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I can't get the book yet because it sold out in a few hours and i had issues getting there before it was sold out.

They said the next time they re-stocked was wednesday.

the_scotsman wrote:
It feels like theres three general battleplans that are feasible: a turn 1 pressure, turn 2 alpha strike, and a turn 2/turn 3 brick based attrition setup.

The first you'd be basing primarily around shooting units with mandrakes to limit turn 1 mobility from your opponent, the second youd base around fast or transported units for a mass turn 2 melee, and the latter would be either talos or wrack based.

I´m sold on the 3rd there. Wracks seems the best brick Core in the game for the cost now, allowing you to do an annoying Dark Creed horde list with 2 x 20 Wracks + Cronos + Haemo and just park up center. If the opponent tries to engage they´ll be tarpitted and lose ObSec due to Master of Pain/Twisted Animator/Fear Incarnate.

That´s ~400 pts which would still leave a lot of points for hammer units.

 Scactha wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
It feels like theres three general battleplans that are feasible: a turn 1 pressure, turn 2 alpha strike, and a turn 2/turn 3 brick based attrition setup.

The first you'd be basing primarily around shooting units with mandrakes to limit turn 1 mobility from your opponent, the second youd base around fast or transported units for a mass turn 2 melee, and the latter would be either talos or wrack based.

I´m sold on the 3rd there. Wracks seems the best brick Core in the game for the cost now, allowing you to do an annoying Dark Creed horde list with 2 x 20 Wracks + Cronos + Haemo and just park up center. If the opponent tries to engage they´ll be tarpitted and lose ObSec due to Master of Pain/Twisted Animator/Fear Incarnate.

That´s ~400 pts which would still leave a lot of points for hammer units.

As much as I want Obsessive Collectors to be good, I think you're probably correct in that Dark Creed or Coven of 12 is probably superior with large units of wracks. Coven of 12 opens up a lot of extra scoring opportunities for you, and makes your wracks and haemonculus much more deadly to charge into, though Fear Incarnate is a heck of a tool to have on an objective. You can't have both it and twisted animator, though, and I don't think I'd want to leave that on the table...

Random question - am I missing something with Dark Mirth?

It seems like a 1/3 chance to inflict a Mortal Wound if you happen to be within charge range of an enemy when they move. And because it's an aura you can't stack it.

Is there some trick with it or is it just crap?

 vipoid wrote:
Random question - am I missing something with Dark Mirth?

It seems like a 1/3 chance to inflict a Mortal Wound if you happen to be within charge range of an enemy when they move. And because it's an aura you can't stack it.

Is there some trick with it or is it just crap?

I mean, depends on what your kabal detachment is.

Dark Mirth+Twisted Hunters for a kabal patrol that's mostly there to provide 2 Voidraven bombers, that sounds hilarious to me.

It definitely seems like the custom traits are intended to be not quite as strong general all-rounders as the core traits, and they're intended for smaller, focused detachments that really capitalize on one type of unit or weapon rather than the core traits which try to provide at least some kind of use to all units.

Except for flayed skull, which is awful, and just straight up outperformed by Mobile Raiders+Torturous Efficiency. That comparison seems to be what GW was attempting, with mixed success, to avoid.

 vipoid wrote:
Random question - am I missing something with Dark Mirth?

It seems like a 1/3 chance to inflict a Mortal Wound if you happen to be within charge range of an enemy when they move. And because it's an aura you can't stack it.

Is there some trick with it or is it just crap?

Its move, fallback, advance, or charge, you can have vehicles, fliers, etc... in places to get them hit coming and going.

the_scotsman wrote:

I mean, depends on what your kabal detachment is.

Dark Mirth+Twisted Hunters for a kabal patrol that's mostly there to provide 2 Voidraven bombers, that sounds hilarious to me.

Oh that's a fair point. I hadn't really considered fliers.

the_scotsman wrote:

It definitely seems like the custom traits are intended to be not quite as strong general all-rounders as the core traits, and they're intended for smaller, focused detachments that really capitalize on one type of unit or weapon rather than the core traits which try to provide at least some kind of use to all units.

I suppose to me it just seems a little odd to do it that way. Given that custom kabals don't give bonus relics, warlord traits or strategems, you'd think they should lean towards being slightly stronger than the standard ones.

the_scotsman wrote:

Except for flayed skull, which is awful, and just straight up outperformed by Mobile Raiders+Torturous Efficiency. That comparison seems to be what GW was attempting, with mixed success, to avoid.

