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Is anyone running this guy? I've been taking him in some games around the shop and he's been consistently on part with my Flyrants as MVP.

I'll share my experiences. Before I read this, go get 5 dice (his attacks on the charge) and roll. He hits on 3's, rerolling 1's, and then he wounds on 2's and 5+'s rend. See how many rends you get.



Game 1: Mech Dark Eldar
This is Tyranids' worst match up. I actually managed my 2nd win ever against them despite 6 venoms, some raiders and 3 ravagers.

The Deathleaper's Tally:
1 Venom wrecked when he appeared, Assaulted and ran down 10 Kabalite warriors, assaulted and ran down another 10 warriors

Number of wounds received:
1 from a CC attack. The warriors were hitting on 5's and wounding on 5's. I could charge from cover and the frag grenades let me strike at I7. Fleet let me reroll charge distances which helped

Leadership affect:
LD5 Haemonculus which, due to my warlord's power which made him use the lowest leadership value in the unit, made the whole squad LD5



Game 2: Dark Angels
Not the most competitive list... but the Deathleaper was the MVP this game. He also took down some pretty serious targets for him.

Tally:
Last hullpoint off a vindicator (appeared in rear armor), 3 Terminators w/ lightning claws (2 died previously), 3 shooty Terminators (sergeant in combat, hit and ran, then actually rended with a shot and the other shot hit and my opponent rolled a 1 to save)

Wounds:
None

Leadership affect:
Leadership 9 librarian never casted any powers due to SitW.



Game 3: GK
Again, not the most competitive list but the Deathleaper fought some pretty crazy fights.

Tally:
3 Strike Knights and Draigo (he had 1 wound left and after 2 rounds of combat the Deathleaper finally killed him)

Wounds:
1 from some storm bolters

Leadership affect:
Leadership 7 Draigo who never got any powers off in combat



Game 4: Tau
Incredible shooting, lots of marker lights but some strange choices and tactics. We only played 2.5 turns (my opponent got 3 to my 2) so take that into consideration.

Tally:
1 Kroot sniper to shooting

Wounds:
None, Kroot opened up on him instead of my MCs and he saved everything

Leadership affect:
LD8 Farsight... not really that big of a deal in this game




I haven't taken him to a tournament in this edition yet, but hopefully this will serve as some in-game evidence of his worth. What does Dakka think? He seems to be 140 points to mess up an opponent's HQ choice and a practically guaranteed line breaker (3 out of 4 games this happened).

Deathleaper is certainly a viable choice, the main reasons not many people would be taking him are probably his points cost and the fact that he's in the heavily congested Elites, competing with Hive Guard, Zoanthropes, Ymgarl Genestealers, The Doom, even Venomthropes. There's also the issue of Tau, markerlights can remove that 2+ cover save so easily now and Deathleaper's very squishy.

Personally, every time I feel tempted to run Deathleaper I'm reminded that Ymgarls can assault the turn they arrive and it can't.

I love ygmarls but my shop just doesn't have that much area terrain. The 6th edition rules makes it so hard to have area terrain because it has to be mounted on a base in order for it to be "area terrain"

I agree, Tau is going to shake him up. You can mitigate this by placing him out of LoS of markerlights or out of range of any markerlight units.

Helldrakes are going to kill him pretty easily too.

He's great and I love him, but frankly not competitive because we already have psychic defense, and he's a single model. Now my local meta has plenty of area terrain, but for roughly the same cost I can get 6 Ymgarls. A lot tougher due to more wounds, can assault t2 so more damage, and won't be auto shot to heck. Lictors would be so easy to fix, just make 'Leaper an upgrade character and give them the same reserve-assault rules as Ymgarls. Not broken but good, sadly for now I can't justify taking him. Just too pricey next to other, better, units that can do the same role.

Here is a summary of his rules and how I use them. I think it's important to realize what he offers your army and you do that by KNOWING what he does, haha. He has a lot of weird stuff going on which is why I really like him.

Rending Claws:
This is deadly. Rending is how he threatens Terminators and Power armored models.

Scything Talons:
Reroll 1's to hit in CC. This means that he will hit on everything but a 2 against almost every model out there.

Chameleonic Skin:
His 'appear' deployment ability. Do not underestimate the ability to control his engagements.

IB-Lurk:
LD 10 helps... plus, with Flyrants he will probably be in Synapse. However, I have only taken the IB test once and he lurked... against Mech DE. However, if this happens he can just "Where'd it go?" away.

Fearless:
He'll never get beaten and combat and run down. He'll never get pinned. He'll never fail a fear check or anything like that. He doesn't need to GtG and he doesn't need to "Our weapons are useless!" away from combat.

Fleet:
You can regularly charge out of cover with him now. He gets to reroll his charge dice to avoid rolling 6, 1, 1 and failing a charge. If you start out in cover, you can maintain that 2+ coversave for overwatch shots before you go in. You also complete long-bomb charges more often.

Hit and Run:
I use this a lot to get out of combats that I realize I have no business being in anymore. Sometimes I'll run in and kill who I was after and dodge out. Or, I'll dodge out to do something else and run that unit over with gaunts. If you get in combat with a dreadnought (maybe a psyfleman to protect yourself from shooting attacks?) you can hit and run on your opponent's turn. Hit and running on your opponent's turn means you can fly 3D6" in a direction and then run off to do something useful or just disappear.

