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I suspect I am very late to this party...
Background: I play in the middle between narrative and competitiveness. Recently my group has been joining some PL style tournaments. I build take on all comer style armies, and play with what I have rather than net list the most efficient units. I now have a collection of farseers/warlocks larger than needed for my games, so thought about a warlock conclave to use the models. With some of the new traits and powers, I found a few combos that might make a warlock bomb cool. (Notably for me, the combo of Protect and Witch strike making their spears wound on 2's and do d3+2 damage seemed decent, although the no AP hurts bad)
However...45 pts per or 3PL for 2 and then +2 PL for each seems absolutely horrible for a unit that has 2 wounds and loses the character keyword.
So, for 7 Pl I can get a conclave of 4 that can cast and deny 2 powers, or for 4 PL I can get two regular warlocks who can cast and deny 2 powers, and keep the character keyword protection.

Are these costs as horrible as they appear? Or am I missing some secret to the Warlock Conclave? Who has a combo that makes them a bit more viable?


PS: I'm hoping we can avoid the simplified OP/Garbage dichotomy a bit too typical of these discussions

We don't know how Witchstrike works with Conclave yet.

Well, stick them on bikes and you have a very hard hitting unit that can deepstrike and still charge effectively, self buff, great guns, and can delete big bad enemies, then fly away before the opponent gets a chance to hit back in CC, if they somehow survived. If Witchstrike works on them, they will become a top-tier competitive unit, even with their exhorbitant price (670pts for a 10-bike unit )

Yes Witchblade has opened up some possibilities for them but in the end they are an expensive T3 infantry unit with only a 4+ save, who have to be up close to fight. They will be shredded by basic bolter fire or normal CC attacks, present in even the most narrative style of list. They basically need a couple of defensive. buffs at least to be survivable.


In my experience with Eldar, units that absolutely need psychic buffs just to operate normally aren't worth bothering with. I would much rather be putting those buffs onto a unit which already has a good baseline of power and durability, like Shining Spears or Wraithguard. The effect of your mostly 1 use buffs is magnified greatly when you put them on such a unit, and it also means you aren't left with a fragile unit who will die uselessly when those buffs inevitably fail to cast or get denied.

Long story short, I think they will be more frustrating than fun, even in narrative games. But there's no harm in trying them out since you have the models already.

Thanks guys. I hadn't looked too closely at the Witch Strike power nor the grey area. Is there an argument that it only helps the single model casting it rather than a "unit" of psychers?

@Grouchoben: You are right. Given the right interpretation and buffs, a unit of biker warlocks could be awesome! Sadly, my post was about having too many farseer models to use normally, thus contemplating a conclave...so, can't take existing models and put them on bikes.

@Spartacus: You've kind of summed up my own thoughts on the buffing. I fear they become an easy turn one removal that won't even suck up the firepower equivalent to their cost. I do have this dream of somehow fielding 10, charging them in against a knight, and my opponent blowing enough armor rolls and getting smoked (at d3+2 wounds, he only needs to miss 6 saves...10 warlocks, 20 attacks wound on 2+, it could happen). It's an absolute dream of course... since getting all 10 in and swinging is unlikely. And worse, wraithguard are basically same cost range...

It might be me missing things but Warlocks seem really bad at cc considering they have no ap at all and only the 2 attacks. How are they hard hitting?

edwardmyst wrote:
Thanks guys. I hadn't looked too closely at the Witch Strike power nor the grey area. Is there an argument that it only helps the single model casting it rather than a "unit" of psychers?

The Conclave rules make you pick a casting model and Witchstrike says 'that psyker gains etc etc' but of course GW could go either way if there is an FAQ


Automatically Appended Next Post:

pm713 wrote:
It might be me missing things but Warlocks seem really bad at cc considering they have no ap at all and only the 2 attacks. How are they hard hitting?

hitting on 3's and wounding on two's for d3, admittedly with no AP and limited attacks but everything counts in large amounts

Honestly, that seems really bad for the cost of a Warlock. It seems to be that I'd be better spending those points on spamming Banshees or something, especially now with Exarch powers.

pm713 wrote:
Honestly, that seems really bad for the cost of a Warlock. It seems to be that I'd be better spending those points on spamming Banshees or something, especially now with Exarch powers.

mostly likely but between psyker powers and the Windrider strat they could become very trixy

 Turnip Jedi wrote:

pm713 wrote:
Honestly, that seems really bad for the cost of a Warlock. It seems to be that I'd be better spending those points on spamming Banshees or something, especially now with Exarch powers.