That's true. Though, honestly, I'm not even sure I'd bother trying to replicate FS' current effect. I know it's only 1" difference from before but somehow +2"M just doesn't feel worth bothering with.

I imagine things aren't helped by the fact that FS' strategem, warlord trait and artefact are all skippable.

They are a bit stronger, but they're stronger in a way that makes them more specialized, so you're incentivized to take them when you're designing a detachment around a particular unit or weapon type. At least, that's my reading of them anyway. I'd rather avoid a situation like space marines, where half the chapters basically don't practically exist, because everyone just uses the two best custom chapter traits and takes their bonus extras.

Coven of 12 gives me a nice balanced mix of scoring utility, offense, and extra character assassination potential. I ahve a reason to get excited about Co12 Wracks, Haemonculi, and Grotesques. Dark Technomancers makes Liquifiers and Liquifiers Specifically REALLY REALLY REALLY good, so I'm likely to reach for that if I just want to dip into covens a little bit in a mixed list that's mostly based around kabals or cults.

But yeah FS is just a complete dumpster fire. Their strat is...OK, I guess, but you can basically just get it for free with any kabal by including a unit of Trueborn with double blaster+dark lance in your list, that's plenty to have a bit of flexi-anti air in your list.


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First drukhari codex test yesterday was a success! My list was a realspace raid battalion:

Black heart kabal
Master Murder archon
10 trueborns with 2 blasters+dark lance in a raider
5x incubi in a raider with the archon
5x Mandrakes

Cult of red grief
Blood glaive+Transhuman dodgeiology Succubus
10x wyches with 1 of everything plus power sword/pgl hekatrix
15x hellions with pgl
12x reavers with 4 heat lances
Raider for the wyches

Coven of Dark Creed

Haemie with Master Regenerist
5x wracks 2x liquifiers
venom for the wracks
5x grots all melee
raider for the grots+Haemie
Cronos with probe

my opponent was Ultramarines, he had the sniper captain, 2x lieutenants, shoot when you die banner dude, tigurius, 4x rifle intercessor squads, a max unit of flamer aggressors, 2x eradicators and 1x plasma inceptors in deep strike, and a squad of bladeguard vets+justicar+ancient in a flying rhino

We played surround and destroy, I picked the mission objective for that mission+engage+assassinate to kill all those characters. Mostly I was looking to design this list just to test the performance of a bunch of units rather than as a coherent, wholly synergistic list. I wanted to try a bunch of stuff out. I deployed with most of my units out of easy LOS or at least behind -1 to hit terrain, prioritizing stuff like reavers and hellions out of LOS, and deployed the mandrakes midboard out of true LOS in a ruin corner. My opponent won first turn, moved up with the transport, moved up with the aggressors, and raised banners with all the intercessors on the 4 objectives closest to him. He required a 10 to get into the mandrakes with the aggressors and rolled a 12, so I ended up with 6 -1 to hit aggressors in cover right in my face bottom of turn 1. Basically nothing else died because everything was either raising banners, out of range, or not on the board yet.

Right off the bat I got to do something I really wanted to try: pop Eviscerating Flyby with 15 hellions right onto those aggressors. That worked absolutely brilliantly - 9 mortal wounds, of which he only blocked 2 with the 5+ vs mortal wounds stratagem. I popped out the grotesques and haemie and moved them and the cronos up the board, and hit them with the liquifiers and spirit syphon to kill 1 more aggressor, ate the overwatch with their raider, gobbled them up in melee and popped the strat to set the grots to turn 5.

Elsewhere on the map, my reavers charged a squad of intercessors to remove a banner, I put every dark lance and heat lance into the transport and blew it away, and aethersails'd the wyches raider into the 4th table quadrant right in front of the Bladeguard to score Engage and limit where they could move.

Turn 2 a bunch of rude customers showed up all over the board, basically each deep striking squad popped up in a different location. I popped Lightning Reactions on the wyches raider to make them a pain in the ass and my opponent had to put a bunch of extra firepower into it from Intercessors to take it out because the Eradicators didn't manage it. Plasma inceptors killed most of the Reavers but the heat lances were still intact, Incubi raider with the archon got popped by more Eradicators but as the intercessors had already pinch-hit to get the wyches raider dead they weren't around to shoot the incubi.

Bladeguard took out most of the wyches, but the 'can only hit me on a 4+' on the succubus came in super clutch and she didn't take a scratch from the justicar and she sliced his ass apart with the blood glaive.

