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AnFéasógMór wrote:

vipoid wrote:

Hmm. What if it worked on <Kabal> and 'mercenary' units (Scourges, Incubi and Mandrakes)?

I'd hope they'd at least acknowledge the leadership of the guy who's paying them.

See, that I definitely think should be the case. In general the fact that merc units get like 0 buffs is annoying.

It's rather annoying that we don't have any HQs for them. Incubi have Drazhar, I guess. But there's no corresponding Scourge or Mandrake HQ.

So, yeah, it would be nice if the Archon was able to buff them.

the_scotsman wrote:
They have 2 attacks. In what is almost certainly going to be the most popular Kabal, they hit nearly 100% of the time (rerollable 2s if near an archon, starting turn 2 with the Black Heart bonus), and then they cause a mortal wound on a 4+, so an average of about .9 MWs/Lhaeman.

Sure. But that's all they do. They have no shooting to speak of, they put out very few attacks, they don't benefit from Open Topped transports, they're pretty fragile in spite of their 3 wounds.

If they only caused Mortal Wounds on a to-wound roll of 6, why would you ever take them?

the_scotsman wrote:

They are a single model unit, 3 wounds, 5+ save 6++, which means you have to dedicate at least some fire to kill them, but because they're a one-model unit you're going to be overkilling them extremely often.

True. At the same time, the units you're most likely to want Mortal Wounds against are also the most likely to have multiple-damage weapons. So those 3 wounds may end up meaning very little.

the_scotsman wrote:

The only thing htat keeps them from being supremely broken to "I'm making a whole army of these" level is the fact that you can only have 4 per detachment.

Which is a pretty important limitation.

the_scotsman wrote:

Entire squads of snipers wish they had the mortal wound output of one fifteen point lhamean.

And I wish we had HQs that could inflict Mortal Wounds with psychic powers from 18" away whilst also buffing a unit in their army or debuffing an enemy one. or just using a different power to inflict extra Mortal Wounds.

Look, I don't dispute that Lhamaeans are good. I just don't think they're OMGBroken! However, I'm happy to reassess my opinion once I manage to get some games in with them.

the_scotsman wrote:

The "competitive wych detachment" if people do wyches in their competitive lists is almost certainly going to just be an outrider of Red Grief with Reavers and Scourges. Wyches are decent now, but I don't think they're good enough to carve out a slot amidst Ynnari/eldar soup.

Regarding Reavers, am I right in thinking the main draw is the ability to charge on turn 1?

If so, is it worth taking Blasters on them, or should they just take Grav Talons?


EDIT:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Only issue I see is - archons are still quite useless. Incubi are useless. Scourges are also useless. Some pretty iconic units not getting any love...I just don't get it.

I agree about Archons, but are Scourges really useless? I get that they're fragile, but I'd have thought deep striking Blasters (with d6 damage now) or cheap Haywire Blasters would make them useful. Am I wrong?

The problem I keep having with Scourges is that I want Ravagers with disintegrator cannons and I want a bunch of Warriors in Venoms. I can either give the Warriors blasters or else take Scourges. Doing both seems like anti-tank overkill, but if I'm only doing one then it's obviously giving blasters to the Warriors since they're a lot more survivable.

Scourge not getting <kabal> really hurts them.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I think we are mostly going to see flayed skull - transport/shuriken cannon spam. Probably a blackheart spearhead with ravagers just so you can use agents of vect as well.

Only issue I see is - archons are still quite useless. Incubi are useless. Scourges are also useless. Some pretty iconic units not getting any love...I just don't get it.

Flayed Skull mixed with Black Heart to get 6+++ ravagers as the core to an army is a possibility, but I still don't see it happening in a horde meta. Poison is just at too big of a disadvantage vs hordes when on the flip side of the coin, we could just ditch the Flayed Skull detachment for a Ynnari and Alaitoc and have deep striking guardian blobs be your sweepers. I suppose we'll see, it could happen that the ability to deep strike a squad of kabs with shredders and SC repeatedly for just 1cp each wins out, I think they're within a few percentage points of each other in terms of efficiency.

