Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I’ve spent some time thinking about new units for the dark kin in my spare time, and with the new codex, I decided to do a final pass and update them based on the new rules, then actually post them

To give this thought exercise a bit of structure, I gave myself the goal of ensuring all the subfactions and mercs have one unit each in elites, fast, and heavy slots. I have most of the units written up, I'll be posting them over the next week or so to give everything a time in the spotlight.

Wych Beastbreakers
Design notes- Wyches are in a strange place where the base unit’s stats are so good that improving them looks a little absurd. Thus, rather than a unit better at fighting on pure skill, I went in the direction of specialized unit. The concept of wych monster hunters quickly came to mind, as something which has implictly existed in the fluff of the cults for a while now, that would also help address one of the big problems of running pure cults-lack of multi-damage weapons. This does raise the spectre of this unit being redundant with Incubi, especially after drugs and obsessions have been applied. I’ve been a bit cautious with the stats because of that.

Fluff-The acquisition of new monsters for the stables of the wych cults beastmasters is a thankless task. Spending time stalking though the mud of vicious death worlds and away from the arena lights is something few wyches are inclined to do. Those that do make a career of the job are often derided, but their experience in navigating the wilderness, and bringing down monstrous targets makes them a key asset for cults in realspace raids.

Beastbreaker 8 3 3 3 3 1 3 7 6
Beastbreaker hexatrix 8 3 3 3 3 1 4 7 6

armed with splinter pistols and beastbreaker staves

Any model may exchange their beastbreaker staff with a hektarii harpoon

splinter pistol-pistol 1 12 2 –

beastbreaker stave melee user ap -3 dd3. Poisoned Weapon (4+)
Fluff-A variant of the agonizer scaled up into a heavy staff to provide the raw nerve shredding power to bring the fiercest alien monsters to their knees.


Hektarii Harpoon melee S +2 ap -2 d 2. Reroll wound rolls made against Monsters and Vehicles.
Fluff-A cruel barbed spear capable of bringing down the largest of threats.

Design notes-making a melee weapon that is convincingly anti-tank for a S3 unit is kindof tricky. Just doubling strength won’t work without essentially mandating a +Strenght drug or obsession, but a static mod higher than that is super rare in this game. Rerolls seem to be out of fashion in the new codex, but they make the math work. S3 units have above even odds to wound a t7 target, going to S4 makes them very dangerous against t6, and using both the drug and obsession lets you terrorize t7 tanks. Better ideas would be appreciated.

Hunters ambush- Deep strike

No escape, Combat Drugs, Blade Artists, Power from Pain

Keywords-<cult>, Core, Wytch Drukari

I've intentionally avoided most of the leaks of the new 'dex for the last week or so, so take my feedback with a few grains of salt. Some thoughts:

* Just a fluff note: despite having the cult keyword, beastmasters are really more their own subculture in the same way reavers and hellions are more properly their own gangs that just happen to hang out in the arena sometimes. So with that in mind, you could probably give yourself permission to break away from some of the wych-mimicking design choices if you were so inclined. Not that you necessarily have to.

* Another fluff note: Sometimes taming beasts for the arena means going on drug-induced vision quests and coaxing beasts into your service with you sonic control mask. Those are nifty tidbits of fluff that I always liked and wish were more represented in their rules. Just something to keep in mind while you work on this.

* Beast breaker staves. I'm not sure what the exact profile for an agonizer is in the new book, but I assume from your description that your staves here are more powerful in some way. Which then begs the question: why do archons use agonizers and not staves? Is there a drawback or trade-off here?

* Hekatarii Harpoon: You mention struggling to find a way to make these good against vehicles. My question is: why should they be? The fluff on these guys suggests that vehicles are the last thing they'd be equipped to fight against, and both reavers and hellions sort of want to be vehicle hunters but have struggled to fill that role. Is there really merit to giving them even more competition? What is the experience you're trying to provide or problem you're tyring to solve with the inclusion of these harpoons?

Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with. Keep it up!

Wyldhunt wrote:
I've intentionally avoided most of the leaks of the new 'dex for the last week or so, so take my feedback with a few grains of salt. Some thoughts:

* Just a fluff note: despite having the cult keyword, beastmasters are really more their own subculture in the same way reavers and hellions are more properly their own gangs that just happen to hang out in the arena sometimes. So with that in mind, you could probably give yourself permission to break away from some of the wych-mimicking design choices if you were so inclined. Not that you necessarily have to.

