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Here is my 1500 pt Drukhari raiding party ready to enslave some poor souls.

Archon w/ agoniser and blaster
Succubus w/ archite glaive and splinter pistol

5 Wyches
5 Kabalite warriors w/ blaster
2 x 5 Kabalite warriors

6 x Venoms w/ dual splinter cannons

Razorwing w/ two dark lances, twin splinter rifle and missiles

3 x Ravagers w/ three dark lances

I've been using this list almost exclusively all 8th edition and it has been performing reliably particularly against vehicle heavy lists, marines, and necrons.

Any suggestions of tactics or a direction for expanding to 2000 pts would be appreciated.

OzAl

Wow, the paintjob is amazing, one of the best drukhari armies I've ever seen.

List looks ok, I'd just prefer a second archon and a fourth unit of kabalite warriors instead of the succubus and the wych squad, but overall it's certainly pretty solid.

If you want to keep the army as a pure shooting list you can add another flyer, trueborn in venoms, other kabalite in venoms or scourges with dark lances.

Thanks, much appreciated.

Really? I've found the wyches to be invaluable as a road block to thunder hammer / storm shield terminators and other high damage, low attack deepstrikers. Why do you advocate a second archon? I will playtest it though

The main thing I am having trouble with at the moment is hordes armies like orks and tyranids. The only way I have been able to pull off any wins against these armies is through mobility but it usually isn't enough. How do you usually go about countering hordes with Drukhari?

Before suggesting what to add, I would first suggest looking at what people in your meta tend to bring. 1500 to 2000 can see some dramatically different tactics and armies who see an opportunity to bring a Knight, a few Flyers or simply just a lot more gaunts. That'll help determine the path to take - whether that be assault, anti-vehicle or anti-tank shooting.

The meta around here is quite varied. I'd say it leans more towards (1) alpha strike armies like deepstriking Grey Knights / infiltrating Alpha Legion, (2) vehicle heavy lists like Astra Militarum / SM preds and razorbacks / Necrons flyers and (3) mobile White Scars / Ravenwing / Eldar forces. Hordes are in the minority, which is part of the reason I think I'm having so much difficulty against them.

Adding some assault, particularly to counter attack reserve-based lists that drop in first turn would be useful. My counter strategy at the moment is to fly away with what I have left after their drop. Would incubi fill this slot well?

Your list so far is a bit one dimensional. I guess that means it has plenty of in-built redundancy but I think it needs more of a threat unit like a voidraven or incubi. If you want an assault element besides the wyches, go the incubi. They are deadly, particularly against power armour marines, and can function without support of a character. Just don't fall in the trap of sending them against dedicated assault units unless you can wipe them on the charge. A 3+ armour save on a T3 body won't cut it.

 Clan Lykos wrote:
Your list so far is a bit one dimensional. I guess that means it has plenty of in-built redundancy but I think it needs more of a threat unit like a voidraven or incubi. If you want an assault element besides the wyches, go the incubi. They are deadly, particularly against power armour marines, and can function without support of a character. Just don't fall in the trap of sending them against dedicated assault units unless you can wipe them on the charge. A 3+ armour save on a T3 body won't cut it.

Incubi are terrible against orks or tyranids and these are the armies that are causing trouble when fighting against them. Drukhari in 8th edition work essentially as a pure shooting army and of course they can have some trouble against hordes, but overall drukhari only shooting armies are competitive. Incubi are a good unit, I use them, but if the problem is how to counter hordes they're not the appropriate solution.

As an ork and drukhari player I can suggest something: keep going with the shooty list, in close combat orks and tyranids will always be superior. If you face them just cut some anti tank and bring more anti infantry tools. Orks suffer flyers a lot for example and can laugh at dark lances, so I'll completely cut the ravagers if footslogging orks are your opponent, jetfighters are better since they have the missiles and orks can do very little against flyers. To block charging units or tarpit shooty ones hellions could be a decent unit, I don't play them but they're quite popular in this edition, I see them very often on the board. Maybe the haemy with grots can block a mob of 30 boyz, but at 1500 points it's a quite expensive combo and you should change your style to include them.

