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LoS! May only be allocated to the closest model as per the rulebook FAQ.

Sure, you could put a Razorwing flock and a Khymerae in BtB with the Baron, making both the closest and therefore allowing you to choose which buuut, you take 2 strength 6+ wounds and that Khymerae fails his first save? Looks like that wound is getting allocated to the flock and there goes 5 perfectly good wounds, 5 perfectly good attacks, and a whole base's worth of rending.

You're better off just using movement to create a formation that has your beasts closest to whatever you want them to get shot by.

So Baronstar is nerfed, but Incubi are back as the Terminator killers they always should be.

Yeah, Baronstar is nerfed but not badly.

I'm honestly not upset about this nerf, at all. Baronstar is still an incredibly survivable, incredibly killy deathstar for near half the cost of most competing death stars and much faster. It went down in durability a bit, but you're still getting an incredibly good buy for only 260~ points.

I wish we'd gotten something for our Agonisers. They cost nearly as much as a power fist and aren't half as useful. Even just giving them the proper poisoned weapon rules would've been nice.

Oh well. Venom Blades are still the most obvious choice for just about every character in our army, the exception being Archons who have a few viable weapons. I'm glad to have Incubi back to being useful. Overall, I'm very happy with this FAQ. Although I'm not seeing the part that says I can't have my Khymerae hucking assault grenades.

Baronstar is still a very cheap unit that can bring a lot of hurts, so I'm ok with that.

Also, harliestar is dead, I guess? Eldar psychics don't work on DE.

It's been that way since the start of 6th.

You take Harlequins as part of an eldar allied detachment, and stick an archon or two in the unit. The ICs count as being part of the unit, the unit being from Codex: Eldar, and therefore able to receive the benefit of psychic powers.

Agoniser would have been nice, but the agoniser has always been the equalizer for SM. It will still kill run-of-the-mill SM and everything that isn't wearing terminator armor.

I was glad to see a rule clearing up questions on beasts assaulting through cover. Assault I1 sucks, but with Baron, doesn't matter.

We can 'officially' assault the turn after a wreck/explodes now from raiders/venoms.

So now that incubi have ap2 weapons, would it be viable to attach a haemy with huskblade to the unit? Thats one extra ap2 weapon (and instant death as well) and a pain token, but losing fleet on the down side. But have them in a raider to keep the mobility.
Just an idea I had.

Even though it's AP2 now, I'd still stick with the Venom Blade.
You're paying an extra 30pts for a weapon that will wound marines on a 5+, and 95% of the time be fighting 1 wound models.
And half of the time you ARE fighting a multiwound model, it'll likely be something you don't want the Haemy to be fighting anyway

Yeah, 35pts is a huge investment just to get ID and AP2. I think it's Archon-only for me, if I even bother with it at all.

I am attaching the Duke to my incubi squad. I really like what he brings to the table, and with him letting you roll 2d6 for drugs, that increases your chances to get a 6 and start off with a pain token regardless.

"Q: If a melee weapon ignores armour saves, such as a Tyranid bonesword or Captain Tycho’s Dead Man’s Hand, is it treated as an unusual power weapon and therefore AP3? (p61)
A: No – it ignores armour saves completely."

Following this logic, since Lelith herself ignores armour saves, I think that means her ranged attacks do, too.

A S4 AP1 grenade could actually be quite useful, I think.

Not actually AP1, the distinction is important, due to the lack of +2 to damage.

I'm going with huskblade archon, it'll be a waste against W1 models as Ovion said, but I like the result when I use him to character hunt.

Haemy will never be playing with big toys in my list, he's gonna stay with liquifier/venom blade/hexrifle!

Sad my grotesques archon combo has gone down a rank since FAQ, before I even got to build my grotesques...! But I'm still gonna build myself some grotesques anyway, inspired the conversions I've seen of them so far.

