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Well, after multiple attempts to run a Huskblade Archon I am convinced that that build is pretty garbage. Instant Death is just not good enough when you wound on 5's. A Soul Trap should help but I find that it just makes Characters hide in the back, and the resilience of Necrons or Iron Hands means that they still tarpit all day. The lack of AP2 is also, of course, pretty terrible. But I love the miniature so it's going to see play. How do you run your Archon for close combat with any success? I'm going to try running an Agonizer in a Court with Lhamaean(s) and some Sslyth to tank some wounds, has anyone had any luck with the Lhamaean Agonizer combo?

Is to bad to say the best thing to do with your Archon is run him as a Corsair Prince instead?

Huskblade's decent depending on your meta, good for knocking out those Khornate hounds and the like. Agonizer is probably better than Huskblade in most cases though, but why not Grotesques instead of Sslyth?

The days of the super arching with a huskblade carving through everything in its path is sadly over. Nowadays they are just webway portal caddies. Take a succubus with a glaive, give her a squad of grotesques and go to town.

Or just pick up a Lhameans for a cheap HQ so you can spend points on other stuff.

It is definitely the case that there are stronger threats in the book. But the model is so darn cool. I like the idea of Sslyth for multiple reasons, not least being that the model is great. Also, unlike Grotesques, they are Fleet and can fire three accurate poisoned shots each per turn. They have the same Strength, Attacks and Toughness, Feel No Pain, a slightly better save vs. non-power weapons, and multiple wounds. They take up a single slot in a transport, too. So you could throw three and a Lhamaean in a Venom for example. And they are ten points cheaper. Grotesques are certainly a vastly superior tarpit unit and one that can win a prolonged combat. But for the points I think Sslyth are maybe just as good as escorts when you plan on killing things in a Challenge. The Archon is equipped to either kill the character, or force them to hide and instead kill the squad. Obviously Incubi are a deadly choice as well, but they are not terribly resilient.

I like running a shadowfield huskblade soul trap archon with some Incubi with a klaivex in a venom.
Once had a 10 man mark of khorne CSM squad charge them, and promptly die before being able to do damage. it was glorious

It's just so depressing that the Incubi probably did most of that work though... it's a weird thing that the combat HQ's has no option for either AP2 or easy wounds without help. I bet it was very satisfying though.

aushlo wrote:
It's just so depressing that the Incubi probably did most of that work though... it's a weird thing that the combat HQ's has no option for either AP2 or easy wounds without help. I bet it was very satisfying though.

The combat HQ is either a Succubus, Lelith or Drazhar not an Archon, and Lelith struggles to wound as well. Frankly the best way to run an Archon is shooty with either Sslyth or Trueborn, if you want choppy run a Succubus or Drazhar with a squad of Incubi, as a 5 man squad it's pure murder for most infantry.

I miss my Archon on Jetbike. Why the heck is there a 2 page layout of fluff about a Reaver Champion who made his way up to be an Archon and now specialized in high speed Raids, yet no option in the rules to take a jetbike. Are they too "good" to hop on a bike? Or does it put them in too vulnerable a position for backstabbing?

Dark Eldar don't deserve such luxury.

 Galef wrote:
I miss my Archon on Jetbike. Why the heck is there a 2 page layout of fluff about a Reaver Champion who made his way up to be an Archon and now specialized in high speed Raids, yet no option in the rules to take a jetbike. Are they too "good" to hop on a bike? Or does it put them in too vulnerable a position for backstabbing?

No model no rules.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I miss my Archon on Jetbike. Why the heck is there a 2 page layout of fluff about a Reaver Champion who made his way up to be an Archon and now specialized in high speed Raids, yet no option in the rules to take a jetbike. Are they too "good" to hop on a bike? Or does it put them in too vulnerable a position for backstabbing?

No model no rules.

Than why bother making a 2 page fluff layout? It's not like that fluff was in an older codex and they copy-pasted. It's new fluff that proves Archons can ride bikes. Hopefully GWs new system of releasing piece-meal rules (rather than waiting for a whole new codex) will result in them making an Archon/Succubus Reaver mini that includes the a datasheet for it. They can even add an AP2 weapon (or Rending from the bike) to the datasheet.

