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http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/656197.page#7980108

My other houserules are here, this idea would be in addition to those listed above. What if wyches were to gain a bonus attack for every 6 they roll to hit? It would show their ability to overwhelm their opponent with flurries of attacks when they have an advantage.

What do you think?

While I think it's a cool idea, and does represent the flurry of attacks quite well, I think I'd prefer something that doesn't require searching for 6's to pick out. Wouldn't a boost to WS or A be simpler, and represent the skill/ferocity of the Wyches while keeping things simple and fast?

I like your existing houserules regarding the Wyches. One thing I thought about myself is whether they could be given a boost to running/charging in the same manner as banshees. They've got to be at least close to their level as acrobats, and calling them lightly armoured would be an understatement!

Weapon skill 4 represents an extremely high level of skill in the universe already. People forget that a basic guardsman from a platoon is a special forces level fighter, so weapon skill three is navy seal or spetznaz level capability with blades and hand to hand.

What if every hit allowed another attack instead, but only on the charge? Let them have the potential for piling on the hurt, but if their initial assault falters they will probably be crushed by a more steadfast foe.

We'll compare them to ork boyz. Let the 4 points per model represent the higher init and higher ballistic skill. The 4++ will even out the orks toughness (orks take one third less wounds from shooting and assault on average, the wyches ignore half the wounds taken in melee)

From there you have orks swinging 4 times on the charge against marines, hitting twice, wounding once. Wyches with this rule would have three attacks, hitting once (lowballing) then getting another hit (highballing) then maybe another hit for a total of three hits, then doing one wound. That actually sounds about right to me...

I still really like the idea of armour bane and furious charge.

I have played with it, and its quite good in that manner.

The WS of a wych is equal to that of a kabalite warrior, I'm willing to have wyches be WS5 and BS3, because that makes more sense, and would be stronger.

What differentiates the different members of eldar society are their specialist skills. Physically they are all the same (except harlequins) and their racial stations shows what they are capable of. I would like to see kabalite warriors get precision shot and precision hits because that's what they are all about. And I want wyches to pummel their way through infantry. Now, I would like to see hellions gain rage and ignore the penalties for multiassault because they spend their lives careening wildly around like maniacs attacking everything in the sky above commoragh.

I have tons of ideas for dark eldar, but my groups primary player is into the covens units and I play them infrequently enough that I don't want to devote too much time to it :/

Weapon skill 4 represents an extremely high level of skill in the universe already. People forget that a basic guardsman from a platoon is a special forces level fighter, so weapon skill three is navy seal or spetznaz level capability with blades and hand to hand.

..........or your run of the mill Eldar guardian poet/gardener who once fought a battle several hundred years ago.

Wyches are life long gladtorial fighters in one of the most dangerous societies in the universe. WS5 seems fine to me - especially since aspect warriors have easy access to higher stats. The top Wyches are WS 9 , Llyth WS 10 so why would average Wyches not be WS5, Hekatrixes WS 6?

i'd rather they had Poisoned Weapons as thats something else they are know for with Llyeth being notable for not using them.

Those same guardians could have mad it through 7 different warrior paths and have 500+ years of combat experience. Most craftworlders have been down a warrior path at some point, and you should always finish a path once you tread upon it. Exarchs are those who lose themselves to the path, not necessarily those who are the best at it. Hell, some guardians could have been autarchs at some point and moved on from the path of command.

The aspect warriors only get the bonus if they have their exarchs and two of his peers orchestrating their maneuvers as the battle progresses.

Poinoned blades would indeed fit the theme, maybe a choice between several of these options representing different cults and their techniques?

Give them rending and they'll be fine in my opinion they already have a cool fluffy dodge save, now they only need a cool fluffy ability to find the weak points in armour, AKA rending.

Letting them use their dodge save in all of the Assault Phase would go a long way toward giving Wyches some needed survivability.

The problem with improving their statline is that they already have a means of doing so: Combat Drugs. What I would support is giving them Rending on their knives.

Here are my ideas on improving the Wych weapons to make them worth:

Hydra Gauntlets rend on to-hit rolls of 6

Razorflails re-roll to-hit and are AP4

Shardnet and Impaler re-roll to-hit and to-wound

No Wych weapons are specialist weapons.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
Those same guardians could have mad it through 7 different warrior paths and have 500+ years of combat experience. Most craftworlders have been down a warrior path at some point, and you should always finish a path once you tread upon it. Exarchs are those who lose themselves to the path, not necessarily those who are the best at it. Hell, some guardians could have been autarchs at some point and moved on from the path of command.

