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I was interested in putting together Drukhari, but I cant really find a good look at what they're able to do. All I find is competitive lists I'm really not concerned with right now. They seem to be a "raider" get in, get nasty, get out kind of style, but I'm sure theres multiple ways to go. Info is very appreciated.

There are broadly three playstyles:

Kabals - Mobile and shooty (pretty much reliant on transport spam)
Haemonculi Covens - Slow (ish), tough, with strong close combat and weak shooting
Wych Cults - Mobile and fighty (a bit of a halfway house between Kabals and Covens)

The Raiding Force strat in 9th will allow you to take three Patrols, so you can take any of the three in whatever proportions you like.

I'm not sure I've answered your question. Could you be more specific in terms of what you are looking for?

That was a pretty good answer. I just wanted to know what they were able to do. Thanks

GenChicken wrote:
I was interested in putting together Drukhari, but I cant really find a good look at what they're able to do. All I find is competitive lists I'm really not concerned with right now. They seem to be a "raider" get in, get nasty, get out kind of style, but I'm sure theres multiple ways to go. Info is very appreciated.

To expand a bit on Harlokin's overview:

As a faction, Drukhari are split into three categories: The Kabals, the Wych Cults, and the Haemonculus Covens. These are essentially different factions, kind of similar to how Space Wolves and Blood Angels are different factions although they share some units between them like vehicles and transports.

To make building your army easier, there is a special rule called "Raiding Party" which allows a drukhari army to take three different patrol detachments, which each require 1 HQ and 1 Troop, rather than a single Battalion or Brigade detachment, which require 2 HQs and 3 Troops.

So we have to take 1 extra HQ, but we have the flexibility to take an army that is a little bit of wyches, a little bit of kabals, whatever. Mix and match.

Generally, Drukhari stuff is pretty fast. That's one theme of the army. our walking-speed stuff moves 8" rather than the normal 5-6", and our vehicles move 14-16" rather than the usual 10-12". We are also more generally focused on melee combat than the craftworld eldar, though that varies based on which of the three categories of drukhari you're looking at.

Haemonculus Covens: Melee-focused, slower than the other two, much tougher than the other two. Early analysis of the new missions for the new edition seem to indicate that holding objectives and not getting shot off of them is going to be more important than before, so covens may be fairly central to a lot of lists.

Wych Cults: Melee-focused, fast, what you can't kill you disable. Wych cults have a special system for all the drugs that they're on, which lets them improve their stats flexibly.

Kabalites: Shooting-focused, fast, based around close range shooting out of fast vehicles. Kabalites use troops mounted in transports to flexibly concentrate fire and use a hit and run playstyle.

Could I possibly run some together. Like would there be conflicts with them if I did. I know things can get a bit wonky if you try and cram too many groups together

GenChicken wrote:
Could I possibly run some together. Like would there be conflicts with them if I did. I know things can get a bit wonky if you try and cram too many groups together

Not if you use the raiding party. In fact, if you run one of all three, you get a little bonus (your commanders each get to pick a warlord trait). It seems like most people are talking about running all three, or running two detachments of 1 type and 1 of the other.

If you run them in the same detachment, they lose some of their abilities.

Are there any like "neutral" models for them. On the GW website like for the incubi it doesn't say that they're part of any group. But also that's just the website.

 harlokin wrote:
If you run them in the same detachment, they lose some of their abilities.

^yes, this is the thing. You have to run them in separate detachments. My advice would be to do this:

1) start with the "Start Collecting Drukhari" box. That gets you wyches, a transport that only holds five models (Venom) a unit of bikes and a succubus. That's a complete Wych Cult patrol right there.

2) When you've painted and played some games with those, maybe some kill team, maybe some low point games, pick up a box of Kabalite Warriors and a Raider transport. Put your 10-lady squad of Wyches in the Raider transport, and build one of your Kabalite warriors with the sword and a blast pistol. Now you have both a kabal detachment and a wych detachment ready to go.

Incubi, Scourges, and Mandrakes are neutral models. Any group can take them as elite/fast attack slots, but they don't gain the group benefits.

Yes there are, they are called Blades for Hire....off the top of my head you have Incubi, Mandrakes and Scourges. They can be fielded with any of the subfactions.

