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Now I know wyches are currently vehicle killers extraordinaire, but what ways can we make actually go assault units like they're supposed to be, to say nothing of Hekatrix Bloodbrides which I have NEVER seen taken?

Some suggestions:

Make wyches 9 points each and bloodbrides 12 pts, same as Kabalites and Trueborn.

Allow more wyches to take special weapons, maybe two for every 5 wyches.

As with vanguard veterans, let all Bloodbrides be able to take special weapons, including venom blades, power weapons, and agonizers. A whole squad of bloodbrides w/venom blades is going to hurt anything it assaults.

For bloodbrides, give the Syren the ability to take a huskblake or some other AP2 weapon that doesn't affect her initiative.

Any other suggestions?

I think you can keep the cost, and make their weapons all poisoned 4+. They are crazy DE bitches in drugs, they would coat their weapons in poison damned!!!

The extra special weapons are a nice touch for Wyches squads.

Huskblades are very rare weapons in fluff... I would be more about giving rending to the shard claws (SW get something very similar for 15 points, and are +1S).

The Dwarf Wolf wrote:
I think you can keep the cost, and make their weapons all poisoned 4+. They are crazy DE bitches in drugs, they would coat their weapons in poison damned!!!

That would subvert the use of Wracks.

Not keen on the idea of giving the bloodbrides access to huskblades as they are rare weapons (plus a unit of initiative 6 ap2 wielders with instant death would be horrific!) but I can see venom blades, power weapons and agonisers being made available (they have them when they lead squads of wyches so why not when they are in groups of brides?).

I don't like the poisoned 4+ idea as that is wrack territory imo like DarknessEternal said.

How about increasing the invuln save of brides in combat to 3++ like Lelith?

The main thing is that they die too easily when they are coming up the thing.

Make them have something like Daemonic Instability and the 3" + D6 run thing for them or give them stealth

I think the main problem is the drug list tbh. Its too unreliable and unlikely to deliver a relevant bonus. At least in 5th the girls had a bigger assault range and could make it to combat without suffering from overwatch. I personally took lots of wychs and bloodbrides in 5th and won events on their back (succubus and blood brides were way better than they got credit for). The knife edge they worked on was tilted by overwatch. The slim victories all turned to defeats with just a couple less bodies after an overwatch.

One way to make wychs in general more interesting would be to give them the drugs, but let them pick the bonus. However, not at the start of the game and not without a cost.

For instance:

"At the beginning of the controller's movement phase, a wych unit may elect to take combat drugs. If it does so, roll a d6 and subtract the unit's average toughness from the result. The unit takes that number of wounds with no saves of any kind allowed. Only usable once per turn."

And now you can pick a risk-reward of all the drug effects. This makes the unit more interesting strategy and tactics wise, while adding a cost the the more powerful ability of picking on the table vs rolling for a random effect.

rohansoldier wrote:
Not keen on the idea of giving the bloodbrides access to huskblades as they are rare weapons (plus a unit of initiative 6 ap2 wielders with instant death would be horrific!) but I can see venom blades, power weapons and agonisers being made available (they have them when they lead squads of wyches so why not when they are in groups of brides?).

I don't like the poisoned 4+ idea as that is wrack territory imo like DarknessEternal said.

How about increasing the invuln save of brides in combat to 3++ like Lelith?

I meant just the Syren (the bloodbrides leader) could take a huskblade, not all of them, that would be too broken.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Dracos wrote:
I think the main problem is the drug list tbh. Its too unreliable and unlikely to deliver a relevant bonus. At least in 5th the girls had a bigger assault range and could make it to combat without suffering from overwatch. I personally took lots of wychs and bloodbrides in 5th and won events on their back (succubus and blood brides were way better than they got credit for). The knife edge they worked on was tilted by overwatch. The slim victories all turned to defeats with just a couple less bodies after an overwatch.

One way to make wychs in general more interesting would be to give them the drugs, but let them pick the bonus. However, not at the start of the game and not without a cost.

For instance:

"At the beginning of the controller's movement phase, a wych unit may elect to take combat drugs. If it does so, roll a d6 and subtract the unit's average toughness from the result. The unit takes that number of wounds with no saves of any kind allowed. Only usable once per turn."

And now you can pick a risk-reward of all the drug effects. This makes the unit more interesting strategy and tactics wise, while adding a cost the the more powerful ability of picking on the table vs rolling for a random effect.

Once way to solve this I feel is maybe give Raiders and Venoms an updrade like CSM that disallows overwatch within 6" of it.

