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Intuitively buff Archon from RSR is nice for almost everyone. Even a near mono-Covens list probably shouldn't sniff at rerolling 1s to hit - and the opportunity cost of having to bring one good Archon, one good Succubus and 90 points of decent troops doesn't seem that high. If you could make 2-3 "Good" haemonculi it might be different, but I don't think you can (I'm not even sure there's one which you always want in a list).

I sort of feel Drazhar is an auto-take though. You do admittedly get quite a bit for his points - 8 incubi for instance will do more damage. But they are also probably easier for your opponent to deal with, and need their own transport rather than just riding along with everyone else. (I think there is a debate to be had on transports. It's probably the case that 2-3 protecting key squads is better than going all in with 5+, even if they are quite decent as it stands).

the_scotsman wrote:

 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.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.

I hope Blasters are a miss print and they are actually 10pts on them.

Tyel wrote:
Intuitively buff Archon from RSR is nice for almost everyone. Even a near mono-Covens list probably shouldn't sniff at rerolling 1s to hit - and the opportunity cost of having to bring one good Archon, one good Succubus and 90 points of decent troops doesn't seem that high. If you could make 2-3 "Good" haemonculi it might be different, but I don't think you can (I'm not even sure there's one which you always want in a list).

I sort of feel Drazhar is an auto-take though. You do admittedly get quite a bit for his points - 8 incubi for instance will do more damage. But they are also probably easier for your opponent to deal with, and need their own transport rather than just riding along with everyone else. (I think there is a debate to be had on transports. It's probably the case that 2-3 protecting key squads is better than going all in with 5+, even if they are quite decent as it stands).

Yeah, I definitely do think what you're comparing is "Coven patrol 1: led by your 1 good trait/relic haemonculus, Coven patrol 2: led by Drazar" which is admittedly some tough competition, because it means I get to really powergame my setup. Coven 1 can be Artists of Flesh with a haemie beefing up 2 maxed out units of talos and Coven 2 can be Dark Tech with liquifier wracks, a cronos (who can still do everything he needs to do with the Talos as well, since one of the Cronos' hidden upsides is every single one of his abilities is subfaction-agnostic).

I don't know why you'd want a third coven after that, I'd think if I had any points left to bring a few things I'd probably pop into Wych Cults since you can make a succubus into a little firecracker and a squad of wyches is never necessarily a bad thing to have.

I'd agree. Certainly splitting your traits on Wracks and Talos seems the way to go.

One downside to the RSR is that I don't think you can have Drazhar with a warlord trait if you do? Although I'd need to check the exact wording.

Tyel wrote:
I'd agree. Certainly splitting your traits on Wracks and Talos seems the way to go.

One downside to the RSR is that I don't think you can have Drazhar with a warlord trait if you do? Although I'd need to check the exact wording.

you can't, but the trait is way less important to have on drazar as it is to have on an archon. Drazar already hits almost everything on 2s and wounds almost everything on 2s. The archon with the djinn wounds most things on 4s and 5s so the reroll to wound matters way more.

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

The issue is biks really benefit from an 8" auto advance. The spliter rifles are almost meaningless - charging back line units and hoping over units with a 18" + 8" with a possible +3" from combat drugs. I think it is worth having the option to fire after advancing with your revers.

 Xenomancers wrote:

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

The issue is biks really benefit from an 8" auto advance. The spliter rifles are almost meaningless - charging back line units and hoping over units with a 18" + 8" with a possible +3" from combat drugs. I think it is worth having the option to fire after advancing with your revers.

Makes sense, idk if 15pts is worth it for a single 4+ to hit blaster shot, though I know that 10pts is worth it for a single 2+ to hit heat lance shot, which is 100% how I'll be fielding mine. if I'm bringing a fast unit for dedicated melee it'll be hellions - roll for 2 drugs because 100% of the table is good for them, take them in Test of Skill/Precision Blows alongside some Bloodbrides for unlimited tank-stabbing fun.

Something else to factor in on the Hellions vs. Reavers debate:

The former can take a PGL. The latter can't.

Sterling191 wrote:
Something else to factor in on the Hellions vs. Reavers debate:

The former can take a PGL. The latter can't.