I like grotesque, at 1850 I run 3 grotesque with liquifier gun, and scissor hand, and I run them with 2 haemies. One is an ancient and has venom blade liquifier gun and casket of flensing. The other has venom blade and liquifier gun. I run them in a raider and they start with 3 pain tokens and are a good tarpit unit, and can have the potential to be anti armor also. Just throw the 2 haemies out front and the grotesque in between, you can still los and place the wounds accordingly. The squad is toughtness 5, and you have enough wounds to keep them going for as long as you want.

Baronyu wrote:
I'm going with huskblade archon, it'll be a waste against W1 models as Ovion said, but I like the result when I use him to character hunt.

Haemy will never be playing with big toys in my list, he's gonna stay with liquifier/venom blade/hexrifle!

Sad my grotesques archon combo has gone down a rank since FAQ, before I even got to build my grotesques...! But I'm still gonna build myself some grotesques anyway, inspired the conversions I've seen of them so far.

Getting combat drugs for the huskblade Archon may be a good investment. Sure, you can roll useless stuff like extra run or more WS, but +1A, +1S and especially re-rolls to wound can make your huskblade really worth the points!

Were I to run an Archon (and I may, in higher point games) it would be with a huskblade, clone field, phantasm grenade launcher and combat drugs. Throw that in a unit of 4 grotesques that boasts a liquifier gun and an aberration with a scissorhand, and a venom/liquifier haemonculus. Expensive, but majority toughness 5, feel no pain, furious charge, tons of poison attacks and high strength attacks, three characters to make sure challenges are always in your favor and one hell of a points cost.

That does sound like a bad unit to try to deal with, I'll have to try that out.

I always go for combat drugs on archon, even when I used to run agoniser, and only 50% of the drugs work on him(and I've never rolled that 50%... ) Though, with sole trap, huskblade, drugs and SF, he is dangerously close to Duke's cost but without the kabalite boost or double drugs roll...

I'm planning to go Lelith instead on Lokas's grotesques setup, against those pesky WS4/5 T4 marines, Lelith should get 11/10 WS9 S4 attacks on the charge, which would do about 3.33 ignore armour wounds, I think? Which should be enough if I throw her against characters, or if the squad being charged only have single-wound, I'd put her against the core unit. My question is, will her shardnet reduce the number of attacks of the enemy's character in challenge? It says only the challenger and the challengee can strike blows, but shardnet is a debuff...

 Ovion wrote:
Not actually AP1, the distinction is important, due to the lack of +2 to damage.

True enough.

Baronyu wrote:
I always go for combat drugs on archon, even when I used to run agoniser, and only 50% of the drugs work on him(and I've never rolled that 50%... ) Though, with sole trap, huskblade, drugs and SF, he is dangerously close to Duke's cost but without the kabalite boost or double drugs roll...

I'm planning to go Lelith instead on Lokas's grotesques setup, against those pesky WS4/5 T4 marines, Lelith should get 11/10 WS9 S4 attacks on the charge, which would do about 3.33 ignore armour wounds, I think? Which should be enough if I throw her against characters, or if the squad being charged only have single-wound, I'd put her against the core unit. My question is, will her shardnet reduce the number of attacks of the enemy's character in challenge? It says only the challenger and the challengee can strike blows, but shardnet is a debuff...

Yes it will reduce the challenger's attacks by 1. Technically when you challenger they are supposed to removed and base contact with each other.

Now that our weapon options have been pretty much locked in, we could really scrutinize them against each other.

Starting with the big boy, the huskblade. This is a fantastic weapon in any meta, in some metas with heavy MSU spam, it won't be as good, but just about every army has a couple units that are terrified of this weapon, and combat drugs adds even more threat most of the time. I like this for archons.

Agonizer. Hmm, someone mentioned the venom blade as a "replacement" to the agonizer. Well since both of them wound on a set value, it's pretty easy to check. What I found out was that the agonizer outperforms the venom blade against 4+ armor by 8% and against 3+ armor by a massive 22%. The venom blade outperforms the agonizer against 5+ armor by 6% and 6+ armor by 30%. It also does better against 2+, but only by 6%. I think that the margin between the agonizer and venom blade against 3+ armor is significant enough to merit the cost. This is marinehammer after all.