They are sadly rubbish at what they are supposed to do best - assaulting and killing the enemy in CC.

Boost their WS - even though the WS/BS mechanic is wonky in that the best warriors can only ever hit on a 3+ ....

Allow them their Dodge save against Overwatch - makes sense...........

Give them furious charge and 2A on wyches. They would be orks with better init, but T3 and lacking ork's squad sizes to mitigate wounds (also much more expensive). Even with 10 wyches then, you would still only be doing 3.33 MEQ kills, but at least you would be able to effectively combat MEQ squad in quantity, especially with a 3A base sergent

Ok, the ideia of poisoned weapons was a bad one...

Bud rending shard claws still sound like a good way to add that necessary AP2...

I mean, at least blood brides could have 9+3d6 rending S3 attacks on charge...

Im still against the husk blade on leaders, because huskblades are "archon weapons", and very rare...

If you want any kind of Rending, they'd have to be more expensive.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
If you want any kind of Rending, they'd have to be more expensive.

Not necessarily, Razorwing flocks are 15 pts each, and that gets you Beasts with WS 4 (same as wych), 6+ save (again same as a wych) 5 wounds, I5, and 5 rending attacks (6 on the charge). Wyches only have one wound and 1 attack base (2 with pistol + ccw). Yes they have a 4++ and I6, but I think thats far less survivable than 5 wound beasts who WILL be in assault by turn 2 at the latest

 DarknessEternal wrote:
If you want any kind of Rending, they'd have to be more expensive.

Daemonettes??
5+ invul all the time, S4 T3 2 attacks I believe? Also can have a 3" + D6 run and rends.

Bloodbrides would have to hit a middle ground between Wyches and Incubi. The latter compete for an Elite spot with the Bloodbrides and get a +1S AP2 weapon standard that they attack with at their normal (high) initiative. And they even get 3+ armor.

 Wilytank wrote:
Bloodbrides would have to hit a middle ground between Wyches and Incubi. The latter compete for an Elite spot with the Bloodbrides and get a +1S AP2 weapon standard that they attack with at their normal (high) initiative. And they even get 3+ armor.

They're also almost twice the cost. If all bloodbrides could take venom blades for 5 pts each, then I believe they would seriously compete with Inubi for the Elites slot. Having a 5-man unit with 20 2+ poisoned attacks on the charge at I6 could threaten a lot of units, and unlike Incubi can actually reliably put the hurt on MCs.

The problem with wyches and bloodbrides (I still run my wych list because I like it and it is led by a succubus accompanied by bloodbrides) is that they cannot survive shooting. When they get to melee they do their job well in my experience and my wyches have been pitted against almost everything possible. The high initiative works well in their favor and the fact that everyone has two weapons give a basic wych 2 attacks + possible charge bonuses.

The drugs are a bit of a random factor and hence not too reliable. They can give nice bonuses though. Hydra gauntlets are one of my own favorites for ordinary wyches as they can give a huge boost in the number of attacks but are also a random factor.

The ordinary wyches do not really need any changes. They are quite fine as they are. Bloodbrides are a tad questionable though. They shred things in melee, Razorflails help them to guarantee that and attaching a succubus to the squad gives them a serious extra punch in melee. But then again they die to shooting just as easy as the ordinary wyches. I've felt several times that they need something to make them more survivable outside of melee but not really sure how to pull that off without making the squad something completely different.

feth off.

Wyches are the best Anti-Land Raider I've ever seen.

How many is 9 of them? like 100 points? pop that in a raider and throw at LRs and other heavy vehicles - they can even deal with infantry.

Also, Tau only get EMP grenades at 11 point fire warriors. you do NOT need haywire grenades at 9 points.

The issue is not the A/Vehicile stuff - which they could have as an option they haev to pay extra for IMO.

The fact is they are not actually very good at what they are supposed to be exceptional at - Close Combat.

 Mr Morden wrote:

The fact is they are not actually very good at what they are supposed to be exceptional at - Close Combat.

Exceptional? Is a 10 or 13 point model supposed to be exceptional at anything?

I contend "no". They are supposed to be adequate at something and miserable at everything else. This sounds like a good summation of Wyches to me.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

The fact is they are not actually very good at what they are supposed to be exceptional at - Close Combat.

Exceptional? Is a 10 or 13 point model supposed to be exceptional at anything?

I contend "no". They are supposed to be adequate at something and miserable at everything else. This sounds like a good summation of Wyches to me.

They are described incredable and exceptional combat athletes:

Gladatorial fighters and athletes without equal

- quote from present codex

- if that means putting points up - then cool with that but at present they are not very good. at what they are supposed to be exceptional at and awesome at killing tanks .