Grav talons are functionally extremely similar, so it isnt really a factor for me.

I don't know if there can be much of a debate tbh. a Hellion is -1sv (doesnt matter, anything anyone shoots at a W2 target is going to be AP-2 or better), -4" movement (18" with no advance and charge turn 1 basically heavily limits reavers ability to be turn 1 tempo units anyway, so they both end up easily within charge range turn 2) but gets damage flat 2 on its melee weapon, its basic ranged weapon is assault, and it's 15% cheaper.

reavers' melee capabilities have to be secondary to their ranged capabilities or youre just playing worse hellions. Luckily you can play them as primarily ranged threats very easily - we've got a double shoot strat, we've got +1BS drugs, and they mount the best drukhari antitank gun. Basically they're a solid middle ground between the pure suicide unit of Scourges and the more defensive but no board control lance Ravager. It takes a deceptively long time to actually kill enough of them to start getting to the Heat Lances, they can sweep enemy units off of lightly defended midboard objectives or blow up transports with their guns and sweep the occupants. Theyre also the perfect target for Pain Syphon if you have a Cronos on the board, since it's fairly easy to pop something with them turn 1, and the morale immunity and 5++ is going to greatly help them survive any return firepower that's going to inevitably get flung their way after they double shoot the first time.

Big winners for the codex in my mind.

Succubus - Per point it just hits harder than anything else in melee.

Wyches - Insanely good. Probably the best unit in the codex.

Raiders/Warriors - Spliter racks are nasty/ You can actually get decent melee out of your raiders / dark lance is amazing. Too bad you can only bring one unit of true born.

Void ravens - bomb buffed to hilarious levels. Missiles got significantly better too.

the_scotsman wrote:

Sterling191 wrote:
Something else to factor in on the Hellions vs. Reavers debate:

The former can take a PGL. The latter can't.

Grav talons are functionally extremely similar, so it isnt really a factor for me.

I don't know if there can be much of a debate tbh. a Hellion is -1sv (doesnt matter, anything anyone shoots at a W2 target is going to be AP-2 or better), -4" movement (18" with no advance and charge turn 1 basically heavily limits reavers ability to be turn 1 tempo units anyway, so they both end up easily within charge range turn 2) but gets damage flat 2 on its melee weapon, its basic ranged weapon is assault, and it's 15% cheaper.

reavers' melee capabilities have to be secondary to their ranged capabilities or youre just playing worse hellions. Luckily you can play them as primarily ranged threats very easily - we've got a double shoot strat, we've got +1BS drugs, and they mount the best drukhari antitank gun. Basically they're a solid middle ground between the pure suicide unit of Scourges and the more defensive but no board control lance Ravager. It takes a deceptively long time to actually kill enough of them to start getting to the Heat Lances, they can sweep enemy units off of lightly defended midboard objectives or blow up transports with their guns and sweep the occupants. Theyre also the perfect target for Pain Syphon if you have a Cronos on the board, since it's fairly easy to pop something with them turn 1, and the morale immunity and 5++ is going to greatly help them survive any return firepower that's going to inevitably get flung their way after they double shoot the first time.

The shoot twice strat is only for Wych units, not Wych Cult.

So, here's a question:

Obviously, the murder archon, we know him we love him. But a small detail I did overlook upon watching some batreps is, in 9th ed, you do actually get to choose which save you want to roll any time you have to take a save. So if you have an archon with a shadowfield and some AP- attack comes your way, you can choose to take the armor save instead of the invuln to try and preserve the field.

Does this change the ball game any for our many many defensive archon relics?

Consider the Obsidian Rose Armor of misery/Consummate Weaponmaster Venom Blade master archon. Or even the soulhelm 4+/5+FNP always -1 to hit/Consummate Weaponmaster venom blade archon. An attack from an ork or space marine fist has a 7.8% chance of popping the shadowfield, meaning it will most assuredly go down if he gets attacked by even a min squad of orks or space marines. But wearing either of these relics, he only has an 11% chance of taking a wound, which means an archon would only take 3 wounds on average from a squad of 10 ork boyz or 1.6 wounds from a squad of 5 primaris intercessors on the charge.