--

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I miss my Archon on Jetbike. Why the heck is there a 2 page layout of fluff about a Reaver Champion who made his way up to be an Archon and now specialized in high speed Raids, yet no option in the rules to take a jetbike. Are they too "good" to hop on a bike? Or does it put them in too vulnerable a position for backstabbing?

No model no rules.

Not true. Show me the Chaplain on a bike model.

pm713 wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I miss my Archon on Jetbike. Why the heck is there a 2 page layout of fluff about a Reaver Champion who made his way up to be an Archon and now specialized in high speed Raids, yet no option in the rules to take a jetbike. Are they too "good" to hop on a bike? Or does it put them in too vulnerable a position for backstabbing?

No model no rules.

Not true. Show me the Chaplain on a bike model.

All rules apply differently to Space Marines than everyone else. The rule for space marines is "space marines get whatever their playerbase wants."

See: Dreadnoughts and scouts getting buffed thru a FAQ...

pm713 wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I miss my Archon on Jetbike. Why the heck is there a 2 page layout of fluff about a Reaver Champion who made his way up to be an Archon and now specialized in high speed Raids, yet no option in the rules to take a jetbike. Are they too "good" to hop on a bike? Or does it put them in too vulnerable a position for backstabbing?

No model no rules.

Not true. Show me the Chaplain on a bike model.

Coming at you, all the way from Third Edition:



Unfortunately the Archon is just in a really bad place right now. An S3, T3, AP3 model in 4+ armour does not make a particularly inspiring Murder Machine.

the_scotsman wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:

 Galef wrote:
I miss my Archon on Jetbike. Why the heck is there a 2 page layout of fluff about a Reaver Champion who made his way up to be an Archon and now specialized in high speed Raids, yet no option in the rules to take a jetbike. Are they too "good" to hop on a bike? Or does it put them in too vulnerable a position for backstabbing?

No model no rules.

Not true. Show me the Chaplain on a bike model.

All rules apply differently to Space Marines than everyone else. The rule for space marines is "space marines get whatever their playerbase wants."

See: Dreadnoughts and scouts getting buffed thru a FAQ...

How DARE people want CONSISTENT GOOD rules!? The selfish people! The nerve of them!

Edit: Pretty sure that's OOP so by the logic of no model = no rules we wouldn't have the rules for Chaplains on Bikes.

Vect on Dias has and OOP model, yet no rules for him anymore. Where's your logic now, Mr Spock?

aushlo wrote:
It's just so depressing that the Incubi probably did most of that work though... it's a weird thing that the combat HQ's has no option for either AP2 or easy wounds without help. I bet it was very satisfying though.

The Archon did pretty good. He killed their champion dude in a challenge, and the overflow killed another guy. And yeah, it felt great.
The entire battle was rather fun. He had a Vindicator that was only able to shoot once the entire game due to my mobility, and my Venoms tore apart most of his army. The Archon and Incubi wiping his squad was just icing on the cake

I'm working on my own Incubi at the moment, they should be pretty nasty. Just wish the Archon was better to go with them.

I had an Archon fail his Shadowfield save against a Singing Spear... the only time in my 4 years of playing have seen an important character get Triple Deathed..

DirtyDeeds wrote:
I had an Archon fail his Shadowfield save against a Singing Spear... the only time in my 4 years of playing have seen an important character get Triple Deathed..

A friend ran an archon for a few games, in the first one he failed the first shadowfield save he had to make when my death jester shot at him resulting in the archaon's beheading. In the second game he failed his second save roll and was decapitated by a killa kan. Soon after my friend stopped using and archon and a while later he swapped to fielding his astra militarum.

I remember the days of an archon murdering squad after squad after squad of my elite super soldiers known as space marines. It gave me a profound hatred of the dark eldar - but mad respect for their destructive ability. Today they aren't even a glimpse of their former selves. I would love to see a new DE codex drop - I would probably drop 2 grand on the army if it was competitive.

What's wrong with an Archon with Agonizer and Shadowfield?

Just no AP2?

 KiloFiX wrote:
What's wrong with an Archon with Agonizer and Shadowfield?

Just no AP2?

Lack of AP2, lack of mobility, lack of combat drugs, crappy soul trap, Succubus is better in melee for a lot cheaper.

 Dantioch wrote:

DirtyDeeds wrote:
I had an Archon fail his Shadowfield save against a Singing Spear... the only time in my 4 years of playing have seen an important character get Triple Deathed..