Archons - Disagree. D6 damage blast weapons, reroll 1 to hit aura, and good relics/WL traits make archons much improved for their points costs. Theyve gone from utter deadweight to a mediocre relic/WL trait caddy that has some interesting tricks and is great for casual fluffy games.

Incubi - Agree. One of the regrettable instances of "improved points cost, didnt fix unit" we have in the codex.

Scourges - biiiiiiiiiiiiig old disagree. Scourges are massively improved. Blaster, Shredder, and Haywire scourges are all viable depending on the meta. They deep strike, they fill your FA slots regardless of subfaction, they're cheap as chips, what's not to love there?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dionysodorus wrote:
The problem I keep having with Scourges is that I want Ravagers with disintegrator cannons and I want a bunch of Warriors in Venoms. I can either give the Warriors blasters or else take Scourges. Doing both seems like anti-tank overkill, but if I'm only doing one then it's obviously giving blasters to the Warriors since they're a lot more survivable.

Give one of the two of them Shredders, then. Splitting the Kabs focus between anti-tank and anti-infantry feels like a bad move. I look at it this way - I need my anti-infantry capabilities to stay alive multiple turns pumping fire into stupid giant obnoxious blobs of infantry. I need my anti-tank capabilities to show up and deal a bunch of damage all at once to kill any hard targets that exist.

Kabalites are great for former, scourges for latter.

Scourges are phenomenal as a surgicall strike unit. But I can see how they lose appeal in probably the fastest army in the game.

But that does not make them bad, just another option in the Dark Eldar toolbox.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Scourge not getting <kabal> really hurts them.

The only kabal you'd want on them is Obsidian rose, and even then...they deep strike, and you're not going to be taking OR 90% of the time anyway, unless you're really hankering to pull a shittier version of the 20 guardian drop with kabalites. BH is all but required, and Serpents Kiss and Flayed Skull are pretty much preference. I like SK because I'm going to be taking raiders with my BH detachment anyway and my SK trait works out very slightly stronger than my FS trait for my infantry.

I would call those ynnari armies. Was speaking pure dark eldar. As you posted on the last page - ynnari DE is going to be a black heart spearhead with ravagers just to unlock AOV. Nerfs in APR FAQ will determine the rest of the list - it's probably going to be mostly eldar though.

Archon I see as useless because you can get a better reroll 1's which affects units inside of transports. Making his reroll 1's redundant or ineffectual as DE prefer to stay inside transports and shoot out of them. Would have much preferred he went back to being a CC monster than a buffer.

As far as scourges go - I guess 4 shredders can give you some legit anti infantry firepower. However - I think it's just to fragile to rely on. Warriors in raiders with splinter racks will still do better I think overall. Hitting more/ and wounding more produce the same results.

Yeah, Xenomancers, mate, I think you might be running different Scourges than the rest of us. I love my glass cannons. I mean, they're definitely fragile, but 4 special weapons to a five man squad on a deep strike unit, with a 6++/6+++? I'll take that. Especially on a night like last night, when they roll 4 sixes to save and a squad that should have been dead just loses a shardcarbine.

AnFéasógMór wrote:
Yeah, Xenomancers, mate, I think you might be running different Scourges than the rest of us. I love my glass cannons. I mean, they're definitely fragile, but 4 special weapons to a five man squad on a deep strike unit, with a 6++/6+++? I'll take that. Especially on a night like last night, when they roll 4 sixes to save and a squad that should have been dead just loses a shardcarbine.

A venom would have not even lost a unit though with those same rolls - it likely would have had to take less saves too.

 vipoid wrote:

Regarding Reavers, am I right in thinking the main draw is the ability to charge on turn 1?

