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This army is what it was before, a finesse army.

The better players will take it and run with it, and hurt alot of feelings on the table.

The newbies will think they are getting murdered and complain it isn't strong enough.

The vets will caper and prance with childish glee as they dismante their enemies forces.

I haven't given up on the mandrakes yet. I have alot of the old really worthless ones. Didn't want to melt them down for bullets, so they have a new lease on life.

I actually love Wyches now sure there not as good but they get a butt load of attacks and once they get pain tokens they are 1000000x better. I can't wait for Talos models because I will be field 3 of the shooting ones to hand out tokens to my Wyches. I think one thing you could do is upgrade wyches to -1 CC attacks for the opponent get them 1 pain token load them up on attacks and have an Archon toeing them around havin him do all the hard work if needed. Wyches become rly survivable with that 4+/4+ in CC. While they aren't the juggarnaught of before there still good.

I think small units of Incubi will take there place because of all the power weapon attacks they will crush squads in CC specially marines get those pain tokens stacking and they get better and better I will use them alot like Death company 5 man squads all PWs to crush MEQs.

I think harlequins do have a nice place in this army too the thing they were missing in Eldar was Assault vehicals DE gives them that chance I think once people experiment we will see them alot. for 148 points you get 6 harlequins one being a troup master all will kisses that's 25 rending furious charge attacks.

Next Veteren Warriors is what I'm calling them lol. 4 Blasters in a venom is so insanely sick that just shreads ork mobs to pieces and the ability 2 take 2 dark lances in a small squad will be invaluable in some cases where youd rather have troop wyches.

Hellions are a unit I see becoming awsome havin Combat drugs and neat abilites will make large squads effective dont expect to see a ton of these but they will make appearences and be pretty cool

Reavers Oh reaves how I <3 you. they dont look good with the 5+ but gettin them pain tokens for feel no pain then the ability to turbo 36 is awsome try buying a warp portal or w/e its called and hold them in reserve then dont pop it till like turn 4 or 5 and have them turbo out to somewhere your opponent thought he was safe. Also Melta lance FTW having small tank hunting squads of these will be so cool.

Hulksmash wrote:Wyches are just fine. You just need to take them in units of 10. A unit of 10 w/out +1 St, FC, or WS5 but with a succubus with an agoniser. 27 attacks yields only 1.5 dead marines. The Succubus adds another dead marine. 7 Marines strike back and do a whopping...1 wound. The sergeant kill another .5 wyches (less than that but we'll round up). So wyches win combat. And that's with them costing 2/3's the amount of the squad their engaged with and not counting any combat drug result or shooting before charging. Yep, wyches suck....

Their role has changed. Honestly I wouldn't use them to kill marine squads. I'll let Wracks do that. Wyches are for tying up those nasty PW/TH heavy units. Even a termi squad (assuming no one dies) is only gonna kill 2 of them. And I think that the "dark lance spam" build is actually going to be one of the frailer, less competitive lists out there. I'd personally start experimenting with other units and fast.

Your opinions don't match mine at all Rle68 which is fine. But you read your statements like they are fact when they are opinion (and flawed opinion at that).

@Skarboy

Here, Here!

sorry my comments are based off of new dex stats and your 7 marines doing only 1 wound to a wych squad is disengenious at best needing only 3's to wound the wyches they will do more then a single wound and 4+ isnt automatic

my post showed several good things i see but wyches are no longer one of them the numbers dont lie

yes opinions vary and we can leave it at that

@Rle68. Your post is broken up but still very hard to read due to the lack of punctuation. One of your final paragraphs about bikes and Hellions is basically impossible to read. You seem to be suggesting that Dark Lance spam is going be a new and powerful build when it was the primary build with the old dex. I doubt its going to be that effective (or at least any more effective than it already was), you still get blasted off the board by Guard and other shooting armies which absorb a turn of fire and still kill half your vehicles in the return volley and you can't really deal with Devastator type units (or infantry in general, a horde doesn't care about Dark Lances and the template mode of the Disintegrator is gone).