In a familiar pattern to basically every game I've played against marines since the 9th ed starter came out, turn 2 was spent whacking eradicators and inceptors, I got to use Eviscerating Flyby a second time on the Hellions, advancing them all the way across the board to the Bladeguard Vets and dropping a nice 6 mortal wounds on them. Grotesques rolled onto another squad of intercessors on a banner, hilariously the cronos managed to kill a whole marine by himself and resurrected a dead wych. Archon survived a sweaty palms overwatch moment to kill a squad of eradicators, incubi rolled into the captain and murdered him before getting heroically intervened into and killed by Tigurius, various firepower throughout the board killed the other eradicators and inceptors (min damage 3 dark lances are really great) and the game was basically over from there.

Bait Mandrakes might be a tactic I'll try again sometime - the primary plan for them was to try and limit the Aggressors' movement, but actually granting the aggressors extra movement allowed me to basically take over the board and remove a huge threat from the opposing army.

Dark Mirth Is for sure going to be the route I take. Then for wych Cults I really like the additional combat drug roll. Not sold on a secondary trait for ether of these but I think 3 Patrols

Dark Mirth use Void ravens and raiders to get in close and spread those mortals around. Probably take the second trait for 6'sd generate additional hits for poison. Seems to be good.

Wych cults with 3 combat drug traits? OMG. Could get really silly. For the secondary trait on this? Any ideas?


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@ Scots - wouldnt you want blasters on your revers? Heatlances are heavy.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Wych cults with 3 combat drug traits?

I haven't seen anyone talking about this but should I assume the D3 roll on the Drugs table for Stimulant Innovators is a misprint and it should be D6? I mean, 1-4 are the best ones so I'd take D3, but it doesn't make sense.

dumb_numpty wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:
Wych cults with 3 combat drug traits?

I haven't seen anyone talking about this but should I assume the D3 roll on the Drugs table for Stimulant Innovators is a misprint and it should be D6? I mean, 1-4 are the best ones so I'd take D3, but it doesn't make sense.

My intitial take was that it was the first 3 would be the weakest but...It is +1 A or +1 Str or and I forget the other but it is still good - it is actually better this way! I think D6 was probably the intent but it might never get noticed. So lets not make too much fuss about it.

isnt the heavy penalty infantry only now? I thought it was.

the_scotsman wrote:
isnt the heavy penalty infantry only now? I thought it was.

It is. Bikes can move and fire without penalty (part of why MM Attack Bikes are so nasty for Marines). They just cant fire into engaged with the other half of the Big Guns Never Tire rule.

Or advance and shoot, which is a big nerf to bikes, scourges, Talos, etc... but I think its bc we to advance and charge on turn 2 now.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Or advance and shoot, which is a big nerf to bikes, scourges, Talos, etc... but I think its bc we to advance and charge on turn 2 now.

its something to consider with Talos maybe, but bikes I don't think care at all. They move an absurd amount and their melee is only meh - if you're taking reavers for melee, you should have taken Hellions. Reavers are the wych cults' best answer to tanks.Melee is just a bonus/a clutch way to keep an opponent from targeting the reavers.

Reavers have a 36" threat range with Lances at minimum. That's plenty mobile enough to get the shot off.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Or advance and shoot, which is a big nerf to bikes, scourges, Talos, etc... but I think its bc we to advance and charge on turn 2 now.

its something to consider with Talos maybe, but bikes I don't think care at all. They move an absurd amount and their melee is only meh - if you're taking reavers for melee, you should have taken Hellions. Reavers are the wych cults' best answer to tanks.Melee is just a bonus/a clutch way to keep an opponent from targeting the reavers.

They are TAC units, they can shoot and melee. Hellions are better in melee yes but needing that extra range on Reavers is important sometimes and its good to remember you can not Advance and shoot with HL's this might change how someone plays them or what to put on them.

9 bikes with 3 heat lances and 3 grav talos are 225 points. Super fast and BS2+ with the drug. And with 3 attacks each at S4 AP-1 plus eventually a special weapon for the leader for 5 points they might be good even in combat if they really need to charge something that isn't a dedicated fighter.

Also nice for Eviscerating Fly by's. 4-5MW

Yeah, and if it's a Strife unit it can also fire twice for 2CPs.

There seems to be something of a 'consensus' forming that Realspace Raid detachments are somewhat of a trap option. Has anybody got an alternative point of view, or experience?

Sterling191 wrote:
Reavers have a 36" threat range with Lances at minimum. That's plenty mobile enough to get the shot off.