* Another fluff note: Sometimes taming beasts for the arena means going on drug-induced vision quests and coaxing beasts into your service with you sonic control mask. Those are nifty tidbits of fluff that I always liked and wish were more represented in their rules. Just something to keep in mind while you work on this.

* Beast breaker staves. I'm not sure what the exact profile for an agonizer is in the new book, but I assume from your description that your staves here are more powerful in some way. Which then begs the question: why do archons use agonizers and not staves? Is there a drawback or trade-off here?

* Hekatarii Harpoon: You mention struggling to find a way to make these good against vehicles. My question is: why should they be? The fluff on these guys suggests that vehicles are the last thing they'd be equipped to fight against, and both reavers and hellions sort of want to be vehicle hunters but have struggled to fill that role. Is there really merit to giving them even more competition? What is the experience you're trying to provide or problem you're tyring to solve with the inclusion of these harpoons?

Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with. Keep it up!

*The fluff notes are interesting. I think you could incorporate the sonic control mask into a debuff stratagem of some sort, reducing the strength or attacks of a monster or beast in engagement range of a beast master or beast breaker squad. I feel like most of the wych rules are doing their job-no escape changed to work on all non-titanic units, so your monster capture squad now can keep monsters tied up (this would have been a variant if I was writing for the old book), a dodge save is pretty key to not immediately dying in melee with monster units, and drugs are just a fun mechanic.

* The staves have d3 damage instead of the regular agonizers 1. One tradeoff I could introduce would be to make the beast breaker weapons two handed, and take away their pistols, which really aren't doing much from a rules or fluff perspective. Even with this tradeoff, there's no good reason for an HQ to not use these. One of the early criticisms of that book is that HQs are very dependent on relic melee weapons to do damage, and would benefit immensely from having access to better standard melee weapons. I just don't want to edit data sheets from a codex that isn't even out yet.

* I wanted at least one option that wasn't a poisoned weapon mostly because Cult of Strife exists, and it felt strange to have one of the three primary subfactions not provide much benefit to the unit, and also a way to keep this unit more relevant in an all comers list, because monsters are kind of rare. That probably isn't as important as super-heavy infantry become more common, and the new book has a stratagem to let poison work on vehicles. Cutting the harpoon option wouldn't be the end of the world.

Cambions

Design notes-a heavy support blades for hire unit was one of the trickier concepts. Monsters and vehicles didn’t make much sense for in dependant mercenaries, and just being a heavy weapons unit felt too similar to scourges. Thus, I settled on slotting in a long requested drukari sniper unit somewhat awkwardly in the heavy support slot. Thankfully, the new codex buffed hexrifles to high heaven, and makes these fit pretty well. If anything I’m a little concerned these might be too good, and have capped the unit size fairly low.

fluff-The art of the sniper rifle is an unusual practice among the drukari, who largely prefer the thrill of close quarters combat. Those that do become fascinated by the subtle joys of watching their foes die through the lens of a scope often congregate in their own private clubs. In the time since the fall, these clubs have grown rich as the demand for death from afar in commaragh will never ebb, and have became increasingly formalized, in imitation of the warrior temples of the Incubi.

To fit the fluff as a blades for hire unit, I imagined them as kind of dark aspect warrior like incubi- where incubi become obsessed with pure violence with the blade, these are mad gunmen are obsessed with the most improbable and spectacular shots. I don’t want to step on Drazar’s toes, so I’ve hand waved the fluff as a separate warrior society imitating the trappings of the Incubi. The name is a play on that relationship: a Cambion in demonolgy is a half demon, and these are cultural descendants of the incubi. This also differentiates them from craftworld rangers, Cambions having little wilderness or infiltration skills, but bigger guns and better accuracy.

7 3 2 3 3 1 2 8 4
7 3 2 3 3 1 3 9 4
5 models only
Armed with a hexrifle

Hexrifle heavy 1 rng 36 s6 ap -2

Obsessive accuracy-if this unit has not moved in the movement phase, the target cannot receive a benefit to its armour save from light cover.

Bullet artistry-when this unit removes one or more models from an enemy unit with a shooting attack, that unit suffers -1 to it’s leadership until the start of your next command phase.