Wyches are troops and troops are not supposed to be close combat gods no matter what the army is. They will deal with most units in combat unless its a specialised assault unit, but Troop Assault units should not be beating Elite/HQ Assault units so thats fair enough. As long as you don't do something silly like try and take on an IG blob squad with them you should be able to get a Pain Point in most games, they should be able to take out a Marine combat squad or a 10 man Guard unit in combat. From what I can tell you just have to use them to finish off a unit to get the Pain Point, so softening a squad up with shooting is obviously going to be a good plan. You are also missing the fact that there are ways to get them a Pain Point without killing anything, one of the Drugs Rolls gives you one and some character come with Pain Points.

The Raider is still great, a 5 point increase isn't that much. They are still one of the few transports in the game to come with a decent shooting weapon and provides a great assault platform. The fragility is obviously still an issue but thats a pretty common theme for the DE in general. All the upgrades are optional, obviously you can go overboard on upgrades but thats clearly not going to be a good idea as no matter what they are still going to be AV10. I totally fail to see why everyone is going to be adding Shock Prows to every Raider, and the Flickerfield isn't required for Raiders carrying assault troops (cause you go flat out to get a 4+ and they don't stack).

Hellions look pretty good but I really think people are overestimating the ability of to pull ICs out of combat. If you do it at the end of your turn its not going to make any difference as the unit you were fighting is just going to charge in again to support the character which got pulled out (which actually makes it worse as they are now charging). If you do it at the end of the enemy turn then you run into the same issue which always comes up with fragile Hit and Run units, surviving through two rounds of combat, and staying alive isn't something DE have ever been particularly good at. Most of the time you would be just as well off doing a normal Hit and Run, Assaulting the same unit again and allocating the plenty of attacks onto the character. I doubt Hellions are going to be able to fight there way through Eldrad even if they do pull him out of combat though, that 3++ with re-rolls is just too hard to crack (and you aren't going to ID him which is the easiest way to deal with him which doesn't require him being by himself).

How are Incubi too many points? From what I have seen of them they look like an absolute bargain. Sure they are pretty much single purpose (killing infantry in combat) which limits their use a bit, but they are still a unit of 2A S4 Power Weapons with 3+ saves which can get a bunch of other buffs. Marines pay a hell of a lot more than the 20 odd points per model Incubi are to get that. They are basically a combination of Howling Banshees and Scorpions with a transport which actually makes them usable.

Comparing Harlies to a soon to be non existent unit is rather pointless. They are currently the second best Elites choice available to Eldar (after Fire Dragons obviously) with their main issue being that they have no decent assault transports to use (yes not being able to buy one themselves is still a problem). In the DE list this isn't an issue as both the Venom and the Raider are open topped and they also have the ability to get in close with a webway portal. I can definitely see them being used as they are currently pretty multi purpose (Fusion Pistols to take on vehicles and can handle most things in assault) which is a drawback to some of the other DE Elite choices. I am a bit disappointed that they didn't get changed at all from the Eldar dex, an option for a transport would have been nice (even if it was only the Venom which owes its origins to the Harlies in the first place) but they are still a good unit.

Some Mathhammer for you regarding Wyches to back up what Hulksmash said. 27 Wych attacks, 4's to hit = 13.5 hits, 5's to wound = 4.46 wound, 3+ saves = 1.49 dead Marines. The Succubus, 4 attacks, 4's then 4's with an Agoniser = 1 dead Marine. In return 7 normal Marines (rounding down here so only two complete kills) get 7 attacks, 3.5 hits, 2.35 wound, 1.17 dead Wyches. The Sarge gets 3 attacks, 1.5 hits, 1.01 wounds = 0.51 dead Wyches (power weapon doesn't make a difference). So the Wyches are winning or at worst tying combat against a more expensive unit even assuming that they have no special weapons (unlikely to happen) or any buffs from the Combat Drug chart (which is impossible, they always get something) or any existing Pain Points (less likely but possible). As mentioned as mentioned there are better uses from them anyway, but you don't run in to full 10 man Marine units that often now, far more likely to see Combat Squads which the Wyches can happily take on (even multicharging two seperate 5 man units would be better, they focus on killing one, get a Pain Point and then deal with the other one).