Generally speaking hordes are a tough call for drukhari, there no real tools to counter them. Just play the objectives, rely on your speed, and force the charging units to go towards something that can be sacrified.

Hey i have found through playing that a unit of 10 scourges with just their basic guns is pretty good at taking out hordes. Obviously not great but better than most things we have for the cost. At 140 points you get 30 assault shots at 18inches and 12 inch move. And they can deepstrike to help your deployment options. Also the 4+ 6++ isn't amazing but nothing to complain about.

As an ork and drukhari player I can suggest something: keep going with the shooty list, in close combat orks and tyranids will always be superior. If you face them just cut some anti tank and bring more anti infantry tools. Orks suffer flyers a lot for example and can laugh at dark lances, so I'll completely cut the ravagers if footslogging orks are your opponent, jetfighters are better since they have the missiles and orks can do very little against flyers. To block charging units or tarpit shooty ones hellions could be a decent unit, I don't play them but they're quite popular in this edition, I see them very often on the board.

Thanks for the advice. My only concern about taking out the ravagers is that I don't want to list tailor so I can't simply bring more anti-infantry tools in their place. I'm trying to make the most well rounded army I can and the ravagers are usually some of my strongest performers. It doesn't sounds like much, but reducing my output of dark lance shots from 9 to 6 (assuming I trade ravagers for jetfighters) will make me seriously struggle against my more regular opponents. In regards to the hellions, they may be a great idea and I love the models so this is definitely something I will explore.

Generally speaking hordes are a tough call for drukhari, there no real tools to counter them. Just play the objectives, rely on your speed, and force the charging units to go towards something that can be sacrified.

I think this is the temporary solution until we get a codex that may have some stratagems to help us deal with hordes more effectively (fingers crossed).

OzAl wrote:


Thanks for the advice. My only concern about taking out the ravagers is that I don't want to list tailor so I can't simply bring more anti-infantry tools in their place. I'm trying to make the most well rounded army I can and the ravagers are usually some of my strongest performers. It doesn't sounds like much, but reducing my output of dark lance shots from 9 to 6 (assuming I trade ravagers for jetfighters) will make me seriously struggle against my more regular opponents.

Well in your list there are already 3 ravagers and a jetfighter, if you bring two ravagers and two jetfighters you just lose a dark lance but you gain a little anti infantry weapons and tipycally the flyer is a bit more durable and annoying for the opponent than the ravagers. They have the exact same cost unless you give the flyer a splinter cannon.

If you're going to bring TAC lists you should keep playing your list, because overall it's a good one and I wouldn't make significant changes. But against pure hordes it's going to struggle everytime, you can't compete with a strong orks green tide without tailoring a bit. That shouldn't be a problem if your regular opponents are not usually playing these kinds of armies.

The way you pronounce Drukhari sounds awfully like "snitches" on my native language. I just realized this, funny...

 Blackie wrote:

Well in your list there are already 3 ravagers and a jetfighter, if you bring two ravagers and two jetfighters you just lose a dark lance but you gain a little anti infantry weapons and tipycally the flyer is a bit more durable and annoying for the opponent than the ravagers. They have the exact same cost unless you give the flyer a splinter cannon.

If you're going to bring TAC lists you should keep playing your list, because overall it's a good one and I wouldn't make significant changes. But against pure hordes it's going to struggle everytime, you can't compete with a strong orks green tide without tailoring a bit. That shouldn't be a problem if your regular opponents are not usually playing these kinds of armies.

I really like that idea of 2 razorwings and 2 ravagers. I have actually found 3 ravagers can be a bit difficult to maneuver to have them all fire at appropriate targets due to LOS blocking terrain. Flyers have a much easier time of manipulating this with their movement and negating cover saves. Thanks for the feedback.

OzAl

Scourges with standard Shardcarbines and Razorwing Jetfighters with Disintegrator Cannons do nasty, nasty things to infantry in general. Actually the Razorwing with Dissies and a Splinter Cannon is a giant middle finger to Orks in general as they really have no answer to the missiles and Dissies mean that they're going to be having to roll boxcars to survive them. Plus that can punish any bad bubble wrapping of the characters buffing boys.