Advancing and shooting was less about the threat range to me and more about being able to get in a position to assassinate a character or steal an objective. You often needed to advance over enemy units or to move from one spot of cover to behind the wall of another to do so. That ability has been diminished by the weapons changing to heavy, but they are better at just moving up with your army and shooting at least. I have taken them out of my list designs for now though.

Still waiting for the codex and cards due to Brexit delay.
Question: Is my 8th ed standard list still playable?

2x Archon, 3x Warriors in Venoms, some Scourges, 3x Ravager, 3x Taloi, 3x flyers.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Still waiting for the codex and cards due to Brexit delay.
Question: Is my 8th ed standard list still playable?

2x Archon, 3x Warriors in Venoms, some Scourges, 3x Ravager, 3x Taloi, 3x flyers.

"Playable" covers a lot of ground

Archons are good (ish) as long as you don't want to field more than one, and you give that one a Djin Blade. You can get ok use out of a buff version as long as they are BH and have WotLM.

Warriors are very good, maybe more attractive to field in units of 10 now.

Venoms are ok, not bad, but a bit less good than Raiders now (points cost still unclear)

Scourge have increased durabilty, their heavy weapon option do much more damage now, while Shredders have better range.

Ravagers are still good (maybe a tiny bit too expensive), and you will probably want to run them with Dark Lances.

Taloi are still good, but also depends somewhat on their Coven Obsession.

Razorwings are a bit mediocre, Voidravens seem a bit better than them, and their bomb could be useful if you play against opponents who like to castle-up.

 harlokin wrote:
There seems to be something of a 'consensus' forming that Realspace Raid detachments are somewhat of a trap option. Has anybody got an alternative point of view, or experience?

I don't think that at all, personally. If you're bringing one of each sub-faction I think it's the best way to go, particularly if you find yourself wanting to use a lot of troops. You get 1 less cp to start with compared to patrols (assuming you'll be using Alliance of Agony instead of 2 uses of Ambition) but even just with a battalion you end up with extra slots for what you want to bring (not having just 2 wych cult fast slots or 2 HC heavy slots is nice IMO)

I'm extremely pumped for my RSR setup with the support archon giving rr1s to hit and to wound to a bunch of talos pain engines.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Still waiting for the codex and cards due to Brexit delay.
Question: Is my 8th ed standard list still playable?

2x Archon, 3x Warriors in Venoms, some Scourges, 3x Ravager, 3x Taloi, 3x flyers.

Not in a realspace detachment as you don't have enough slots for all the flyers, multiple archons and 4+ heavy supports.

You can play 3 patrols to fit everything though, 2 kabal based and 1 with the coven stuff.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Still waiting for the codex and cards due to Brexit delay.
Question: Is my 8th ed standard list still playable?

2x Archon, 3x Warriors in Venoms, some Scourges, 3x Ravager, 3x Taloi, 3x flyers.

It is actually, only just now playable. Because you can bring Covens in a Kabal detachment without losing your Kabal subfaction trait. So that's nice. The Talos aren't going to be 100% optimal outside of a covens detachment, but they'll be OK.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Or advance and shoot, which is a big nerf to bikes, scourges, Talos, etc... but I think its bc we to advance and charge on turn 2 now.

its something to consider with Talos maybe, but bikes I don't think care at all. They move an absurd amount and their melee is only meh - if you're taking reavers for melee, you should have taken Hellions. Reavers are the wych cults' best answer to tanks.Melee is just a bonus/a clutch way to keep an opponent from targeting the reavers.

They are TAC units, they can shoot and melee. Hellions are better in melee yes but needing that extra range on Reavers is important sometimes and its good to remember you can not Advance and shoot with HL's this might change how someone plays them or what to put on them.

Yeah thats true. I do think the extra 5pts for blasters and the extra 2pts of damage plus the guaranteed instapop of a 3w model definitely makes heat lances my go to option for reaver bikes though.

the_scotsman wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
There seems to be something of a 'consensus' forming that Realspace Raid detachments are somewhat of a trap option. Has anybody got an alternative point of view, or experience?

I don't think that at all, personally. If you're bringing one of each sub-faction I think it's the best way to go, particularly if you find yourself wanting to use a lot of troops. You get 1 less cp to start with compared to patrols (assuming you'll be using Alliance of Agony instead of 2 uses of Ambition) but even just with a battalion you end up with extra slots for what you want to bring (not having just 2 wych cult fast slots or 2 HC heavy slots is nice IMO)

I'm extremely pumped for my RSR setup with the support archon giving rr1s to hit and to wound to a bunch of talos pain engines.

