commit to new units. I just don’t want to throw down 200 dollars or more down on something only for it to not mesh well with what I have or to suck outright.

I’m not sure what you guys hated flyers over. I really enjoy my double void ravens right now. I don’t use forgeworld tho due to lack of money.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

Honestly for 20 or more it wouldn’t be a bad idea. I just don’t know how expensive it’ll be to take all that.

Drazhar plus a barebones Archon is 210 points. I'd personally soup the Archon up a lil bit (either to unlock a cadre of Trueborn or to make him an actual melee threat, which would synergize well with supporting the Incubi), but that's the floor.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

I’m also not thrilled by how slow transports are. I may take a flayed skull detachment or similar with them just so the transport moves a bit quicker.

This is almost entirely unnecessary. Unless you're deliberately backlining your Raiders at deployment you're almost guaranteed a Turn 2 charge if the enemy comes out of their DZ more than a few milimeters..

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

I’m not sure what you guys hated flyers over. I really enjoy my double void ravens right now. I don’t use forgeworld tho due to lack of money.

Drukhari flyers are IMO the best in the game right now. Unfortunately, it's not quite enough to overcome the inherent drawbacks of the Flyer rules in the context of the units they compete against. Yes, the Void Raven can meme something fierce with the bomb...but each of those is a Raider filled to the brim with a 10-pack of Wyches or Kabalites you're not bringing.

Remember, Flyers cannot be hidden, and for the most part cannot score any non-killy objectives. That's a huge handicap.

How are you guys finding Venoms?

Are double Splinter Cannons worth it with Poison Tongue (or custom Kabal combinations)?

Frankly I really don't care of the guns, it's an after thought in my list. I use 'em to deliver incubi(s) and be the first model to assault a unit to eat up a potential overwatch. Or, send it to objective duty.