It's true he gives up a lot of damage compared to ye murder archon, but with his double attack round he's still perfectly comfortable bringing down a space marine captain or even a gravis/terminator captain thanks to that damage 2 on his venom blade and Blade Artists.

Am I overthinking this? Should the secondary archon if you want to take one just grab the soul seeker or parasites kiss and pop back brewskis with the boys in a venom while he steadily makes his 65 points back murking space mehrines?

the_scotsman wrote:
So, here's a question:

Obviously, the murder archon, we know him we love him. But a small detail I did overlook upon watching some batreps is, in 9th ed, you do actually get to choose which save you want to roll any time you have to take a save. So if you have an archon with a shadowfield and some AP- attack comes your way, you can choose to take the armor save instead of the invuln to try and preserve the field.

Does this change the ball game any for our many many defensive archon relics?

Consider the Obsidian Rose Armor of misery/Consummate Weaponmaster Venom Blade master archon. Or even the soulhelm 4+/5+FNP always -1 to hit/Consummate Weaponmaster venom blade archon. An attack from an ork or space marine fist has a 7.8% chance of popping the shadowfield, meaning it will most assuredly go down if he gets attacked by even a min squad of orks or space marines. But wearing either of these relics, he only has an 11% chance of taking a wound, which means an archon would only take 3 wounds on average from a squad of 10 ork boyz or 1.6 wounds from a squad of 5 primaris intercessors on the charge.

It's true he gives up a lot of damage compared to ye murder archon, but with his double attack round he's still perfectly comfortable bringing down a space marine captain or even a gravis/terminator captain thanks to that damage 2 on his venom blade and Blade Artists.

Am I overthinking this? Should the secondary archon if you want to take one just grab the soul seeker or parasites kiss and pop back brewskis with the boys in a venom while he steadily makes his 65 points back murking space mehrines?

I don't think you are overthinking it. I am actually leaning toward the 2 damage venom blade build myself for a primary archon. I am not really considering a secondary archon. I would include 0 archons if you didn't pretty much have to take one.

 Xenomancers wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
So, here's a question:

Obviously, the murder archon, we know him we love him. But a small detail I did overlook upon watching some batreps is, in 9th ed, you do actually get to choose which save you want to roll any time you have to take a save. So if you have an archon with a shadowfield and some AP- attack comes your way, you can choose to take the armor save instead of the invuln to try and preserve the field.

Does this change the ball game any for our many many defensive archon relics?

Consider the Obsidian Rose Armor of misery/Consummate Weaponmaster Venom Blade master archon. Or even the soulhelm 4+/5+FNP always -1 to hit/Consummate Weaponmaster venom blade archon. An attack from an ork or space marine fist has a 7.8% chance of popping the shadowfield, meaning it will most assuredly go down if he gets attacked by even a min squad of orks or space marines. But wearing either of these relics, he only has an 11% chance of taking a wound, which means an archon would only take 3 wounds on average from a squad of 10 ork boyz or 1.6 wounds from a squad of 5 primaris intercessors on the charge.

It's true he gives up a lot of damage compared to ye murder archon, but with his double attack round he's still perfectly comfortable bringing down a space marine captain or even a gravis/terminator captain thanks to that damage 2 on his venom blade and Blade Artists.

Am I overthinking this? Should the secondary archon if you want to take one just grab the soul seeker or parasites kiss and pop back brewskis with the boys in a venom while he steadily makes his 65 points back murking space mehrines?

I don't think you are overthinking it. I am actually leaning toward the 2 damage venom blade build myself for a primary archon. I am not really considering a secondary archon. I would include 0 archons if you didn't pretty much have to take one.

the damage differential between 7 (or 14) S4 AP-3 D3 RRhits+Wounds attacks and 5 (or 10) S3 (poison 2+) AP-1 D2 attacks is pretty high though.