Flesh gauntlet. No one ever mentions this. I love this weapon. Set wounding with instant death, it is the other half of the huskblade. I really like it when paired with a venom blade. Use the venom blade against single wounders and the gauntlet on the others.

Power sword. I think it's a good way to go with wyches. Using agonizers lock you out of +1 strength drugs and furious charge. As we saw with the agonizer math, ignoring 3+ armor has a significant impact on those fights with marines.

Power axe. I have put quite a lot of thought into these. In cases where you could be a lone character, it is a terrible idea. You'll end up being caught by too many challenges, and dark eldar are fragile to a fault. I can see using it in a character heavy unit, such as a harlequin unit.

Venom blade. Until we got back our ap2 weapons, this weapon seemed to be luring us all away. But after doing the math, I now see that it is worth it's 5 points, but you may come up short against 3+ armor at the wrong time. I like it paired with a weapon that has an AP value. Since it is so cheap, you could replace a pistol with it, buy haywires for a "ranged attack" and be done.

In the casual, terrain heavy games that I play, incubi are absolutely bonkers. An archon with PGL leading them is terrifying, they aren't too worried about their ride exploding, nor are they overly worried about over watch. I do like that they are still very vulnerable to things like a 30 man shoota boy unit, or a battle cannon. They feel about right.

Note: if you play with the recommended terrain density in a competitive environment, don't take incubi. Just take guns.

 Shep wrote:
Now that our weapon options have been pretty much locked in, we could really scrutinize them against each other.

Starting with the big boy, the huskblade. This is a fantastic weapon in any meta, in some metas with heavy MSU spam, it won't be as good, but just about every army has a couple units that are terrified of this weapon, and combat drugs adds even more threat most of the time. I like this for archons.

Problem with Huskblades is it's 35pts, on a Str3, T3 platform with most targets that will take advantage of the Instant Death effect invaribly being wounded on 5+ / 6's, OR, be wounding on 5+ and only have 1 wound anyway. At the end of the day, how many wounds will it actually cause through a game?

Agonizer. Hmm, someone mentioned the venom blade as a "replacement" to the agonizer. Well since both of them wound on a set value, it's pretty easy to check. What I found out was that the agonizer outperforms the venom blade against 4+ armor by 8% and against 3+ armor by a massive 22%. The venom blade outperforms the agonizer against 5+ armor by 6% and 6+ armor by 30%. It also does better against 2+, but only by 6%. I think that the margin between the agonizer and venom blade against 3+ armor is significant enough to merit the cost. This is marinehammer after all.

The Agoniser can and has always been the equaliser for our low toughness dudes. Shame it can't hurt armour is all, would have been nice if it had kept always-glance-on-6 effect it used to have.

Flesh gauntlet. No one ever mentions this. I love this weapon. Set wounding with instant death, it is the other half of the huskblade. I really like it when paired with a venom blade. Use the venom blade against single wounders and the gauntlet on the others.

I think the reason it's generally not mentioned is only the 3 models can have it, Haemonculi, Aberration and Acotyhst. It's better than what it was, but I think primarily on the Grotesque. It's the same problem as the Huskblade, generally you're looking at something where targets are either single wound, or something you don't want the model with it in base-to-base with. For 15pts less, while you don't get the instant death, it's 2+ poison.

I do love the idea of it, and tried it out a reasonable amount back in 5th, and I suppose I should try again now in 6th - but I think it'll come to the same conclusion, which is what I said above.

Power sword. I think it's a good way to go with wyches. Using agonizers lock you out of +1 strength drugs and furious charge. As we saw with the agonizer math, ignoring 3+ armor has a significant impact on those fights with marines.

Power axe. I have put quite a lot of thought into these. In cases where you could be a lone character, it is a terrible idea. You'll end up being caught by too many challenges, and dark eldar are fragile to a fault. I can see using it in a character heavy unit, such as a harlequin unit.

The only model in the Harlequins that gets a Power Weapon is the Troupe Master. Losing the high-initiative attacks is going to be crippling on pretty much any DE, or Eldar in general.