Pheromone Trail:
Most disappointing ability in the codex. I have literally never used this.

Move Through Cover:
Helps him run around through buildings and the like. It also protects him from dangerous terrain tests as he always passes them.

Stealth:
+1 coversave, NICE!

"It's after me!"
-D3 leadership from a character (sergeant, IC, Monstrous Creature (character)) is extremely useful. I've gotten the warlord trait that forces enemy units within 12" to use their lowest leadership which combo's great with this. Also works well with the Doom.

"What was that?"
-D6 from move through cover rolls within 12". As far as I can tell this means that you can't ever assault him from more than 12" away. In 6th edition, you roll 3D6 and remove the highest to assault through cover. To assault, you must be within 12". So now, you roll 2D6 and remove the highest... which means on double 6's you charge only 6". Combined with his ability to appear anywhere you want, he shouldn't be charged unless you want him in combat. You only have shooting to fear which you can bounce off with cover saves.

"Where is it?"
Shrouding in the FAQ, +2 cover save (stacks with stealth) NICE!!!

"Where did it go?"
Disappear and go into reserves. This is why he's auto-line breaker unless your opponent manages to kill him. You can hit and run away on your opponent's turn and do this, you can do it if you lurk, you can do this if you need to bug out of a bad situation. It says "can be re-deployed" which means he could be held in reserves until turn 5 where you appear near an objective to contest or to get linebreaker.

"Killing Strike"
Rend on a 5+. This means he wounds 5/6 of the time and rends 2/3rds of the time. This is awesome. He can kill 2 terminators on his own, maybe 3 if he can challenge the squad leader. Rending always wounds btw, regardless of toughness. Str 6 can wound pretty much anything, but wounding T10 on a 5+ is kind of like being str 9.

Note: Rends on to wound rolls of 5+. This does not effect vehicles.

Character:
Challenges are huge for him. Always challenge. He will most likely kill a sergeant and save himself from the rest of the squad... or he eliminates one model he's fighting. Sometimes, if I am afraid of a particular model with a fist or something I'll challenge, kill the sergeant or avoid the sergeant, and if I don't break the squad he'll hop away into terrain and away from the unit. He's really dodgy and useful. You can charge a psyfleman dread (no DCCW) to launch yourself forward, maybe do a hullpoint or maybe even wreck it, but then on your opponent's turn you'll be safe from shooting AND you can go 3D6" further right before your movement phase to propell yourself even further. Maybe you really want to kill the devastators behind enemy lines. This is how you reach them in a very effective yet fluffy and cinematic way.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jifel wrote:
He's great and I love him, but frankly not competitive because we already have psychic defense, and he's a single model. Now my local meta has plenty of area terrain, but for roughly the same cost I can get 6 Ymgarls. A lot tougher due to more wounds, can assault t2 so more damage, and won't be auto shot to heck. Lictors would be so easy to fix, just make 'Leaper an upgrade character and give them the same reserve-assault rules as Ymgarls. Not broken but good, sadly for now I can't justify taking him. Just too pricey next to other, better, units that can do the same role.

Do you rate regular genestealers with a broodlord? For roughly the cost of 6 ygmarls you can get 4 genestealers with toxin sacs and a Broodlord with scything talons. You can infiltrate wherever you want (to be aggressive or to deny your opponent's infiltrators) and probably assault turn 2 if you wanted to. They have 1 less armor... and get shot at for a turn or two but they do draw fire. The Broodlord is a BAMF especially with his hypnotic gaze. He's two more powers for you power pool also.

My 1850 list has the Deathleaper and the genestealer unit listed above.

Where Did It Go is amazing. He's a darn good unit.

He does look good to be honest but I think he is way over costed to be truly competitive. If he was 90/100 points he could maybe compete with doom and ymgarls.

His biggest problem is by far the over crowding in the elites. Yes he is a strong unit but he is just one model. He is nothing super devastating that makes a smart opponent draw fire away from others. He steals position from zoanthropes and hive guard which are crucial for anti-armor. He is also not near the power the Doom is. Also he still clearly competes with ymgarls and venomthropes who both bring something highly desirable. The only Elites he clearly beats out without trying is lictors and pyrovores, which are clearly the least effective units in the book.

He does have alot of promising abilities and should be a major asset when he is there but there isn't enough consistency present. Personally both himself and lictors would benefits from a FOC swap into the fast slot.

On a side note he is still very effective against vehicles. He will hit on 3s reroll 1s and then with S6 and rending on a 5/6 he can easily do damage to armor 12 and possibly pen armour 14.

The Death Leaper is most useful to screw over a powerful IC the enemy has, especially if he's a psyker like Mephiston, Draigo, or Eldrad. If the enemy doesn't have one of these, he probably won't earn back his points. Still a great distraction unit...

I like Deathleaper, I've been using him because I find the Doom too cheesy for my regular opponents, but his only real problems are that he's very fragile and he's way overcosted. Otherwise, he's funner than a barrel of monkeys.

dmthomas7 wrote:On a side note he is still very effective against vehicles. He will hit on 3s reroll 1s and then with S6 and rending on a 5/6 he can easily do damage to armor 12 and possibly pen armour 14.

Unfortunately, the wording on Killing Strike makes it Rend on a 5+ on to wound rolls only, so Deathleaper's not quite as effective against vehicles as it appears to be.