"Some of the sc are really cool but dont make up for the lack of surviveability that the DE needed."



What? You want a 3+ save and a strength four bolter? Play space marines.

Rle68 wrote:

yes opinions vary and we can leave it at that

Ta.

The debate is fine, but.. let's not descend into squabbling and insults please.

I like the inclusion of the guy who stole Lukas' heart.

Must admit that the version of Decapitator we're presented with is nothing at all like I'd imagined, he seems like something from "Slaine the barbarian" almost. I guess it's another way of continuing the whole "scary monsters from the dark" vibe the codex has.

If this is the sort of product we get when Jez and his team are more actively involved in the writing process as well, then I hope this approach continues.

Preferably with a slightly quicker turnaround time however.

Rle68 wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:Wyches are just fine. You just need to take them in units of 10. A unit of 10 w/out +1 St, FC, or WS5 but with a succubus with an agoniser. 27 attacks yields only 1.5 dead marines. The Succubus adds another dead marine. 7 Marines strike back and do a whopping...1 wound. The sergeant kill another .5 wyches (less than that but we'll round up). So wyches win combat. And that's with them costing 2/3's the amount of the squad their engaged with and not counting any combat drug result or shooting before charging. Yep, wyches suck....

Their role has changed. Honestly I wouldn't use them to kill marine squads. I'll let Wracks do that. Wyches are for tying up those nasty PW/TH heavy units. Even a termi squad (assuming no one dies) is only gonna kill 2 of them. And I think that the "dark lance spam" build is actually going to be one of the frailer, less competitive lists out there. I'd personally start experimenting with other units and fast.

Your opinions don't match mine at all Rle68 which is fine. But you read your statements like they are fact when they are opinion (and flawed opinion at that).

@Skarboy

Here, Here!

sorry my comments are based off of new dex stats and your 7 marines doing only 1 wound to a wych squad is disengenious at best needing only 3's to wound the wyches they will do more then a single wound and 4+ isnt automatic

my post showed several good things i see but wyches are no longer one of them the numbers dont lie

yes opinions vary and we can leave it at that

I think the new witches are an improvement really. I mean even the old wyches were not good against a tac squad anyway. Depending on the drug roll, often times you were avoiding tac squads, because you start to lose combat after the initial assault most the time. Wyches would typically hit on 4's wound on 5's on a full half of the drug rolls (granted the one where you re-roll hits was worth it!) Wyches have always been the unit you threw at the enemies elites like Vet squads, terminators, etc... Due to them (old ones) taking away the extra CC weapon, and lowering their WS by half (a defensive bonus really), and finally their 4+ inv save in CC. They were geared to take on and tie up terminators and their like.

Now they seem more geared to take on standard troops more effectively.

I agree wyches are fine now, and they are troops (now?)and so fulfill their role well. The elite version of them (if rumors are true) however is where they will shine as CC monsters perhaps.

The thing with Wyches was that unless you playing an en masse wych assault army, they standard wych attacks were never a particularly large factor anyway. The wych squads were merely there to ensure the succubus with the agoniser got through, in order to nail the appropriate carnifex/wraithlord, and 4+ invulnerable was to make sure they'd lived long enough for the succubus to topple the aforementioned big model.

Things like space marine tactical squads you just shot up with disentegrators. Wych armies were pretty much palmed off as non-competitive in 5th edition some time back. The way I see it, moving them to troops, dropping their points, and adding things like the cronos and pain tokens give you a way of enhancing the performance of your wyches.

I wouldn't commit to saying they were the obvious troops choice, as I'd need to give everything some serious math-hammer first, but as the Warrior is far from the bargain killer he was, they seem to be on par at least.

Right now, considering the codex from a competitive angle, I'd be looking at taking at the following.