Venom blade. Until we got back our ap2 weapons, this weapon seemed to be luring us all away. But after doing the math, I now see that it is worth it's 5 points, but you may come up short against 3+ armor at the wrong time. I like it paired with a weapon that has an AP value. Since it is so cheap, you could replace a pistol with it, buy haywires for a "ranged attack" and be done.

I love this thing. 5pts, massive chance to wound - with the poison re-rolls it has a 97.5 chance for any successful hit to wound. It's the only thing I tend to take on anything that can take it.

In the casual, terrain heavy games that I play, incubi are absolutely bonkers. An archon with PGL leading them is terrifying, they aren't too worried about their ride exploding, nor are they overly worried about over watch. I do like that they are still very vulnerable to things like a 30 man shoota boy unit, or a battle cannon. They feel about right.

Note: if you play with the recommended terrain density in a competitive environment, don't take incubi. Just take guns.

You also forgot the Scissorhand, which I feel deserves an honourable mention now. While before it was completely outshone by the Venom Blade, now on things like the Aberration, it will generally wound on a 2+ anyway.

I think overall, the extra bodies you can take elsewhere ultimately, rarely justifies the cost of the Huskblade or even Agoniser...

Admittedly the Archon is a different beast that can possibly take the return hits from bigger beasties, I still don't think it's really worth it, and Haemonculi really want to be kept as cheap as possible (I don't like mine to be more than 65pts, 100 with a WWP).

Baronyu wrote:
http://www.games-workshop.com/MEDIA_CustomProductCatalog/m2570041a_Dark_Eldar_v1.1.pdf

Huskblade and klaives are AP2, Baron add +2 S to hammer of wrath!

OMFG, it is better than I could have guessed

 Shep wrote:
Now that our weapon options have been pretty much locked in, we could really scrutinize them against each other.

Starting with the big boy, the huskblade. This is a fantastic weapon in any meta, in some metas with heavy MSU spam, it won't be as good, but just about every army has a couple units that are terrified of this weapon, and combat drugs adds even more threat most of the time. I like this for archons.

Agonizer. Hmm, someone mentioned the venom blade as a "replacement" to the agonizer. Well since both of them wound on a set value, it's pretty easy to check. What I found out was that the agonizer outperforms the venom blade against 4+ armor by 8% and against 3+ armor by a massive 22%. The venom blade outperforms the agonizer against 5+ armor by 6% and 6+ armor by 30%. It also does better against 2+, but only by 6%. I think that the margin between the agonizer and venom blade against 3+ armor is significant enough to merit the cost. This is marinehammer after all.

Flesh gauntlet. No one ever mentions this. I love this weapon. Set wounding with instant death, it is the other half of the huskblade. I really like it when paired with a venom blade. Use the venom blade against single wounders and the gauntlet on the others.

Power sword. I think it's a good way to go with wyches. Using agonizers lock you out of +1 strength drugs and furious charge. As we saw with the agonizer math, ignoring 3+ armor has a significant impact on those fights with marines.

Power axe. I have put quite a lot of thought into these. In cases where you could be a lone character, it is a terrible idea. You'll end up being caught by too many challenges, and dark eldar are fragile to a fault. I can see using it in a character heavy unit, such as a harlequin unit.

Venom blade. Until we got back our ap2 weapons, this weapon seemed to be luring us all away. But after doing the math, I now see that it is worth it's 5 points, but you may come up short against 3+ armor at the wrong time. I like it paired with a weapon that has an AP value. Since it is so cheap, you could replace a pistol with it, buy haywires for a "ranged attack" and be done.

In the casual, terrain heavy games that I play, incubi are absolutely bonkers. An archon with PGL leading them is terrifying, they aren't too worried about their ride exploding, nor are they overly worried about over watch. I do like that they are still very vulnerable to things like a 30 man shoota boy unit, or a battle cannon. They feel about right.

Note: if you play with the recommended terrain density in a competitive environment, don't take incubi. Just take guns.

I view flesh guantlet as a no because it isn't a power weapon.

