Hexwraiths, Good, Bad, or Meh?

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**Grimmor**

I was looking at hexwraiths the other day and they look pretty awesome, i was just wondering what everyone else thinks.

**jonolikespie**

None of the above, they are AMAZING if used right.

2 units of five is ideal with no unit champions. Don't expect them to last the game unless you can shut down your enemy's magic phase but they are great at removing chaff, acting as chaff themselves, war machine hunting, later game rear charges combined with your main line charging in the front, creating a false threat/making people panic, assassinating wizards with suicidal back line charges and, most importantly, they are perfect monster hunters.

They can run through a skaven abomination, hit it with 5 S5 flaming attacks that ignore armour, then have Danse Macabre cast on them, run back through it and kill it in 1 turn. Even better is that they can do that with no threat to them.

**HawaiiMatt**

The other use is unit of 10 with champ, deployed out on a flank that lacks fighting heroes (IE no magic attacks).
Throw them into a unit and starting grinding.
With 10S5 attacks (no armor save) and a rank bonus, you're not going to lose combat and you will grind something down. Usually around turn 4, they are free and circle in behind to threat the rear of opponents main units.

**Tiarna Fuilteach**

They are ridiculously good

**BaconUprising**

jonolikespie wrote:
None of the above, they are AMAZING if used right.

2 units of five is ideal with no unit champions. Don't expect them to last the game unless you can shut down your enemy's magic phase but they are great at removing chaff, acting as chaff themselves, war machine hunting, later game rear charges combined with your main line charging in the front, creating a false threat/making people panic, assassinating wizards with suicidal back line charges and, most importantly, they are perfect monster hunters.

They can run through a skaven abomination, hit it with 5 S5 flaming attacks that ignore armour, then have Danse Macabre cast on them, run back through it and kill it in 1 turn. Even better is that they can do that with no threat to them.

Exactly what he said! They, when used right, are amazingly useful!

**jonolikespie**

HawaiiMatt wrote:
The other use is unit of 10 with champ, deployed out on a flank that lacks fighting heroes (IE no magic attacks).
Throw them into a unit and starting grinding.
With 10S5 attacks (no armor save) and a rank bonus, you're not going to lose combat and you will grind something down. Usually around turn 4, they are free and circle in behind to threat the rear of opponents main units.

I still don't think that's an efficient use of their points. That unit is 310 points, they have to roll to hit so their damage is reduced when not riding through their opponent and are vulnerable to flank charges that will start to crumble them. If you want to go a build that can hit hard without taking attacks back do an ethereal front rank in a unit of zombies.

**HawaiiMatt**

jonolikespie wrote:
HawaiiMatt wrote:
The other use is unit of 10 with champ, deployed out on a flank that lacks fighting heroes (IE no magic attacks).
Throw them into a unit and starting grinding.
With 10S5 attacks (no armor save) and a rank bonus, you're not going to lose combat and you will grind something down. Usually around turn 4, they are free and circle in behind to threat the rear of opponents main units.

I still don't think that's an efficient use of their points. That unit is 310 points, they have to roll to hit so their damage is reduced when not riding through their opponent and are vulnerable to flank charges that will start to crumble them. If you want to go a build that can hit hard without taking attacks back do an ethereal front rank in a unit of zombies.

That doesn't have near the speed of hexwraiths. Vanguard means combat bottom of turn 1 or top of turn 2. They are extremely good at disrupting your opponents battle line used this way.
If you put them out on the flank, anything flanking them is putting their own flank toward you main battle line.

As for number of hits, moving through an enemy is auto hits. Going into combat is hits on a 4+, but you do it twice a game turn.
So you're 2 units of 5 gives you 10 hits, 15 when you van hels danse one of the two.
When I van hels, I get re-rolls, letting my re-roll my 11 attacks twice (my turn and my opponents turn); which, stangely enough, also works out to be ~15 hits. I'm risking crumble for gaining a chance to break a wipe out a whole unit in one shot.

**Grimmor**

well im glad that they are as awesome as i thought they were, im definitely going to get a dozen, prbly run them in 2 groups.

**BaconUprising**

Why in 6's? Why not 5's?

**jonolikespie**

Nothing wrong with 6, 5 is the standard though as it's how many you get in a box.

**BaconUprising**

That's what I'm saying, for no massive benefit he has to buy another entire box to make those units.

**tgf**

depends if you opponent has a decent magic missile they are very east to kill.

**BaconUprising**

tgf wrote:
depends if you opponent has a decent magic missile they are very east to kill.