Mainly I'm comparing between murdarchon+incubi and weaponmaster archon with 4 sslyths and an ur-ghul. The murdarchon and incubi can kill 12 MEQ without even bothering to pop the archon's double attack, but then they're 5 3+ 6++ wounds and 5 4+ 2++(shadowfield) wounds - pretty dang easy to take out the incubi with a few high quality shots and the archon with a bunch of cheap gakky attacks. Weaponmaster archon and the Court takes down only 1/2 as many MEQ, but then you're looking at 15 6++ 5+FNP wounds from the court and an archon with 4+, 2++ shadowfield, 5+FNP, and -1 to hit.

if you can get the squad into some big expensive unit of terminators or bladeguard vets or custodes or something, 100% that archon+incubi squad is going to trade way, way up in terms of point value. But you can plow that archon+court into a midfield objective held by an opponent's troop squad, wipe them out pretty easily, and you'll take a lot more firepower than your opponent might think to remove.

the_scotsman wrote:
So, here's a question:

Obviously, the murder archon, we know him we love him. But a small detail I did overlook upon watching some batreps is, in 9th ed, you do actually get to choose which save you want to roll any time you have to take a save. So if you have an archon with a shadowfield and some AP- attack comes your way, you can choose to take the armor save instead of the invuln to try and preserve the field.

Does this change the ball game any for our many many defensive archon relics?

No.

Because if you spend your relic protecting the Archon you end up with an Archon who isn't worth protecting in the first place.

Murder Chon excels at killing meq. Which isn't exactly an important thing. Str 4 is really weak. I think the ability to wound monsters on 2's with a -1 AP is much more attractive (lotta monsters are out of hand in this game) in general though I am pretty dissatisfied with the archon in any form. I think keeping him alive and buffing incubi and warriors blown out of their vehicles is going to be more useful than using him as a beat stick.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Murder Chon excels at killing meq. Which isn't exactly an important thing. Str 4 is really weak. I think the ability to wound monsters on 2's with a -1 AP is much more attractive (lotta monsters are out of hand in this game)

Bear in mind, though, that the murder-Archon has +2A, +2AP, +1D and, even though he's only S4, he rerolls all failed wounds.

I think you'll find he does considerably better than a D2 Venom Blade Archon even against monsters. Bear in mind that monsters also tend to have good armour saves, so whatever you gain from being Poison 2+, you're most likely going to lose from the weak AP (and that's before you even get into the extra damage and attacks from the Djin Blade).

 Xenomancers wrote:
in general though I am pretty dissatisfied with the archon in any form.

Oh I absolutely agree with you on that.

I find it depressing that a melee HQ needs specific artefacts and/or warlord traits in order to not be utterly abysmal in melee.


Oh but at least it's only one bad HQ out of DE's vast selection of HQ options.

Yeah, the murder archon build does about double the damage of the venom blade archon vs monsters - approximately 12 unsaved wounds vs approximately 6.

"Not Abysmal" is a funny way to say "can easily kill monsters that cost more points than him without even using his second swing" though.

I'll probably try out both setups in my RSR spookylist. The venom blade setup does also give me another poison weapon to proc the PT -1 to attrition off of.

its easy to point at the murdarchon and go 'most damage, is best!' and sure - if you can get him into a target that is much higher value than he is, he can return way more than his value in points. but that's not the only way for a model to make itself useful.

I would only do that if I'm not taking Succubi and or Drazhar. Otherwise its IMO wasted on the Archon.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
I would only do that if I'm not taking Succubi and or Drazhar. Otherwise its IMO wasted on the Archon.

Do what? Take a relic and warlord trait?

How does murder con reroll all wounds? What warlord trait are you giving him? or Does that come from master archon?

Hatred Eternal lets you reroll al hits and wounds.

 Xenomancers wrote:
How does murder con reroll all wounds? What warlord trait are you giving him? or Does that come from master archon?

Eternal Hatred, it's a core warlord trait for archons. "each time the warlord makes an attack, you may reroll the hit roll and wound roll."

It is absurdly powerful when combined with the AP-3 D3 djinn blade. People have been loving all over the succubus because she's got a bunch of relics and traits you can take and they're all pretty good, but almost every succubus build I've examined struggles to compete with the murder archon for the variety of targets he can take on even BEFORE he takes his once per game second swing. Obviously lelith and the cult of strife razorflail billion attacks succubus shred GEQ better than him, but nobody plays GEQ it's a heavy infantry edition and at a certain point you're just going 'look, I can spend the same amount of points as a squad of wyches and deal comparable damage to a squad of wyches, but it's just one model, wowee!'

Main reason for it is that +2 attacks and the fact that rerolling 5s to wound is a 55% chance to wound.