Ghostplate armour 5++

Blades for Hire Core Drukari

Kabalite Boarding party

Design notes-Coming up with a new infantry unit for kabals is tricky, I made a couple attempts to write a “sneaky” unit or a jet pack unit, but they always turned into either a melee unit in a subfaction with no melee support, or rip-off scourges, which I wanted to avoid. At the end of the day, I came to the conclusion that what kabals really want is an old school trueborn style unit-something that can stuff a bunch of special weapons in an open topped transport.

Because trueborn do technically exist in the new codex, I’ve made a rather wonky compromise unit that basically does what the old truborn unit did, and to make it a bit different from the usual kabalite playstyle, I’ve added a selection of new guns focused on getting in the 12’ or shorter range band-a “splinter shotgun” as a standard weapon, a poison flamer, and short range disintegration. The flamer variant may be a bit redundant with the shredder. I also threw in some variants of Demo charges, powerful one-shot grenades, which is a bit of a personal fascination of mine since I started with guard. Again, a little unsure about these, I'm not sure either would be worth the minimum 5pt charge for an upgrade.

Again, I don’t want to edit existing datasheets right now, though if you did want to backport the new special weapons to base kabalite squads and scourges, I have no good argument against that.

Fluff-One of the highest risk activities in service to a kabal is the storming of enemy voidcraft. Death comes quickly and there are few opportunities to take advantage of stealth, speed or superior range. Most kabals maintain elite groups armed with brutal close ranged firepower to lead these assaults, and other close quarters firefights. While the position in these boarding parties is well compensated and has a certain prestige to it, all know that casualties are high, and many talented and ambitious kabalites have been assigned to this role for the singular purpose of engineering their demise.

5-10 models

Boarding kabalite7 3 3 3 3 1 2 4+ 7
Boarding Syabrite 7 3 3 3 3 1 3 4+ 7
armed with shardblasters, plasma grenades, splinter pistols

Up to four models exchange their shardblaster for-shredder, blaster, disintegration carbine or necrotoxin sprayer.
Up to one model may take- Implosion charge or hawire charge.

Power from pain, blade artists.

Shardblaster assault 3 rng 12 s2 ap 1- poisoned (4+)*

Disintegration carbine Assault 2 rng 12, s5 ap -3 d2
Necrotoxin sprayer Assault d6 rng 12 s2 ap – d1. Poisoned (2+) This weapon automatically hits.

Implosion charge Grenade d6 s6 ap -3 d2 Blast, one shot
Haywire charge Grenade d6 s3 ap -3 dd3 Blast, one shot, Always wound Vehicle units on rolls of 4+. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 against vehicle units inflict d3 mortal wounds.

*Counts as a splinter weapon
Keywords Kabal, <core> Drukari.

mr_stibbons wrote:Cambions
...
7 3 2 3 3 1 2 8 4
7 3 2 3 3 1 3 9 4
5 models only
Armed with a hexrifle

Hexrifle heavy 1 rng 36 s6 ap -2

Obsessive accuracy-if this unit has not moved in the movement phase, the target cannot receive a benefit to its armour save from light cover.

Bullet artistry-when this unit removes one or more models from an enemy unit with a shooting attack, that unit suffers -1 to it’s leadership until the start of your next command phase.

Ghostplate armour 5++

Blades for Hire Core Drukari

I feel like these guys feel a bit out of place in the drukhari army. They don't have the durability to survive if they're outside a transport, but you have to make your transport hold still for a turn to benefit from from Obsessive Accuracy. I wonder if these guys might be more at home as members of the court of the archon unit, using their skills to amuse the archon or remove especially annoying individuals from the battlefield. The presence of Ur-Ghuls and sslyth would solve some of their durability issues. (Also, it seems more fluffy in my head than having gangs of snipers hanging out together, but to each their own. )

mr_stibbons wrote:Kabalite Boarding party...
5-10 models

Boarding kabalite7 3 3 3 3 1 2 4+ 7
Boarding Syabrite 7 3 3 3 3 1 3 4+ 7
armed with shardblasters, plasma grenades, splinter pistols

Up to four models exchange their shardblaster for-shredder, blaster, disintegration carbine or necrotoxin sprayer.
Up to one model may take- Implosion charge or hawire charge.

Power from pain, blade artists.

Shardblaster assault 3 rng 12 s2 ap 1- poisoned (4+)*

Disintegration carbine Assault 2 rng 12, s5 ap -3 d2
Necrotoxin sprayer Assault 2 rng 12 s2 ap – d1. Poisoned (2+) This weapon automatically hits.