HQ would be Urien Rakarth/Haemonculus/Archon

Elites would be Incubi/veteran warriors(Incubi are infantry killers, veteran warriors take on the IG aspect as tank buster squads in Venoms)

Troops would be wyches/Wracks

Fast Attack would be Jetbikes/Scourges(Jet bikes can still run as Reaver Blades for anti-tank, Scourges tooled out with anti-infantry)

Heavy Support would be Ravagers/the two new aircraft.(The ravagers with shimmer shields and night shields, and disentegrators for anti infantry, the new aircraft with void lances as the anti-tank)

Transports would be raiders with dark lances except for venoms for the vet warriors. That equalizes the slight leaning towards anti-infantry throughout the rest of the list.

Math-hammered, and balanced correctly, such a list gives a lot of killpower. It will still get shot up relatively easily, but that was always the trait of the DE army, and I'm glad to see that's not changed. The glass hammer aspect will weed out a lot of the new players relatively fast methinks.

On the wych debate, I'll stick with Hulksmash. He has enough of a reputation of a DE player that he's one of the only other three DE players on this board I'd pay attention to
(other than myself, obviously? ).

Ketara you have listed most of the units in the codex lol. You are also forgetting that both Wracks and Hellions can be made Troops. From what I have seen there are only a couple of dud units in the codex, notably Mandrakes (terrible until the kill something and then they are just ok) and Decapitator (the lone non IC thing isn't going to end well on a low T model), everything else could find a place in a competitive list. Certainly some units will only really work in specific builds, but you should be able to make most builds competitive now which is a nice change from 1-2 usable builds.

Things that are visibly 'non great' at first glance become good when used in lists that work out the weaknesses of the unit and work around it.

Except the ork deffcopta. On paper its 'ok' Until you work out its good in squads of 1 or 3.

You say most of the units in the codex. I'd say about half. I've left out most special characters, mandrakes, grotesques, beastmaster squads, hellions, elite wyches, Harlequins, Talos, and Cronos. So to conclude, I only listed about half

This isn't to say that all those I've listed now are duds, but they're not what I would consider to be top priority for building a competitive list, as the units I listed have more potential and killpower capabilities.

And actually, I listed Wracks as troops, so I'm pretty sure I wasn't forgetting that fact.
They'd be a waste of an elite slot though, so I didn't bother adding them in that section.

Ketara wrote:HQ would be Urien Rakarth/Haemonculus/Archon

Am I missing something? Isn't that 3 HQ's?

Can the DE take 3 hq's as Urien is a separate choice, Archon is a separate choice and the Haemy becomes the 3rd (I do not believe you can take a Haemy with Urien and count it as 1).

Hoping I'm wrong...

I think he means a selection of one of.

Wyches are fine. Look at the unit again and remember you get the result of the combat drug roll to affect their statline. So, if you get:

3d6 run moves - the weakest result, but increases your odds at 25-26" charge range from Raider
+1 strength - your wounds against T4 models just went up to 2.25 and you Agonizer re-rolls wounds, so you probably kill at least 4 marines on charge... before they strike back
+1 weapon skill - now you hit on 3+, meaning your basic wyches will deliver more hits and more wounds, same for your Agonizer
+1 attack - your 10-man squad throws out 41 dice on the charge
Re-roll wounds - you wound more than having +1 strength and amazingly makes your agonizer insanely good
Pain Counter - you gain FNP and double the survivability of the unit

Bear in mind, you get all this FOR FREE and with each unit kill, they get tougher.

You want versatility? Give the unit Haywire Grenades and become a huge threat to vehicles. Toss in a Blast Pistol for fun.

How about assigning a Haemonculus to the unit? Now you have a free Pain Counter (FNP) and can add a Liquifier, Huskblade, any of the Haemonculus tricks to the unit and have a second big hitter in addition to your Hekatrix.

You can synergize the unit to the Raider by giving the raider anti-infantry upgrades (Disintegrator Cannon, Slave Snares, etc.) or maintain duality by keeping the Dark Lance.