Could the blades for hire work with the others in ways. Like I could put them on the transport with the kabal, and with them being short range shooters I can sacrifice some extra guns to help get them in closer to getting in melee.

You certainly can do that with Incubi, and it's not a bad idea.

Mandrakes can (I think) also be carried in the transports, but they have their own teleport ability, and so that is more usually emplyed.

Scourges can't be used in transports, but they have wings, are naturally very fast, and can also teleport in.

I'm not familiar with vehicles a whole lot yet so is it possible to run it with kabal, put the incubi (just using them for examples sake) in the transport, get them in there, then fly around and pick up gunners for the transport or to get the melees to another area they'd be more effective? I know that's probably a lot of steps and not super efficient but it would just help me understand

Hypothetically it's possible - but it may end up being more moves than there are turns in the game...

GenChicken wrote:
I'm not familiar with vehicles a whole lot yet so is it possible to run it with kabal, put the incubi (just using them for examples sake) in the transport, get them in there, then fly around and pick up gunners for the transport or to get the melees to another area they'd be more effective? I know that's probably a lot of steps and not super efficient but it would just help me understand

It's not impossible. Drukhari transports are fairly cheap and fragile, so you will very often see quite a few in an army. Raiders can carry 10, so you could put a unit of 5 Kabalites and a unit of 5 Incubi in one quite happily. Venoms are smaller, and only carry 5.

So I'm kinda envisioning a very hit hard, hit fast melee group, would it be a good idea to add some guns to kinda soften up units I wanna go into? I was thinking a detachment of wyches with a detachment of Kabal, would this work as long as I kept them separate in their own thing?


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Harlokin, that was exactly what I was imagining. Thank you

You could use Kabalites to clear the way for your melee group with their shooting.

Wyches are quite versatile, they have a bit of shooting, and because they use pistols they can still shoot if their transport is locked in combat. They are also quite survivable in combat, but aren't very hard hitting. You could use them to tie up an enemy unit and use Incubi to deliver the death blow.

I'm not familiar with vehicles very much, how does close combat work with them.


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Like if they're in combat, the next turn I can disembark to get my incubi as close as I can. I know theres the distance limit but is that something i could do

Drazhar is also a Blade for Hire and with the new profile is definitely a legit option.

GenChicken wrote:
I'm not familiar with vehicles very much, how does close combat work with them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Like if they're in combat, the next turn I can disembark to get my incubi as close as I can. I know theres the distance limit but is that something i could do

Yeah, if you get out of a vehicle that's in close combat you can still shoot and charge I believe. Unless I missed something in the 9th edition rules that changed that. The only thing you can't do if your vehicle is in close combat is shoot while you're inside it.

So I could have a kabal detachment, and a wych one with blades for hire support if I felt the desire to. Should I double up for number 3 on one, or is there another thing I could do with those two to assist?

GenChicken wrote:
So I could have a kabal detachment, and a wych one with blades for hire support if I felt the desire to. Should I double up for number 3 on one, or is there another thing I could do with those two to assist?

Well, if you don't like Covens, i would say the most useful one to double up on would be wych cults. WC tend to have a lot of stuff clogging up the Fast Attack slot, and they have certain units that benefit very highly from certain cult traits, relics, etc. Mixing and matching different wych cults is generally better than mixing and matching different Kabals, at least in my opinion.

I do think Covens are going to be pretty important going into 9th personally. The new missions really require you to have stuff that can take a punch mixing it up in the middle of the board.

I'm going to be doing a test game using a few various Wych Cult units for that purpose (Clawed Fiends, maxed out bikes using Toughness drugs, etc) but I cannot imagine they'll be nearly as successful as coven Grotesques and Talos Pain Engines.

It sounds like you like the idea of close combat, so you might want to have 1 Patrol Detachment of Kabalites, and 2 of Wyches. You can add the Blades for Hire to any of them, it doesn't matter.

As mentioned by Blackie, you may want to seriously consider getting Drazhar. He is a HQ model that can be used in any of the subfactions, he is also very good in close combat, and buffs Incubi considerably.

I'll probably go the 2 wych and 1 kabal route. I just wanted to know what I kinda wanted to do and how to do it before I started buying. I just really like the idea of the slash and dash, but having some range to soften and punch holes is nice.