Implosion charge Grenade d6 s6 ap -3 d2 Blast, one shot
Haywire charge Grenade d6 s3 ap -3 dd3 Blast, one shot, Always wound Vehicle units on rolls of 4+. Unmodified wound rolls of 6 against vehicle units inflict d3 mortal wounds.

*Counts as a splinter weapon
Keywords Kabal, <core> Drukari.

I have notes, but I think I like these guys. The shadblaster seems like it's basically a shardcarbine (the default scourge weapon) that sacrifices range for penetration power. Seems useful and on-brand. The disi-carbine will need to be priced carefully, but it looks useful.

The necrotoxin sprayer is an odd duck. The autohit rule generally goes along with an Assault d6 rule. The Poison 2+ makes it good against high-toughness targets, but its low AP and damage don't make it especially good against hearty targets like marines.
I guess I'm just not sure what kind of enemy I'd take this weapon against. Against marines, each sprayer will cause about one unsaved wound on average. So 4 models taking the sprayers will only kill about 2 marines. Against 1 wound hordes, it will kill slightly less than 2 models per sprayer. I'm not sure how many points I'd want to pay for a squad that kills about 8 ork boys (and needs a transport to survive and get in range.) Especially considering I could just take kabalites or trueborn that can handle the same kind of target while also being obsec and, presumably, fewer points.

Your grenades seem solid. A big enough bang to be fun to use and worth getting the unit into range. Not so big as to seem broken. I like them. I wouldn't mind seeing the haywire grenade backported into other units; I really miss haywire wyches.

Wyldhunt wrote:


I feel like these guys feel a bit out of place in the drukhari army. They don't have the durability to survive if they're outside a transport, but you have to make your transport hold still for a turn to benefit from from Obsessive Accuracy. I wonder if these guys might be more at home as members of the court of the archon unit, using their skills to amuse the archon or remove especially annoying individuals from the battlefield. The presence of Ur-Ghuls and sslyth would solve some of their durability issues. (Also, it seems more fluffy in my head than having gangs of snipers hanging out together, but to each their own. )

I see your point. I'm not sure they're unplayable without a transport, you do have the +1 to cover save strat, but they are a pretty obvious target.

Adding snipers to the court of the archon is a great idea. It would really solve the issue of backfield support archons not having any decent targets to buff anymore. I really wanted these as blades for hire so that cult or coven armies would have the option of bringing in some long range shooting elemements though.

Wyldhunt wrote:


The necrotoxin sprayer is an odd duck. The autohit rule generally goes along with an Assault d6 rule. The Poison 2+ makes it good against high-toughness targets, but its low AP and damage don't make it especially good against hearty targets like marines.
I guess I'm just not sure what kind of enemy I'd take this weapon against. Against marines, each sprayer will cause about one unsaved wound on average. So 4 models taking the sprayers will only kill about 2 marines. Against 1 wound hordes, it will kill slightly less than 2 models per sprayer. I'm not sure how many points I'd want to pay for a squad that kills about 8 ork boys (and needs a transport to survive and get in range.) Especially considering I could just take kabalites or trueborn that can handle the same kind of target while also being obsec and, presumably, fewer points.

That was a typo on my part, the sprayer should be assault d6 like other flamers.

Even then, the math isn't great. 4 sprayers only kill around 10 boys, while 4 shredders with blast triggering kill 12, and have more range. May need another pass on the drawing board.

Kentauroi

Fluff-The hounds of the haemonculus covens are the Kentauroi, particularly promising or unfortunate wracks who have had their lower body removed and their upper torso grafted to some manner of many limbed, chitinous xenos predator. These hybrid horrors stalk the undercity of Cormorragh, raiding rival covens and preying on any outsiders unfortunate enough to venture below. To accomplish this task, they supplement the alien strength of their hybrid bodies with the best weapons the coven can provide to bring down rival fleshcrafted monsters.

Design notes-A concept for a fast attack coven unit isn’t hard to come up with, but one that isn’t redundant with the 5 other fast melee units in the codex is a bit trickier. I settled more of a melee/ranged hybrid style unit, with the concept of a half wrack half giant insect centaur creature.

I had originally though about letting every model take any weapon, but got spooked by the existence of dark technomancers-if every model in this unit could take a liquifier, it would give that already good subfaction a much more efficient platform to spam liquifiers. One in three with a liquifier would still be pretty good with dark technomancers, and empowering ossefactors is worth the damage against plague marines and 3 wound models anyway.