Bear in mind, you get all this from a troop choice that costs 10 pts per model with very affordable upgrades and transports. I fail to see how in any way that's a bad troop choice.

Bravo Skarboy. Bravo. Honestly, there is no reason to think Wyches are a waste/worthless.

On another note, Wyche weapons just have to be used properly in CC. Obviously you can't just move those models to whatever model you want to have HtH with, but as the squad diminishes, you leave those in. Eventually, that SM Sergent is going to have to deal with them. Leave the models with Wyche Weapons by your Model with the agonizer and watch what happens.

How many points is a unit of 5 wyches with an agoniser, blaster pistol + haywire grenades now?

Hm well I pretty much memorized the book after 1 read.. so I believe the answer is

105

Skarboy wrote:Wyches are fine. Look at the unit again and remember you get the result of the combat drug roll to affect their statline. So, if you get:

3d6 run moves - the weakest result, but increases your odds at 25-26" charge range from Raider
+1 strength - your wounds against T4 models just went up to 2.25 and you Agonizer re-rolls wounds, so you probably kill at least 4 marines on charge... before they strike back
+1 weapon skill - now you hit on 3+, meaning your basic wyches will deliver more hits and more wounds, same for your Agonizer
+1 attack - your 10-man squad throws out 41 dice on the charge
Re-roll wounds - you wound more than having +1 strength and amazingly makes your agonizer insanely good
Pain Counter - you gain FNP and double the survivability of the unit

Bear in mind, you get all this FOR FREE and with each unit kill, they get tougher.

You want versatility? Give the unit Haywire Grenades and become a huge threat to vehicles. Toss in a Blast Pistol for fun.

How about assigning a Haemonculus to the unit? Now you have a free Pain Counter (FNP) and can add a Liquifier, Huskblade, any of the Haemonculus tricks to the unit and have a second big hitter in addition to your Hekatrix.

You can synergize the unit to the Raider by giving the raider anti-infantry upgrades (Disintegrator Cannon, Slave Snares, etc.) or maintain duality by keeping the Dark Lance.

Bear in mind, you get all this from a troop choice that costs 10 pts per model with very affordable upgrades and transports. I fail to see how in any way that's a bad troop choice.

Right on





Seriously guys, no reason to panic. Phil Kelly wrote the book, it's going to have multiple builds, have a unique play style and be enjoyable to play. I'm much more concerned with my Custodes/Grey Knight rules coming from Cruddace...

AgeOfEgos wrote:Right on





Seriously guys, no reason to panic. Phil Kelly wrote the book, it's going to have multiple builds, have a unique play style and be enjoyable to play. I'm much more concerned with my Custodes/Grey Knight rules coming from Cruddace...

And the Necron rules from Mad Ward...

I think the wych comparisons are flawed. You guys are comparing the Old wych choice from the Elite slot to the new one in the Troops slot. Shouldn't we compare the old wych choice with the new Hekatrix's in the Elites?

I actually disagree with Hulksmash about the Dark Lance spam. While it was better in the old codex, you can still viably do it in the new codex. However, if that was your build, the new codex doesn't do it nearly as well. That build can hang with most armies, but will lose to the razorspam lists of today that do the same strategy better.

I forgot, but can you give mandrakes the webway portal? If so...they have a use after all...

nope, WWP can only be taken by Archons and Heamonculi.

then Mandrakes may truly only have one use... painting for painting sake..