The aspect warriors only get the bonus if they have their exarchs and two of his peers orchestrating their maneuvers as the battle progresses.

Poinoned blades would indeed fit the theme, maybe a choice between several of these options representing different cults and their techniques?

yeah maybe but equally they could have just done some training, followed the path till they felt satisfied and then never fought in a battle - Wyches live or die by their blades, skill and cunning all the time - fine with a option to increase WS of Guardians to 4 but Wyches are 5 mnimum in my books, elites are 6 which fits with the Succubus stats? Also fits much better with the fuff unlike the present traversity:

I don't know about rending, I feel they shouldn't wound things they normally couldn't, and a bonus to armor pen is a bit strange. Maybe to wound rolls of 6 are ap2?

Also, I don't like the idea of making them ws5. They are impressed with how good the Harlequins are in a fight, and will send their best to fight them on occasion (hekatrix bloodbrides, by my reckoning) and it is always a blood bath on both sides.

Let's not forget the basic wyches are the very lowest level warriors in the arena, just starting to try and earn a reputation and patrons. Them being as good at swordplay as an exarch who is the gestalt consciousness of dozens of skilled fighters and who doesn't sleep but instead meditates on how better to kill and survive is a bit off to me.

I used 10 wyvhes with 2 hydra gauntlets in a raider the other day and they wrecked up on some space marines in combat. Couldn't touch em. Proceeded to move through other nearby units. Course we also play with a lot of terrain so it helps. I tend to wonder if people who have trouble with melee units use enough terrain?

I hear that, my harlequins are ripping appart everything I put them up against! They are supposed to be garbage...

Frankly, a full unit of wyches ends up around 200 ish points.

Although they are really strong, its not worth the points you paid for IMHO

I paid 190, but 80 of that was on the raider I would of put warriors in anyway. So 110 which isn't bad..

I've found wyches aren't "bad" so much as "unpredictable." Between drugs and PFP, they can be pretty nasty (potentially being S5 with 3 attacks apiece on the charge). With toughness drugs, FNP, and their dodge save, they can tarpit reasonably well against certain targets too. A "hidden" agonizer hekatrix is theoretically pretty good at taking on non-gargantuan MCs, and I've had that same hekatrix do hillarious things to walkers in close combat.

Their two main issues that I've found are:
A.) Your buffs don't always work out. Getting a bonus to initiative isn't great unless you're fighting Slaanesh or something, and I've had mixed results with the +1 PFP drugs. Without offensive or toughness boosting drugs, you just don't hit the enemy very hard unless you get lucky.

B.) They're squishy until they reach melee. Flamers add to their troubles both in transports and on the charge, and their susceptibility to shooting means they either have to hug cover after they get out (which makes it harder to assault) or else hope that the enemy simply doesn't target them.

All that said, I've had some alright success with them in games where I either reserve them or otherwise keep them from being shot at, build up their PFP meter, and get some decent drugs. A 10 girl squad with drugs and wych weapons really isn't all that expensive and will actually tarpit things pretty well while you move your incubi, grotesques, talos, etc. into position. The hekatrix gets weirdly expensive very fast if you give her an agonizer. I really miss her venom blade, and a power lance option would be great, but she can add a few options to the squad. My hekatrix has done me proud enough time that I rarely leave home without her.

I think making their dodge save work throughout the assault phase would do a lot, so I agree with that. I wouldn't push Wyches up to WS5 - I imagine being a gladiator is about as combat training heavy as being an active elite Space Marine warrior; and a lot of their skill is represented in their dodge save rather than their WS. However, I would up Succubi Bloodbrides to WS5; it might not fix them but it will help; and it would make the Wych squad leader a bit nastier as well.