The other concern would be the dark creed strat and obliterating characters with heat lances and ossefactors-I would just errata it to cost 3 on Kentauroi units like taloi. There might be some other strats that would need errata as well, because these have the beast keyword instead of the monster or infantry keywords the book expects coven units to have.

12 3 3 4 5 3 3 8 4+

3-9 models

Armed with Xenografted claws, ossefactor.

For every three models one may exchange its ossefactor for Liquifier gun, heat lance, hexrifle or haywire blaster

Xenografted claws Melee, s user ap -1 d2

Secondary predator-brain-If this unit is engaged in the shooting phase, it may choose to treat it’s ranged weapons as pistols instead of their normal weapon type.

Stalkers of the undercity-During deployment, if every model in this unit has this ability, then you can set up this unit behind enemy lines instead of setting it up on the battlefield. If you do, then in the Reinforcements step of one of your Movement phases you can set up this unit wholly within 6" of any battlefield edge and more than 9" away from any enemy models.

Power from Pain, Blade Artists, Insensible to Pain

Beast <Coven> Core

Kentauroi look pretty great. I love the mental images they evoke, and I'm happy to see another platform for my beloved haywire blasters. A few thoughts:

* Their defenses look slightly odd to me. Having fewer wounds than a grotesque keeps them from being a faster, better grotesque, but the lack of Insensible to Pain feels weird on a coven unit. And then they have a better armor save than grotsques, which makes sense mechanically but makes me wonder why the coven couldn't be bothered to put similar armor on grotesques that are intended to be tanky walls of meat. They're sort of... one step forward two steps back with their defenses. I'm probably nitpicking.

* Probably ought to spell out what you mean by "outflank" as it technically doesn't exist this edition. Is there a limit to how close they have to be to the board edge when arrive? Is it basically just Strategic Reserves without a CP cost?

* Entirely a fluff thing, but it stood out to me that you had a fairly specific process for making these things and that it apparently always involves the use of wracks and a specific species of alien bugs. One of my favorite things about haemonculus lore is the creativity and personalized styles they describe. It's always weird to me when every talos and cronos looks identical to the next. Cool as bug-o-taurs are, I'd love a fluff nod to the possibility of a wide array of fast moving coven gun beasties. </nitpicky personal rant.>

* Beast makes sense, but maybe cavalry instead? Though I suppose that technically prevents you from deepstriking them out of the webway.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Kentauroi look pretty great. I love the mental images they evoke, and I'm happy to see another platform for my beloved haywire blasters. A few thoughts:

* Their defenses look slightly odd to me. Having fewer wounds than a grotesque keeps them from being a faster, better grotesque, but the lack of Insensible to Pain feels weird on a coven unit. And then they have a better armor save than grotsques, which makes sense mechanically but makes me wonder why the coven couldn't be bothered to put similar armor on grotesques that are intended to be tanky walls of meat. They're sort of... one step forward two steps back with their defenses. I'm probably nitpicking.

* Probably ought to spell out what you mean by "outflank" as it technically doesn't exist this edition. Is there a limit to how close they have to be to the board edge when arrive? Is it basically just Strategic Reserves without a CP cost?

* Entirely a fluff thing, but it stood out to me that you had a fairly specific process for making these things and that it apparently always involves the use of wracks and a specific species of alien bugs. One of my favorite things about haemonculus lore is the creativity and personalized styles they describe. It's always weird to me when every talos and cronos looks identical to the next. Cool as bug-o-taurs are, I'd love a fluff nod to the possibility of a wide array of fast moving coven gun beasties. </nitpicky personal rant.>

* Beast makes sense, but maybe cavalry instead? Though I suppose that technically prevents you from deepstriking them out of the webway.

Oops, there was supposed to be the regular set of coven rules ItP, PfP and BA on there. I've added that and the full text of the Outflank rule, which shows up a bunch in the space marines book.

Covens have a similar issue to orks-there's theoretically infinite variety in their creations, but there isn't enough support for them from GW to really represent that. You end up with either generic units with a bit of customizabilty, that don't really cover any out-there concepts for balance reasons, or very strange units, like the new ork buggies, that can have some out there designs and rules, but then make that out there ideas show up en mass on the table. I'll consider giving the fluff a pass to make them sound less mass produced.