I also find Wyches very useful for tarpitting in general. If you are smart with how you charge into combat and how manipulate your Pile-ins you might only be fighting 3-4 Boys at a time from that 30-Boy horde.

Honestly Orks and Nids are a bad matchup for Pure Drukhari lists. If you are willing to look into the Craftworlds list there are several units that are very good at killing lots of Orks quickly:

Wraithguard with D-Scythes: They do horrible things to all infantry. 5/10/15 "shots" on a Conscript or Boys blob doesn't sound like much until you realise that it's an average of 4.17/8.33/12.50 dead Boys plus the additional casualties inflicted in the Morale Phase then it applies. Depending on leadership you can end up causing a significant chunk of damage in the Morale phase, or force your opponent to burn some CP.

Dark Reapers: The Reaper Launcher's anti infantry mode is Heavy 2 S5, AP-2, 2 Damage. That alone is enough to terrify Ork players as not even the Painboy will save them. You are averaging 17.78 Wounds worth of damage each turn. Even with a Painboy that is going to be roughly 10 dead Boys per turn from one unit alone. Not enough? Toss in Yvraine and get a total of 40 shots in one turn. That is a total of 35.56 damage on average overall. Even with a Painboy there's not going to be much of that 30 Boy blob standing after that...

Shadow Spectres: Each one is a Jetpack infantry with 18" of movement,and a weapon designed to take on infantry of all types. They are also -1 to Hit so really like having a Hemlock or Jetbike Warlock around with them. Their gun has 2 options: one is S6, AP -3, 1 Damage and each hit lets you roll to hit again (up to 3 times or until you miss). From a 5-Elf squad you can expect on average 7-9 hits. This is awesome for melting Nobs, Bikers and Warriors. Then there is a Heavy Flamer mode. It's basically 5 Heavy Flamers, it's nasty. You can expect on average a third of a 30 Boy Blob to vanish each turn, and nobody is going to want to charge that unit due to taking 5d6 S5 Ap -1 Auto hits. The Exarch also forces people to roll twice for Morale and take the highest result.

Hemlock Wraithfighter: More of a support unit, especially compared to the Drukhari flyers which are arguably the best in the game right now. They have 2 Heavy D-Scythes which would be 2d3 Auto hitting S10 AP -4 shots, plus the Mindshock Pods add -1 to Leadership and the pilot has access to all Warlock spells, combined with the Shadow Spectres you can set up somepretty nice leadership bombs or use it as a mobile -1 to hit flying bunker.

Corsair Reavers and Skyreavers: They can take Shardcarbines for free! Plus they have Special and Heavy Weapon options that make tactical Marines jealous. The standout weapons are Shuriken Cannons, Splinter Cannons, Flamers and Aeldari Missile Launchers. Plus if anything gets within 8" you can use thier Brace of Pistols which is d6 Poisoned shots that have -1AP on a 6. Plus they have grenades. Seriously a unit of 5 within 8" puts out 5-30 shots! A unit of 10 can potentially do 10-60 and a blob of 15 can do 15-90. Nobody will want to charge these guys. Reavers are best used as anti-deep strike and objective camping while Skyreavers with thier jetpacks are more mobile and are nearly as good at screening as Razorwing Flocks and Scourges.

Harlequins are also an excellent Close Combat option if you need it:

Let's take 1 Troupe Master and 5 Players with Fusion Pistols and Caresses (In this case S5 AP-2 is more valuable than S4 AP-3 due to Orks having terrible saves) in a Starweaver and charge them into a unit of Boys and Mathhammer it out:

2 Shuriken Cannons: 2.22 dead Boys
1 Fusion Pistol from the Troupe Master: 1 dead Boy
5 Fusion Pistols from the Players: 2.78 dead Boys
5 Swings from the Troupe Master: 4.32 dead Boys
20 Swings from the Players: 15.8 dead Boys
3 Swings from the Starweaver: 1.98 dead Boys

So in total that one unit is killing on average 28.1 Boys in a single charge, causing the unit to wipe in the Morale phase.