Precision blows+triptch whip succubus is better vs W2 MEQ (kills 5.65 on average vs 4.25) but worse vs gravis, terminators, and obviously vehicles by a huge margin, which is actually something worth examining because the murder archon pretty easily kills a medium vehicle with just his blast pistol shot and one swing.

Cursed Blade Stronkubus with strength drugs, dancers edge and quicksilver fighter is closer to the murder archon's numbers but still way worse vs W3 infantry (damage 2) and significantly worse vs tanks (8.6 vs 12.3 average damage vs T7 3+)

to compare the two D3 relic builds, blood glaive succubus with precision blows for the mortals and attack drugs deals 11.33 damage to gravis vs 12.35 for the murder archon.

the murder archon is almost always better against most targets than any succubus build, and again, to reiterate, NONE OF THOSE NUMBERS FACTOR IN THE FACT THAT ONCE PER GAME HE CAN JUST DECIDE TO DOUBLE IT if you paid the measly 15pts to make him a master archon. People are just whining about him and loving on the succubus because you have lots of slightly varied options on the succubus vs just one really really good choice and a bunch of mediocre seeming choices on the archon.

What about t’he Ancient Evil Writ Archon? I want to use him for my RSR Crusade accompanied by some Incubi.

 Denegaar wrote:
What about t’he Ancient Evil Writ Archon? I want to use him for my RSR Crusade accompanied by some Incubi.

I'm confused why you would go for ancient evil instead of hatred if you've got a squad of incubi with him. that just guarantees that their 'must fight last' ability goes off, and against most targets if you don't get the Tormentors rule, you just select the squad of incubi to fight first and generally whatever you charged becomes not a threat anymore real fast.

swapping the djin blade for a regular huskblade and keeping hatred keeps a good amount of damage on the archon, luckily. For example, lets say you wanted to fight a marine captain, a hatred archon that gets his pistol shot off will deal 4.32 damage without popping splintered genius. without hatred, you're not killing a marine captain with average rolls even with the once per game double attack. A venom blade/blast pistol master archon without hatred comes close with the double attack - 4.66 damage with average rolls - but if you have a huskblade and hatred you're dealing almost that much on the first round of attacks.

Basically, all the traits that just add damage are almost automatically worse than hatred, I was just looking at Consummate Weaponmaster because it's a way to make a 'character duelling' archon build with a different relic than the djin blade. So then the only alternatives are ancient evil, which has utility but I think I'd rather have it on my haemonculus and incubi units even though it requires a role, and labyrinthine cunning, which I would consider a good pick if you're going for a backfield buff-em-up writ archon in an RSR list where you've got scourges/taloi/etc to buff the rolls on.

the_scotsman wrote:

"Not Abysmal" is a funny way to say "can easily kill monsters that cost more points than him without even using his second swing" though.

I wasn't saying that his damage is bad/mediocre when upgraded. With Djin Blade and Hatred Eternal it's pretty damn good.

My issue is that his damage is so bad to begin with. It's not like he's a psychic character whose main focus is casting powerful spells. He doesn't even have any shooting worth a damn.

My point is that this reliance on one specific artefact and one specific warlord trait in order to have actual decent melee output severely limits his worthwhile builds.

Whereas if he had an equivalent of the Blessed Blade (or Relic Blade or any weapon with actual worthwhile stats), you'd still have the option of the murder-Archon but you'd also have the option of taking any of the more defensive, ranged, or just esoteric artefacts/traits, without leaving him completely pillow-fisted as a result.

.....huh. That's weird.

I just realized that the succubus aura is reroll wounds of 1 in melee. Has it always been that? I thought it was rr1s to hit before.

the_scotsman wrote:
.....huh. That's weird.

I just realized that the succubus aura is reroll wounds of 1 in melee. Has it always been that? I thought it was rr1s to hit before.

It was hits for Cult models previously.

the_scotsman wrote:
.....huh. That's weird.

I just realized that the succubus aura is reroll wounds of 1 in melee. Has it always been that? I thought it was rr1s to hit before.

No, that's new. Remember one of the early leaks that Succubi are just like Lieutenants

Better for Wyches I guess. They hit easier than wound.