If so, is it worth taking Blasters on them, or should they just take Grav Talons?

I'd run heat lances on them, and here's why: After running Red Grief bikers, I don't know how useful theu actually are. Like, great if you get first turn, but if you don't (which is increasingly likely now that the same points buys you a few more units). That "look at us, we can run 26" and then charge" is a big ole target on their back. Like guy I played last night annihilated the entire squad turn 1 (in fairness, wasted 90% of his firepower doing so and left everything else untouched, which served it's own type of purpose). In some way, I think Webway Portaled Strife bikers could be just as, if not more, useful.

But, in fairness, a few more matches might show different results.

I'd still out lances or blasters on them tho. You can shoot them after you advance, and you can always hit something other than what you want to charge.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:

AnFéasógMór wrote:
Yeah, Xenomancers, mate, I think you might be running different Scourges than the rest of us. I love my glass cannons. I mean, they're definitely fragile, but 4 special weapons to a five man squad on a deep strike unit, with a 6++/6+++? I'll take that. Especially on a night like last night, when they roll 4 sixes to save and a squad that should have been dead just loses a shardcarbine.

A venom would have not even lost a unit though with those same rolls - it likely would have had to take less saves too.

But a Venom also can't carry 4 dark lances/blasters. You could run an index squad of Trueborn, sure, but they're gonna cost the same as the Scourges to begin with, and then you're paying another 70-85 points on top of that, almost the cost of another squad of Scourges, for a transport to put them in. A transport that, unless you spend a CP for screaming jets, is on the table potentially getting shot up if you don't get turn 1. Yeah, Venoms are hardy little tanks, but it still takes on lucky melta roll and some unlucky rolls for the transports to cripple a squad your paid significantly more for.

I don't necessarily think it's even worse than Scourges, I just don't think it's better

It's too bad jetbikes can't take shredders - that's where I want to put them.

 Xenomancers wrote:
It's too bad jetbikes can't take shredders - that's where I want to put them.

I hadn't even thought of this. God, that would be amazeballs. Like, shredders are meh compared to blasters and lances on kabs and such, but 12 bikers coming in with like 16 RF splinter shots and 4d6 shredders on an unsuspecting infantry unit would make my day. Would honestly be super fluffy, too.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I would call those ynnari armies. Was speaking pure dark eldar. As you posted on the last page - ynnari DE is going to be a black heart spearhead with ravagers just to unlock AOV. Nerfs in APR FAQ will determine the rest of the list - it's probably going to be mostly eldar though.

Archon I see as useless because you can get a better reroll 1's which affects units inside of transports. Making his reroll 1's redundant or ineffectual as DE prefer to stay inside transports and shoot out of them. Would have much preferred he went back to being a CC monster than a buffer.

As far as scourges go - I guess 4 shredders can give you some legit anti infantry firepower. However - I think it's just to fragile to rely on. Warriors in raiders with splinter racks will still do better I think overall. Hitting more/ and wounding more produce the same results.

I'd call those competitive Aeldari armies. Until GW nerfs allies somehow compared to pure factions, you may as well consider everything under your main faction umbrella to be a tool that you have. Wyches and kabs are as much the same faction as Wyches and Ynnari or Kabs and Craftworlds.

We'll see how April FAQ goes. It will probably take only a small tap to knock both Ynnari and CWE down and put DE as the workhorse of competitive aeldari, with Alaitoc as a splash ally to get whatever units are still good. If the FAQ knocks off Dark Reapers and Shining Spears and gives Ynnari a flat nope on using DE or CWE strats, you're going to see allied CWE battalions to get some min ranger squads, some WWP guardian squads, and a farseer+Autarch skyrunner, and that's going to be the extent of CWE in competitive aeldari lists.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or you can take poisoned tongue and a webway portal and get reroll 1s on both hit and wound.

In the narrow context of JUST flayed skull mounted kabalites...yep, archons are not useful as a buffer for that.