 Ferrum_Sanguinis wrote:
Now I know wyches are currently vehicle killers extraordinaire, but what ways can we make actually go assault units like they're supposed to be, to say nothing of Hekatrix Bloodbrides which I have NEVER seen taken?

Some suggestions:

Make wyches 9 points each and bloodbrides 12 pts, same as Kabalites and Trueborn.

Allow more wyches to take special weapons, maybe two for every 5 wyches.

As with vanguard veterans, let all Bloodbrides be able to take special weapons, including venom blades, power weapons, and agonizers. A whole squad of bloodbrides w/venom blades is going to hurt anything it assaults.

For bloodbrides, give the Syren the ability to take a huskblake or some other AP2 weapon that doesn't affect her initiative.

Any other suggestions?

First, change the the drug table. The result of rolling a 1 is useless for reavers and practically useless for hellions, wyches and blood brides. At a minimum it needs to be changed
Drugs Table
1. 6+FNP, if model already has FNP, becomes 4+ FNP.

Next
Give wyches, succubui and BB PE single model. If the wyches, succubui or bloodbrides are shooting, or are in close combat and directing their attacks at a unit that consists of a single model, they get PE. I know DE dont need much help with MC, but it just makes sense that gladiators to have preferred enemy in this case. This would also work when a in a challenge(character must direct it's attacks at the other character)

Wyche weapons 1
Change the 3 wyche weapons to be free upgrades.
These increase your melee killing power but remove the shooting potential. You can only take a few of them and most people dont as they are almost never worth the points.
Wyche Weapons 2
Allow any model that could take a wyche weapon to take a blast pistol for 10 points instead.
Instead of being more effective in combat you could take a shooting upgrade.

Finally
Blood brides get precision strikes
the most elite gladiators would be adept at picking out their targets. The whole unit can pick its wound allocation on 6s to hit.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

The fact is they are not actually very good at what they are supposed to be exceptional at - Close Combat.

Exceptional? Is a 10 or 13 point model supposed to be exceptional at anything?

I contend "no". They are supposed to be adequate at something and miserable at everything else. This sounds like a good summation of Wyches to me.

they are not even remotely good at the thing they were originally designed for. 4 point cultists are almost as effective.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

The fact is they are not actually very good at what they are supposed to be exceptional at - Close Combat.

Exceptional? Is a 10 or 13 point model supposed to be exceptional at anything?

I contend "no". They are supposed to be adequate at something and miserable at everything else. This sounds like a good summation of Wyches to me.

You're right, Daemonettes and Seekers are crap assault units. I just figured that, in the case of Wyches, a unit described as being amazing in CC would... be amazing in CC. Or at least better than an Ork Boy.

On topic, giving Wyches their invuln, or even their invuln -1 (so 5++) against Overwatch would be a great boost and you might actually use them again.

 DarknessEternal wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

The fact is they are not actually very good at what they are supposed to be exceptional at - Close Combat.

Exceptional? Is a 10 or 13 point model supposed to be exceptional at anything?

9 point Daemonettes and 12 point Seekers say hi.

gladitorial chariots with wyches would be really funny, like a mix between a reaver and a venom in squadrons

Making wych special weapons free would definitely help their viability, +1 to that idea. It's almost always better to just buy another wych than add a special weapon.

Bloodbrides gaining precision strike might be alright, though I fail to see the extent of how useful that is outside battling blobs.

I've always just houseruled for my opponents that they get the 4++ to overwatch - playing Tau, I don't think it's really fair to gun down 10 point models like they're 4 point cultists, in their own turn. 15 Kroot versus 10 wyches, I would prefer the kroot day - without overwatch invulns, the wyches would lose 4 models in overwatch alone. The kroot would make half their points back just by snapshotting, more if those were bloodbrides! Even for a glass cannon army, that's a bit much.

I think the solution is to simply make wyches overall less expensive, and tweak combat drugs. If wyches had 1 dose of every drug to start, and could pop it for 1 game turn of effects, but taking 2+ means you lose d3-1 wyches to overdose per drug over 1, FNP allowed. That way, your glass cannon unit can be even cannony-er, going s5 a4 etc, which is pretty nutso for a 10 point model. They'd get that one turn, then go back to normalcy and tarpitting, which they're actually pretty good at. A squad of wyches could probably put some real wounds on MC's that way - 10 wyches throwing 40 s5 attacks once per game at say MEQ would kill 6 of them or so. Hardly OP.