For the harlequins, just take kisses, and without the psychic help from the farseer I don't think a Harlequin troupe should be taking up a slot for the DE.

Huskblades are nice, but I run the duke, and/or the baron, so I'm not worrying about it, I might take an Archon on ocasion, but more as a fun list.

The agoniser just isn't worth it being ap3. Venom blade for me everytime now. I love the thing, I never thought I would because of the whole armor save thing, but is still just does more wounds which means more chances to fail the random dice rolls.

I like the fact the incubi have ap2 now. They have a spot in my army now.

Very pleased with our FAQ.

My Archon is definitely picking up a huskblade and a soultrap. I'm honestly not sure if the huskblade is worth it... but it's fun. I get great joy out of my arrogant Archon challenging enemy HQs, and now he's a very scary opponent for any Non-eternal warriors.

Currently I run my Archon with allied Harlies (so they can get fortune) and it's working very well. It's the only assault element in my army and they do a good job of absorbing fire or deterring enemy units from getting near them.

However, I'm thinking of dropping the Harlies for some Grotes or possibly Incubi. Tough choices ahead, especially because Harlequins and Incubi are my two favorite units. Grotes I think are one of our few units that can hang with SS termies. They could absorb the hits while the Archon toys with whatever IC is inevitably in the termie unit.

I remember when the new DE book first came out, I was trying units for giggles, and one of these tests was a maxed out Grotesque unit. (10 Grots, Ab, Scissorhand)

This 400 odd points of hulking flesh led by a Haemonculi walked casually across the field, absorbing every shot thrown at it and taking the grand total of 3 wounds (this was the combined firepower of at least 5 plasma cannons, a few missile launchers, bunch of bolters... possibly something else).

After their 3 turn stroll through the park, they hopped up onto a Skyshield Landing Pad where he'd been hiding a squad of TH/SS terminators - his logic being, he can't really hurt me here, I'll wait for him to come to me.

The Grotesque Squad promptly wipes out the terminators.

This whole experience was admittedly probably a whole heap of luck, but fun all the same.

10 grotesques, 3 wounds, strolled across the board... Beautiful...

I think flesh gauntlets work best on abberations, for 5pts more than the usual scissorhands, you lose 1 attack but gain the ability to ID, you'd be wounding on 3+/2+ while using the new poisoned USR anyway, get them another PT, and they're basically running with ID venom blade on charge! But if you have no intention in throwing the abberation into challenges, it's probably still best to go with scissorhands...

I also think power lance can work for us on some units... against certain army... Take helliarch for example, if you're hunting MEQs, then 1st turn, challenge with drugged helliarch on power lance, should give you a good chance at winning combat. Survive another round of combat on your opponent's turn, hit and run, then charge another unit with power lance again(if they're in good numbers still)... And it looks kinda cool on them.

@Red Viper
Why not run both at the same time? I'm planning to eventually run baron-beastmasters and grotesques together in one 1500 list... Probably not gonna be the super win win list, but it's one I definitely would enjoy...

I love running 10 grots with two heamonculi. In my tests with this unit I learned some great things, this unit is nearly indestructible lol. If it has a weakness it is mobility. My brother shot two units of stern guard and two thunderfire canons plus some tactical pot shots only to discover he killed one and a half grots. He assaulted it with ten stern guard just to watch them get pulled apart, he wanted them to speed bump me for at least a turn lol. So from then on he just avoids the teamster unit entirely. I love that unit more then words can describe. I think two 6man units one with urien and another with two Heamis would be my new take. All upgraded to S6. Exspensive but now I will have two fronts to push with... Muahahaha!

.:End ghitty rant:.

Yeah it sounds like a fun unit. I have a bunch of rat ogres laying around...

Do you guys think 4 in a raider with archon and haemonculus would be workable? Or should I just run 10 + ICs and dare my opponent to try?

I have never used Grotes before, but this sounds like a lot of fun. I don't fight a lot of S10... and I'm the GK player in my group, so...

Works for me, though usually i run urien with them instead of the haemy and archon