Luckily you can take combat build archons in venoms with courts, and they're really solid.

you can also take buffer archons with poisoned tongue/obsidian rose foot squads, and they're good.

You can also take buffer archons with ravagers, and they're good.

You can also put an anti-psychic hat on him vs a psyker heavy list, and you're going to get good value out of him.

You can take 1 archon and make him really solid in a variety of ways. It's when your list has 3 of them that they become crappy tax units.

For a Poison Tongue army, do you think it's worth taking Agonisers on Kabalite warriors (since they get rerolls in combat)?

Also, do you think Blast Pistols are worth it on Kabalites?

the_scotsman wrote:

Or you can take poisoned tongue and a webway portal and get reroll 1s on both hit and wound.

What are you using the WWP on?

the_scotsman wrote:
You can take 1 archon and make him really solid in a variety of ways. It's when your list has 3 of them that they become crappy tax units.

I'd argue they become crappy tax units after the first.

Oh well, at least I'll have an expendable HQ to throw at the enemy.

 vipoid wrote:
For a Poison Tongue army, do you think it's worth taking Agonisers on Kabalite warriors (since they get rerolls in combat)?

Also, do you think Blast Pistols are worth it on Kabalites?

I personally do, yes, I normally take 2-3 anyways, only b.c i always get into melee with kabals at some point or another, yeah its 12pts that in total might not do to much, but i have had games where killing that extra model made the difference in melee.

 vipoid wrote:
For a Poison Tongue army, do you think it's worth taking Agonisers on Kabalite warriors (since they get rerolls in combat)?

Also, do you think Blast Pistols are worth it on Kabalites?

the_scotsman wrote:

Or you can take poisoned tongue and a webway portal and get reroll 1s on both hit and wound.

What are you using the WWP on?

the_scotsman wrote:
You can take 1 archon and make him really solid in a variety of ways. It's when your list has 3 of them that they become crappy tax units.

I'd argue they become crappy tax units after the first.

Oh well, at least I'll have an expendable HQ to throw at the enemy.

No, waste of points. Sybarites want PGLs or nothing IMO. Why would you ever charge your kabs into combat, or if charged, why would you assume you'd survive to swing back?

You webway portal 20 kabalites (maybe 2x20) and just hop an archon to get over to them. With a footprint that size, it shouldn't be hard. Unload a metric crapton of splinter fire into them rerolling 1s on both hit and wound, then if any unit is vulnerable to counterattack use fire and fade to move them away (or FnF to seize an objective/set up a screen)

I like that way better than buying four Raiders to transport my Kabs. Makes better use of our ability to prevent the 2Cp morale strat to wipe big horde units.

It's really unfortunate that tournaments love that 3 detachment limit. I'd love to run 1 patrol of Poison Tongue, 1 Spearhead of Black Heart, 1 patrol of Red Grief and 1 patrol of Prophets of Flesh.

the_scotsman wrote:

 vipoid wrote:
For a Poison Tongue army, do you think it's worth taking Agonisers on Kabalite warriors (since they get rerolls in combat)?

Also, do you think Blast Pistols are worth it on Kabalites?

the_scotsman wrote:

Or you can take poisoned tongue and a webway portal and get reroll 1s on both hit and wound.

What are you using the WWP on?

the_scotsman wrote:
You can take 1 archon and make him really solid in a variety of ways. It's when your list has 3 of them that they become crappy tax units.

I'd argue they become crappy tax units after the first.

Oh well, at least I'll have an expendable HQ to throw at the enemy.

No, waste of points. Sybarites want PGLs or nothing IMO. Why would you ever charge your kabs into combat, or if charged, why would you assume you'd survive to swing back?