What is the viability of having a 20man Warrior squad waiting to come out of the WWP? Is such a large troop choice worth taking if combined with fire support and MSU Wych attacks.

you seem to forget in the old dex wyches are troops as well

they dont add up to the new ones plain and simple and i have won more tournies with my de than most of you have won with any army you have so please spare me the i dont know what im talking about

the wyches are not nearly as effective as they once were and how many tournie players play space marines that only get one attack? not many. not if they are any good so go back to your math hammer recalculate with marines doing 2 plus attacks each, and then try again

the simple fact all of you left off is the omission of 2 blasters, those 2 assault weapons made a huge difference not only for armor but for anything thats 2 wounds or 2 kills before the assault

now you say use haywire grenades? thats 20 points added to wyches and thats only good for armor and if your using wyches to attack armor , you have already lost

i have read here you want to add this upgrade and that upgrade add this character etc now what added points are you now willing to add to do what they did before? point for point the wyches are no longer as effective as they once were they were troops before they are troops now but i wouldnt use them.

i am saddened that my favorite part of the army has been reduced to a pale shadow of its former self

Skarboy good work . . . just one thing . . . AFAIK the Agoniser isn't poison, it's just 4+ to wound . . . so the bonus strength make no difference. (unless you want easier wounds on Gants, but leaving them with a save . . . I'll let someone else mathhammer that one )

Oshova

@Rle68

Those "good" marine players generally aren't running 10 man squads (As BA's or SW's) either so it's a wash except that each wound does more damage than it did before because each wound costs more attacks. But your right, we probably don't know anything

As for the pts. the squad is around 30pts cheaper (more with haywire grenades) than the last dex. Correct me if I'm wrong but I was pretty sure Wyches couldn't get FnP in the last edition. Must have missed that. Must have missed FC being an option too.....

Compare wyches to the elite slot wyches. You'll be happier. The points add up and they will do about the same amount of damage as they used to. Wyches in the last codex had to have a very specific build to be troops which isn't the case anymore. Now they are generic troops with a specific role in the army. They aren't worse, they're more tailored and different. Sorry that you'll have to grow your army and ideas. IF your such a solid tourney player this shouldn't be a problem anyway

This might have already come up, but can a unit without Power through Pain (i.e. Harlequins) benefit from the bonuses incurred if an independent character (i.e. Heamonuli) joins the unit? FNP Harlequins would rock...

Btw, as others have stated Wyches are different from the last edition, but they're a solid complementary unit for some of the harder hitters in the army. Cores of Wyches and Wracks are going to be a nice duo with some added survivability through pain tokens.

Current possible list:

Baron Sky-board-105
2xNaken Haemonculi-100

2x3 Trueborn w/2 DL's in Raider-292
6 Incubi w/Sergeant Upgrade and flamer in Raider-222

2x9 Wracks w/Agoniser Sergeant in Raider-360
2x10 Wyches w/HW grenades and Agoniser Sergeant in Raider-420
10 Hellions w/Agoniser Sergeant-185

3xRavagers w/Darklances-315

1,999 and full of nasty. Though I'm not totally sold on my elites. Those are the non-core of my army and subject to change. But it's a decent 17 DL's supported by 5 decent combat units and 1 curbstomper unit.

Anyone else think Lelith Hesperax sucks now?

Not having read the codex really, I can just say what I think on what I know a bit about . . . and that is that Hellions as a troop choice . . . they're not the most durable unit in the game. And yes, they're getting FnP after killing a unit, they get a Jink save (IIRC) but in the end they will die. More so than the other troop choices.

However, with 4 other troop choices, you're not exactly hard pressed to rely on the Hellions to hold an objective . . . not that Wyches are good at that either . . .

Basically what I'm saying is, stick some Warriors in to hold objectives. They're not power-armoured T4 marines . . . but they can lay down a good rate of fire to cover other units, and can happily sit in cover and still be useful.

Oshova

Rle68 wrote:and i have won more tournies with my de than most of you have won with any army you have so please spare me the i dont know what im talking about

I burst out laughing here. You clearly under-estimate the skills of anyone who disagrees with you. Such a poor appraisal of mine and Hulksmash's abilities confirms the fact in my mind, that anything you might have to say on strategy is clearly laughable, if you have to resort to such petty rebuttals. I mean, seriously?

Player 1: I think unit x is bad.
Player 2: I disagree. Why? Because of reasons, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8.
Player 1: Well you people clearly suck at this game and I'm awesome. Therefore I'm right.

Guess which one of those players you are right now?