mostly likely but between psyker powers and the Windrider strat they could become very trixy

Maybe. Hopefully so for people who like that kind of thing.

pm713: The problem is...you're right! That was the gist of my post. Their cost seems wacky. Warlocks bought singly, decent but fragile. The conclave? Way overcosted. Too bad because the idea is a part of the fluff and would be something cool.
You know, there is a way to give them a super weak, completely quirky AP boost through a warlord trait (-1 AP on 6's to hit). Boost this with the +1 to hit power, and 1/3 are now ap-1. Not exactly great, but...20 attacks, hit on 2's now, 6.3 get ap-1, 5 +wound because of witch weapon, that Imperial knight just missed 2.6+ saves saves right there. if the other 9 wounds he misses the usual 1/3 and he's dead!
Okay, ridiculous combo requiring all 10 attack, two psykic powers and a warlord trait.
Of course, no character keyword, so can't give them the warlord trait.
I really do think that is what makes them pathetic. If they had the character keyword and their 4++ (which can be made a 3++) they might be viable.

indeed, just would be nice for them to have a role other than hide somewhere and cast Jinx with the range strat

Warlock conclaves were good in past editions because they had decent offence and good defense that was situationally great. Now their offense is worse, their defense is weaker, and everything else in the game has vastly greater offensive power.

While their offense is sorely lacking, I don't think they're a completely useless unit as they cast powers well enough and their esoteric armor and weapons can be annoying to certain things. However, they are vastly overpriced and should probably be more like 15 point per model.

They cant be alpha striked, and will always get a chance to buff before being targetted, unless auspex array is in play.

Now, they are also super reliable on the charge, and have had their damage in cc improved 150%. I think they might emerge as a key unit for cwe...

The one set up I like is taking a unit of two on foot. They tuck in nicely out of LOS and can cast Jinx, then extend range to 36" with a stratagem. No Los required and Jinx has become one of my go to powers.

pm713 wrote:
It might be me missing things but Warlocks seem really bad at cc considering they have no ap at all and only the 2 attacks. How are they hard hitting?

They can cast jinx and empower and they are hitting and wounding on 2's with basically AP -1. They can get +1 attack if they are ynnari or CWE, With witch strike the have d3+2 damage in CC. Plus if they are on bikes they can have sining spears and 4x shirken shots each. If witch strike works on them they become a viable unit. Walock bikers also have 3 wounds so with a 3++ with protect they are REALLY hard to remove plus...obviously 5+++ will make them that much harder too.

If they all benefited from Witch Strike they'd be mega. Unfortunately I see no way they could all benefit. You have to select one of them, and '"this psyker's melee weapons" gain the benefit. So at the moment, it's not even ambiguous. To hope they would all benefit is just wishful thinking and hoping that GW will errata their rules.

Twilight Pathways wrote:
If they all benefited from Witch Strike they'd be mega. Unfortunately I see no way they could all benefit. You have to select one of them, and '"this psyker's melee weapons" gain the benefit. So at the moment, it's not even ambiguous. To hope they would all benefit is just wishful thinking and hoping that GW will errata their rules.

I'm pretty sure the whole unit counts as a single Psyker. The unit as a whole casts the power. If you destroyed a whole warlock council you have only killed 1 psychic unit. It never uses the word "model" which is what you are kind of granting to it with your interpetation. I think most people agree it probably means model. However with how awful warlock councils are without it...I could also see them being allowed to benefit.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Twilight Pathways wrote:
If they all benefited from Witch Strike they'd be mega. Unfortunately I see no way they could all benefit. You have to select one of them, and '"this psyker's melee weapons" gain the benefit. So at the moment, it's not even ambiguous. To hope they would all benefit is just wishful thinking and hoping that GW will errata their rules.

I'm pretty sure the whole unit counts as a single Psyker. The unit as a whole casts the power. If you destroyed a whole warlock council you have only killed 1 psychic unit. It never uses the word "model" which is what you are kind of granting to it with your interpetation. I think most people agree it probably means model. However with how awful warlock councils are without it...I could also see them being allowed to benefit.

As the rules are currently written, "The Caster" means the whole unit. Warlocks have a special rule that specifies that range and line of sight are established from a single model, but if that rule did not exist range would have to be measured from all models and LOS could be established from any. The whole unit is counted as a single psyker and their rules establish how many powers the unit can cast collectively.

My bad, I mismembered their rules. It does look like they could all benefit from Witch Strike, that would be great.

foot conclave is only good for a 36" protect/jinx casting (via the strat). Worth it for 90 points in my opinion. it's always good to have a jinx cast from outside deny range.