I think rending is a bit too strong on a troop choice; I might do something like -
Shardnet and Impaler: Reroll 1s to wound and halve the attacks of one model in B2B.
Razorflails: Reroll failed wound rolls
Hydra Gauntlets: re-roll failed hits, -1 attack from each model in B2B

All at AP5 and Strength: user. I like the idea of Wych weapons reducing attacks, since pinning a unit in place and being difficult to kill off has always been Wyches gig. I think this gives each weapon a role - net and impaler is for tangling up IC and squad leaders, Gauntlets help the unit survive longer combats and keep their foe stuck in, and razorflails help up their killing potential.



Drugs could do with some updating, I'd do something along the lines of replacing +1 Initiative with Rage, and +1 leadership with...stubborn? Maybe?

On a broader note, I think the old Power from Pain worked much better for Wyches, and for DE in general - I'd be all for bringing that back, and making a 6 on the drug roll a pain token rather than a lead buff.

 Hollowman wrote:

I think making their dodge save work throughout the assault phase would do a lot, so I agree with that. I wouldn't push Wyches up to WS5 - I imagine being a gladiator is about as combat training heavy as being an active elite Space Marine warrior; and a lot of their skill is represented in their dodge save rather than their WS. However, I would up Succubi to WS5; it might not fix them but it will help; and it would make the Wych squad leader a bit nastier as well.

I think rending is a bit too strong on a troop choice; I might do something like -
Shardnet and Impaler: Reroll 1s to wound and halve the attacks of one model in B2B.
Razorflails: Reroll failed wound rolls
Hydra Gauntlets: re-roll failed hits, -1 attack from each model in B2B

All at AP5 and Strength: user. I like the idea of Wych weapons reducing attacks, since pinning a unit in place and being difficult to kill off has always been Wyches gig. I think this gives each weapon a role - net and impaler is for tangling up IC and squad leaders, Gauntlets help the unit survive longer combats and keep their foe stuck in, and razorflails help up their killing potential.



Drugs could do with some updating, I'd do something along the lines of replacing +1 Initiative with Rage, and +1 leadership with...stubborn? Maybe?

On a broader note, I think the old Power from Pain worked much better for Wyches, and for DE in general - I'd be all for bringing that back, and making a 6 on the drug roll a pain token rather than a lead buff.

Succubi are WS8 already xD Do you mean Bloodbrides being WS5?

Ugh! Yes, Yes I did mean Bloodbrides.

-D

You see, I much prefer the new power from pain table over the chart. When my wyches drop in in their raider or venom I know they are going to at least have feel no pain now.

I'm not sure about rage instead of +1 init, because that is definitely weaker than +1 A. Stubborn would be pretty awesome though!

+1 initiative just changes their target selection. If you are sending them after genestealers, lictors, various slaanesh daemons, or the Harlequins, going first means the fight is no longer mutually assured destruction.

Lythrandire Biehrellian wrote:
You see, I much prefer the new power from pain table over the chart. When my wyches drop in in their raider or venom I know they are going to at least have feel no pain now.

I'm not sure about rage instead of +1 init, because that is definitely weaker than +1 A. Stubborn would be pretty awesome though!

+1 initiative just changes their target selection. If you are sending them after genestealers, lictors, various slaanesh daemons, or the Harlequins, going first means the fight is no longer mutually assured destruction.

True - Rage was kind of off the top of my head. Hatred, maybe...

My problem with +1 Initiative is that against the majority of armies it really has no role at all; and even against those armies it does help with, it probably only helps with a few units that may or may not be the most appropriate unit to assault. Honestly, hitting first or not, there are probably better things to do with Wyches than throw them into Genestealers or Harlequins. Those units are what guns are for.

As to the new Power from Pain; it just seems like it pushes you to try to hold off on your offensive to get buffs, and DE just are not resilient enough to do that. Encouraging early aggression seems to fit their playstyle better.

-D

I've always seen them as beta strike army forever.

The way I see it, they are custom built to run like this, covens units, jetbikes, and vehicles start on table. Turn two the kabalites, scourges, and wyches come in from above in their transports. The transports, kabalites warriors, and scourges do some work on softening up the enemy at range. Turn three all of the wyches start getting stuck in whole the shooty aspects of the army continue taking down heavier threats. Turn four the remnants of the covens units finish off the things the wyches have tied down.

Pain4Pleasure wrote:
Course we also play with a lot of terrain so it helps. I tend to wonder if people who have trouble with melee units use enough terrain?

QFT. More game balance would likely be achieved by simply adding terrain then by all the fix it threads combined.