You webway portal 20 kabalites (maybe 2x20) and just hop an archon to get over to them. With a footprint that size, it shouldn't be hard. Unload a metric crapton of splinter fire into them rerolling 1s on both hit and wound, then if any unit is vulnerable to counterattack use fire and fade to move them away (or FnF to seize an objective/set up a screen)

I like that way better than buying four Raiders to transport my Kabs. Makes better use of our ability to prevent the 2Cp morale strat to wipe big horde units.

It's really unfortunate that tournaments love that 3 detachment limit. I'd love to run 1 patrol of Poison Tongue, 1 Spearhead of Black Heart, 1 patrol of Red Grief and 1 patrol of Prophets of Flesh.

Why? B.c objectives...... 100's of variables in games, thats why "some" players like TAC lists and not pure alpha strike or nothing.

In general, a 20-man squad of Kabalites that deep strikes in, fires at full effectiveness, and then moves 7" in whatever direction it wants is much, MUCH better at claiming objectives than a 10-man squad of kabalites that loses its damage buff if it exits its raider. That's exactly why you see high level players doing the exact same thing with 20 man guardian blobs - not because it's some brainless all-in alpha strike, but because it establishes incredible board control and leaves a lot of room for micro unit placement to matter.

It is objectively more of a TAC element than a transported squad. Also, there's no reason you can't use both, and if you want to fill up a battalion, you have to.

There's nothing particularly tactical in my eyes about spending a few extra points on a melee weapon that will rarely do anything. You can certainly point to some time when 2 slightly better melee attacks made some difference in the game, but you're turning a blind eye to those times that 1 extra splinter shot and 4 points spent elsewhere would have made a much bigger difference. You're basically paying the points to set up a situation where you can give yourself confirmation bias because you now have to separate out the Sybarite's combat dice and see him roll separately. End of the day it's four points, do what you like, I have a bunch of models that I field purely because they look good, but you are taking a tiny hit to the effectiveness of your list.

the_scotsman wrote:
In general, a 20-man squad of Kabalites that deep strikes in, fires at full effectiveness, and then moves 7" in whatever direction it wants is much, MUCH better at claiming objectives than a 10-man squad of kabalites that loses its damage buff if it exits its raider. That's exactly why you see high level players doing the exact same thing with 20 man guardian blobs - not because it's some brainless all-in alpha strike, but because it establishes incredible board control and leaves a lot of room for micro unit placement to matter.

It is objectively more of a TAC element than a transported squad. Also, there's no reason you can't use both, and if you want to fill up a battalion, you have to.

There's nothing particularly tactical in my eyes about spending a few extra points on a melee weapon that will rarely do anything. You can certainly point to some time when 2 slightly better melee attacks made some difference in the game, but you're turning a blind eye to those times that 1 extra splinter shot and 4 points spent elsewhere would have made a much bigger difference. You're basically paying the points to set up a situation where you can give yourself confirmation bias because you now have to separate out the Sybarite's combat dice and see him roll separately. End of the day it's four points, do what you like, I have a bunch of models that I field purely because they look good, but you are taking a tiny hit to the effectiveness of your list.

There are other turns in the game too and not everyone plays ITC, some of us play with actual end game objectives.

Edit: Spelling

I feel like there's a lot of hostility here lol. I'm not saying you're not allowed to play mounted Kabalites, the original purpose of the discussion was how to successfully use multiple archons past the first 1/2. if you want to go for a deep striking large kabalite unit, having an archon to support them is a very good use of that Archon, especially if he's also buffing a few transports.

20 Kabalites with 4 shredders and 2 splinter cannons costs 172 points. Very worth dedicating an archon to buff as he moves towards combat, especially if you also want to use him for the Helm of Spite. And that's hardly all your list - it's exactly one unit. For reference, 5 blaster scourges cost 133 points. If I said I was going to include 2 units of those, would you respond with "Well some of us like to play like there's more than one turn in the game"?