A friend ran an archon for a few games, in the first one he failed the first shadowfield save he had to make when my death jester shot at him resulting in the archaon's beheading. In the second game he failed his second save roll and was decapitated by a killa kan. Soon after my friend stopped using and archon and a while later he swapped to fielding his astra militarum.

On the other hand my Archon has one-shotted a Grey Knight Grand Master before and his Shadow Field has tanked an entire turn of shooting from an Imperial Knight.

Simply put, the Archon is the epitome of crap in this new book. Just terrible on so many levels it hurts just like the rest of Dark Eldar Codex. My personal vote for worst codex ever written.

He is in no way, shape or form a murder machine.

I'm not sure it's all that bad- in casual games it does ok and I like most of the units in the book in a vacuum. The problem is that codex creep has really nerfed a lot of good units in the army and there's easy access to too much Ignores Cover these days. No psykers and limited, highly situational force multipliers are rough. The fact that three potentially strong wargear options (Soulfright weapons and Crucible) in the book are flat out useless against Marines is a real slap in the face, especially when you look at how the DE seem to want to use Leadership and Morale debuffs to win games via Chain Snares and such. Remove the restrictions on Soulfright and its cousins vs. ATSKNF, make Huskblade AP2 and Poisoned, and fix Wyches, Hellions and recost Raiders, you start to have a book worth using. Unfortunately I suspect it'll be a while before we see much love. I'm confused as to why the newer models and boxed sets didn't also get nifty new rules for the army, as that tends to drive sales. The Start Collecting Formation is interesting but not sure if I think it's great. And of course there's the Archon tax...

 Imateria wrote:

aushlo wrote:
It's just so depressing that the Incubi probably did most of that work though... it's a weird thing that the combat HQ's has no option for either AP2 or easy wounds without help. I bet it was very satisfying though.

The combat HQ is either a Succubus, Lelith or Drazhar not an Archon, and Lelith struggles to wound as well. Frankly the best way to run an Archon is shooty with either Sslyth or Trueborn, if you want choppy run a Succubus or Drazhar with a squad of Incubi, as a 5 man squad it's pure murder for most infantry.

I miss the days when Lelith got +1 attack for every weapons skill point she had more than her opponents. An infantry shredder with 9 or 10 attacks on the charge felt unique and was lots of fun. Now she's just... meh.

The Archon is sadly pretty much the same. Not terrible with a good support squad, and fortunately the Archon has some very good choices there, but general too fragile and unable to dish out enough pain to be very good.

 fallinq wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

aushlo wrote:
It's just so depressing that the Incubi probably did most of that work though... it's a weird thing that the combat HQ's has no option for either AP2 or easy wounds without help. I bet it was very satisfying though.

The combat HQ is either a Succubus, Lelith or Drazhar not an Archon, and Lelith struggles to wound as well. Frankly the best way to run an Archon is shooty with either Sslyth or Trueborn, if you want choppy run a Succubus or Drazhar with a squad of Incubi, as a 5 man squad it's pure murder for most infantry.

I miss the days when Lelith got +1 attack for every weapons skill point she had more than her opponents. An infantry shredder with 9 or 10 attacks on the charge felt unique and was lots of fun. Now she's just... meh.

The Archon is sadly pretty much the same. Not terrible with a good support squad, and fortunately the Archon has some very good choices there, but general too fragile and unable to dish out enough pain to be very good.

Lelith's problem is she's S3, because with Rampage you can still have up to 10 attacks on the charge quite easily (and lets face it, you're not running her with Wyches, it'll either be Incubi or Grotesques so getting Rampage wont be much of a problem), which makes her damage output laughable. She needs to be S4 or have something akin to Poison.

So far the only DE HQ's I've had much luck with is a Succubus or Drazhar, put them with Incubi and the squad becomes an absolute murder machine with only the toughest of close combat units (like TWC) holding up to them. An Archon with a Blaster, an Haemonculus or Urien Rakarth can be occaisonly usefull but all lack real damage output.

The previous version of the DE book was awsome. Then 7th kicked them in the nuts, then the new DE book stomped them in the throat.

I guess too many shareholders play eldar/space marine and didn't like the idea of evil elves kicking thier rears all the time. So they got a nerfbat to the junk.

Sad ... DE were my first army and always my personal favorite fluff wise aside from orks.