I'm of the same mind, I love me some Alliance of Agony.

What many seem to be arguing is that the optimal Patrol setups are 2 Kabal & 1 Cult, 1 Kabal & 2 Cult, or 3 Coven. The implication is that Coven doesn't play well with others.

 harlokin wrote:
There seems to be something of a 'consensus' forming that Realspace Raid detachments are somewhat of a trap option. Has anybody got an alternative point of view, or experience?

It is at lower points games. In 1500-2000 points games it's a solid option. You don't typically want more than 3 HS, 3 FA or 6 elites anyway or more than 6 troops or 3 characters.

The only downside is leaving drazhar as 4 characters are too much, but I think I'd skip drazhar anyway. Too many eggs in the same basket if he joins incubi, and if he doesn't I don't really see the point of bringing him. Really, if you don't want drazhar there's no point not to use the realspace.


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 harlokin wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
There seems to be something of a 'consensus' forming that Realspace Raid detachments are somewhat of a trap option. Has anybody got an alternative point of view, or experience?

I don't think that at all, personally. If you're bringing one of each sub-faction I think it's the best way to go, particularly if you find yourself wanting to use a lot of troops. You get 1 less cp to start with compared to patrols (assuming you'll be using Alliance of Agony instead of 2 uses of Ambition) but even just with a battalion you end up with extra slots for what you want to bring (not having just 2 wych cult fast slots or 2 HC heavy slots is nice IMO)

I'm extremely pumped for my RSR setup with the support archon giving rr1s to hit and to wound to a bunch of talos pain engines.

I'm of the same mind, I love me some Alliance of Agony.

What many seem to be arguing is that the optimal Patrol setups are 2 Kabal & 1 Cult, 1 Kabal & 2 Cult, or 3 Coven. The implication is that Coven doesn't play well with others.

I'm not really a fan of kabal stuff. Most of the list I've tried to write don't have more than an Archon, a unit of trueborn in a raider and eventually up to 2 ravagers. Everything else, especially more kabalites I'd skip.

Coven can play very well with others, just think of a Dark Creed detachment in a list full of PGLs. Cronos can buff every drukhari units, etc...

 harlokin wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 harlokin wrote:
There seems to be something of a 'consensus' forming that Realspace Raid detachments are somewhat of a trap option. Has anybody got an alternative point of view, or experience?

I don't think that at all, personally. If you're bringing one of each sub-faction I think it's the best way to go, particularly if you find yourself wanting to use a lot of troops. You get 1 less cp to start with compared to patrols (assuming you'll be using Alliance of Agony instead of 2 uses of Ambition) but even just with a battalion you end up with extra slots for what you want to bring (not having just 2 wych cult fast slots or 2 HC heavy slots is nice IMO)

I'm extremely pumped for my RSR setup with the support archon giving rr1s to hit and to wound to a bunch of talos pain engines.

I'm of the same mind, I love me some Alliance of Agony.

What many seem to be arguing is that the optimal Patrol setups are 2 Kabal & 1 Cult, 1 Kabal & 2 Cult, or 3 Coven. The implication is that Coven doesn't play well with others.

Interesting, I feel like RSR is the most optimal way to field pain engines and pain engines are one of the best coven setups. Also, I'm not quite as enamored with dark tech but if you do bring it I wouldn't think you'd want your whole army built from it.

I definitely think patrols should be the default option and RSR should only be brought when you want to leverage its specific benefits towards mostly hired blade units. but it's not automatically always worse. That's my take on it anyway.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
basically the main benefit I see for the rsr is:

-archon is automatically more useful, so if you don't want to just bring murdarchon you probably want to bring a RSR

-you can bring a third heavy/third fast without needing to bring an almost always less optimal second identical HQ.

So my RSR setups are often when I want to bring things like Pain Engine heavy lists, Beasts which are real slot suckers now, and hired blades as opposed to the builds that are heavier on one of the three subfactions in particular or heavier on troops.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
RSR brigade might be a trap. maybe. I dunno, I feel like it could be solid if you take a gimme on one of the slots, like you go beastmaster+3x fiends to fill up your fast slots and you go real light on wyches, and then your 6 troops are like 1 trueborn squad 1 wych squad and then 4 dark tech wrack venoms. Then you go trip ravager for heavies and get drazar and some incubi squads in the mix for elites, or you go for a ton of mandrakes for super hard board control.