If you are looking to plug the 500 points to meet those horde armies then a bomber would fit in very nicely. Otherwise for an assault element, adding at least 4 Ur Gouls to accompany your Archon and swap the succubus for a Hermonculus with some Grotesques and liquifiers. Those 2 units will make a real mess of hoards and the transports will get them in.

DorkKnightRahal wrote:
Scourges with standard Shardcarbines and Razorwing Jetfighters with Disintegrator Cannons do nasty, nasty things to infantry in general. Actually the Razorwing with Dissies and a Splinter Cannon is a giant middle finger to Orks in general as they really have no answer to the missiles and Dissies mean that they're going to be having to roll boxcars to survive them. Plus that can punish any bad bubble wrapping of the characters buffing boys.

I also find Wyches very useful for tarpitting in general. If you are smart with how you charge into combat and how manipulate your Pile-ins you might only be fighting 3-4 Boys at a time from that 30-Boy horde.

Honestly Orks and Nids are a bad matchup for Pure Drukhari lists. If you are willing to look into the Craftworlds list there are several units that are very good at killing lots of Orks quickly.

Initially I did consider scourges, however there is nothing that they add to anti-infantry beyond what a venom can bring besides delivering a solid beta strike through deep striking. When it comes down to it, the problem is poisoned weapons wounding cheap T3 (or T4) models on a 4+. Poisoned is okay against semi expensive T4 models (e.g. MEq) and outstanding against T5+, but against T3 models it is counterproductive as it essentially turns into a strength 3 weapon with no AP. Also, this isn't doom and gloom, I understand we still have a bucket load of shots so we can still make it work for us! I am simply trying to find some more effective ways in our codex to deal with these horde armies. If we look outside of ranged poison weapons, it seems to me that our options are Talos with splinter pods, grotesques with liquifiers or wyches for CC. I guess the questions remains: how do other Drukhari players build a TAC list?

You have caught my attention with the wyches scenario.How would you limit the boyz to that few models getting their attacks in? I understand they will never get all 30 in, but they only need around 10 boyz in range to pretty much wipe out a squad of 10 wyches. Can you elaborate?

Thanks for spending the time to explain the other Aeldari options but I'm a purist at heart and want to stick with an all Drukhari force.

OzAl


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sumilidon wrote:
If you are looking to plug the 500 points to meet those horde armies then a bomber would fit in very nicely. Otherwise for an assault element, adding at least 4 Ur Gouls to accompany your Archon and swap the succubus for a Hermonculus with some Grotesques and liquifiers. Those 2 units will make a real mess of hoards and the transports will get them in.

The voidraven has always been in my mind. The void mine would provide a good way to thin out a threat unit like devastators early in the game. The question is whether it's worth killing 6-7ish orks / small nids. Probably not because afterwards it has mainly anti-vehicle / MC weapons. It sounds great against marines but not as effective against hordes. I still may consider it as it would be ideal in my meta against the main armies I face.

I have never seen grotesques with liquifiers on the tabletop. The idea intrigues me though.

OzAl wrote:


Initially I did consider scourges, however there is nothing that they add to anti-infantry beyond what a venom can bring besides delivering a solid beta strike through deep striking.

Agreed, scourges don't have much impact with shardcarbines simply because after they get off a volley they are within range of enemy bolters and standard anti-infantry weapons which they die easily to. They are good with dark lances however. Parked in cover in backfield they can put out an insane amount of damage and the main guns that can reach them are anti-tank weapons. Then your opponent has a tough choice on who to shoot, your scourges, ravagers, razorwing, or venoms.

That may not help against your horde problem but it sounds like it could help against the more prominent armies in your meta.

 Clan Lykos wrote:
Parked in cover in backfield they can put out an insane amount of damage and the main guns that can reach them are anti-tank weapons. Then your opponent has a tough choice on who to shoot, your scourges, ravagers, razorwing, or venoms.

That may not help against your horde problem but it sounds like it could help against the more prominent armies in your meta.

Thanks for the input. I like that idea of keeping them in the backfield.

OzAl