This is why you rarely see them in armies, especially not facing empire or Dark Elves. Oh how I hate Bladewind!

**The Shadow**

BaconUprising wrote:
tgf wrote:
depends if you opponent has a decent magic missile they are very east to kill.

This is why you rarely see them in armies, especially not facing empire or Dark Elves. Oh how I hate Bladewind!

Remember though that a lot of magic, especially that used by Dark Elves, is just hexes and buffs, which won't be a threat to Hexwraiths.

**BaconUprising**

Chillwind and blade wind crucify them easily but yes there are more destructive lores *cough fire

**Tiarna Fuilteach**

You don't see that many magic missiles here, the main lores are death, shadow, metal etc, and even metals missiles can't wound them

**BaconUprising**

Death has mainly assassination spells except for the obvious few.

**ALEXisAWESOME**

My wood elves stomp all over these. I played someone who had two units of them and though he could take down my treeman. He didn't get close, Noble with hail of doom arrows pumped out 10 shots which hits on two's and wounds on 3's...thats one squad dead. Fast second turn charge by wildriders means another dead unit. They where just to slow even if i didn't kill them so quick, they'd of never got to the units he wants to without getting killed by tree spirits.

**jonolikespie**

As easily as a single magic missile will kill them you have to consider that your opponent will be desperate to get that missile off most the time and you can use that to your advantage.

If they have killed his monster and done their job you can force him to waste 3 power dice to try and kill them, then dispell everything else that turn. Or you can throw all your dispell dice to stop that missile and aggravate him, if you do so next turn he will be throwing all his dice to get it off.

It isn't perfect but if he has nothing other than magic missiles to kill your hexwraiths and you are using your hexwraiths effectively you can screw with his magic phase.

**tgf**

Don't most armies run a ruby ring if they don't have a school with a solid missile in it? Last time I played a VC army with hex wriaths I killed them with a flock of doom.

**jonolikespie**

Most will run a magic missile yes, but if you can shut down that magic missile for 2 turns with your dispell dice the hexies should have gotten their job done then on the 3rd turn your opponent will throw all his dice at them to get rid of them and you can dispell everything else he tries that turn.

Not a perfect system but their vulnerability to magic missiles doesn't put them in the never include category.

**Tangent**

BaconUprising wrote:
Why in 6's? Why not 5's?

6 models is the maximum number that can fight in close combat against a war machine. More than that and you're wasting models/points, less than that and you're risking losing combat due to not dealing enough damage.

**jonolikespie**

Tangent wrote:
BaconUprising wrote:
Why in 6's? Why not 5's?

6 models is the maximum number that can fight in close combat against a war machine. More than that and you're wasting models/points, less than that and you're risking losing combat due to not dealing enough damage.

A damn good point.

**Tangent**

I just learned it myself not too long ago.

**HawaiiMatt**

Tangent wrote:
BaconUprising wrote:
Why in 6's? Why not 5's?

6 models is the maximum number that can fight in close combat against a war machine. More than that and you're wasting models/points, less than that and you're risking losing combat due to not dealing enough damage.

How are hex wraiths losing combat to warmachines?
Worst case is that they don't outright kill it, and get stuck fighting on your opponents turn.
How is a unit with no ranks, no standard, no musician and no magic attacks winning combat against wraiths?

-Matt

**BaconUprising**

Exactly why would it make a dam bit of difference? Hexwraiths will rampage through any war machine crew short of a hellcannon or a fully maxed out dwarf crew with engineer.

**Tangent**

Dudes, you've never seen an enemy unit succeed on a break test with exactly the number they needed to roll? If you had caused one more wound, they would have failed with that roll. And being tied up in combat isn't always great - you might want them elsewhere on the board as fast as possible, or it might be the last turn of the game. Someone might want to maximize their chances.

Christ.

**Tiarna Fuilteach**

Six is optimal for warmachine crews purely on the basis of with less then that on average your not killing the three models. I still find units of 10 to be the scariest units I've ever come up against, that includes double A-bombs, K'Daai etc

**HawaiiMatt**

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
Six is optimal for warmachine crews purely on the basis of with less then that on average your not killing the three models. I still find units of 10 to be the scariest units I've ever come up against, that includes double A-bombs, K'Daai etc

You don't want to kill them all on the charge.
Best thing to do is finish them on your opponents turn. Then you can reform for free and charge again on your turn.

-Matt

**Tiarna Fuilteach**

But you also don't want to be held in one combat, not wiping them out in that turn leaves you more prone to charges and static combat res