I think if you're running enough Kabalite stuff that you need 3 or more archons (which I think for a Kab heavy list is probably where you're at, 1 Battalion plus 1 other detachment to get Black Heart) then you're well suited including some stuff specifically which has good synergy working with archons. Maybe you wouldn't ordinarily want a Court, for instance, but it's very worth including one in a kabal-heavy list because it gives you a not-terrible role for an archon.

You can make the same argument for including some Incubi as well. Objectively incubi aren't great, but they can fit in a Raider with an archon, they have the same or similar offensive profile as him, and they turn him from a weird little unit you'll basically ignore to something that might conceivably hurt or threaten you.

No hostility at all, just saying not everyone plays the same and there are different mission/house rules players play by b.c tournaments made them popular.

At my local games will almost always go to 5-6 rounds and we play about 50/50 missions that will have end game objectives, its important when you have someone throwing 3-10 mans on them and you lost 70% your army, so you dont have enough fire power to kill them off and you also need to get on them your self.

Just trying to show a different perspective that might matter to others. And i feel spending 8-12 points for those end turns is fine, others will not, i was just giving my reason why i take them. I just didnt want to sound like i take them b.c they make me feel good, but b.c they do help me.


Edit: Spelling

I would agree on the issue of agonizers and blast pistols on Kabs. They just aren't worth the points. Keeping Kabs out of CC is a good thing (part of why KotBH's obsession is kind of weak, although balanced by warlord trait), and blast pistols require you to put yourself at risk to use them. I'm a fan of PGLs though, especially with torment grenades.

Hmm, that's a shame.

I was hoping to get some use out of the rerolls in melee from PT.

I mostly play kabalites in venoms, and any upgrade that isn't a blaster is wasted on 5 man squads.

I wouldn't give the pistol even to deepstriking blobs since it can be in range in the turn the unit arrives.

I'd give the blast pistol to succubus and wyches if I'm not short on points though as I really want them to rush towards the enemy while the kabalite are mostly ranged shooting dudes in my games.

About the weapons on reavers: I wouldn't bother in small units, too fragile, just the grav talon that is an auto take for 3 points. But on a big unit of 9-12 bikes? 2-4 blasters could be nice, especially if you can't advance and charge. I'm saying this because as much as I like the Red Grief bonus also Lelith's cult one is very good and if I bring a considerable wych cult force I'd go with the Strife.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

the_scotsman wrote:


You can take 1 archon and make him really solid in a variety of ways. It's when your list has 3 of them that they become crappy tax units.

I agree but we want CPs so we need HQs. A kabal battallion is probably the most effective battallion since wracks are a tax, more than the archon, and wych cults battallions look good and fun but definitely not that easy to play at competitive levels. I think 3+ kabalite units are quite needed for a TAC list, at least in the first period when we don't have much experience with all the synergies.

Blast pistols fill a big niche, but it's disappointing they're more expensive than both fusion and inferno pistols.

Right, many Kabal focussed lists will end up with 3 archons. Unless you go the Black Heart airwing detachment route, which gets you down yo only 2 bit you don't get labyrinthine cunning.

I don't agree wracks are a tax. They're good little units at 5 msn squads, 2 to a raider. Ossefactor and EC whip in each one.

 axisofentropy wrote:
Blast pistols fill a big niche, but it's disappointing they're more expensive than both fusion and inferno pistols.

And objectively worse than both.

Look at a wrack and look at a tzaangor. Why is the former a tax and the latter a competitive spammsble unit?

the_scotsman wrote:
Look at a wrack and look at a tzaangor. Why is the former a tax and the latter a competitive spammsble unit?

Is the answer that Tzaangors wound T3 on a 3+, have better AP, and are 23% cheaper?

Dionysodorus wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
Look at a wrack and look at a tzaangor. Why is the former a tax and the latter a competitive spammsble unit?

Is the answer that Tzaangors wound T3 on a 3+, have better AP, and are 23% cheaper?

Dont forget, free pistols too, if you wanted to go that route (tho IMO the melee is better)