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I've been turning up my nose at warlock conclaves since 8th dropped. They just seem so much more vulnerable than individual warlocks and with a price tag that doesn't scale with their psychic abilities. Why not just take a bunch of individual warlocks to get more psychic powers and use shining spears or something if you really want a melee unit?

Well, now the rule of 3 is a thing, and imperial knights are showing up all over the place. Should we be looking at warlock conclaves, especially skyrunner conclaves, in a new light? Theoretically, the conclave can...

* Cross the board and assault on turn 1 utilizing psychic powers and/or the Saim-Hann stratagem
* Swing multiple attacks per model, each of which wounds a knight on 2's and does d3 damage.
* Lower a knight's save.
* Increase its own save.
* Take singing spears to toss some decent anti-knight dakka around before charging.
* Utilize various stratagems and psychic powers to make itself harder to hit.
* Be buffed by either 6+ or 5+ FNP.
* Start the game hidden behind terrain without that much difficulty.

It's still a stupidly expensive unit, but the high pricetag on a knight means that your 'locks will basically earn their points back if they can take out a single enemy knight. So has this unit finally found a place in a meta where psychic powers are the way to do turn 1 assaults and imperial knights offer high-cost targets for you to wail on?

Short answer, NO. Warlocks are highly situational, and most assuredly not effective combat units. Taking them with the intent to charge against a knight is not a smart idea.

 mokoshkana wrote:
Short answer, NO. Warlocks are highly situational, and most assuredly not effective combat units. Taking them with the intent to charge against a knight is not a smart idea.

Agree with the caveat that a 36" doom can be crippling assuming the conclave is not able to be squished turn 1

What if I mentioned there was a stream today of a bike conclave succesfully taking down the new jumbo-sized shooty knight? Apparently they just did moderate-but-constant damage to it over the course of several turns while tanking its return attacks with 3+ invuls. I'm told knights aren't allowed to fall back over bikes.

One stream of a Conclave taking out a Castellan isn't really something to gloat over. If it was the Valiant, its overwatch will do serious damage thanks to 3D6 autohits doing 2D. Against a Gallant for example, and you'll probably suffer in CC. If you do manage to kill it, then as a responsible Knight player, I'll simply play Noble Sacrifice, 75% chance to blow up and ruin your expensive bikes as well.


Knights can only step over Infantry or Swarms, so if you can completly surround him then you should be safe. However, your bikes are still squishy compared to a Knight and every lost one will hurt. In addition, I'm not an Eldar player but I've read the Codex many times, Warlock Conclaves seem to be pretty crap overall, you'd probably have better luck just using the Webway Strategem on a unit of Fire Dragons.

operkoi wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:
Short answer, NO. Warlocks are highly situational, and most assuredly not effective combat units. Taking them with the intent to charge against a knight is not a smart idea.

Agree with the caveat that a 36" doom can be crippling assuming the conclave is not able to be squished turn 1

Meh, Doom is potent not really that big of a deal for the Conclave as they already wound on 2's thanks to Witchblades.

Wyldhunt wrote:
What if I mentioned there was a stream today of a bike conclave succesfully taking down the new jumbo-sized shooty knight? Apparently they just did moderate-but-constant damage to it over the course of several turns while tanking its return attacks with 3+ invuls. I'm told knights aren't allowed to fall back over bikes.

Anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal. I could find you examples of insane stuff happening, but that doesn't mean you should bank on them all of the time. The law of averages doesn't always win, but it usually does.
Losing the character keyword is what makes the Conclave unusable for me. I have 5 Warlock Skyrunner models painted, but that's 325 points, which could better spent on two Farseer Skyrunner's and most of a Warlock Skyrunner. I promise that combination will do more damage on average.

 Valkyrie wrote:
One stream of a Conclave taking out a Castellan isn't really something to gloat over. If it was the Valiant, its overwatch will do serious damage thanks to 3D6 autohits doing 2D. Against a Gallant for example, and you'll probably suffer in CC. If you do manage to kill it, then as a responsible Knight player, I'll simply play Noble Sacrifice, 75% chance to blow up and ruin your expensive bikes as well.

Is the warlock conclave really so bad that 1-2 casualties will ruin it?

tneva82 wrote:

Is the warlock conclave really so bad that 1-2 casualties will ruin it?

Ayup. S3, T4, W3 with zero AP, two attacks per model and WS3. Oh and they're 65 points per model.

And thats even before you get into how screwy their psyker rules are. Knock them down to the right bracket and they progressively lose their capacity to cast.

tneva82 wrote:

 Valkyrie wrote:
One stream of a Conclave taking out a Castellan isn't really something to gloat over. If it was the Valiant, its overwatch will do serious damage thanks to 3D6 autohits doing 2D. Against a Gallant for example, and you'll probably suffer in CC. If you do manage to kill it, then as a responsible Knight player, I'll simply play Noble Sacrifice, 75% chance to blow up and ruin your expensive bikes as well.

Is the warlock conclave really so bad that 1-2 casualties will ruin it?

Most likely, yes. So they gain a bonus to the amount of psychic powers they can cast depending on their squad size (1-3 = 1 Power, 4-6 = 2 Powers, 7+ = 3 Powers).

Also, lets look at points here. 6 warlocks is 390pts (without upgrades) or roughly the cost of some knight. At that level I get two powers to cast, which means one of Protect or Jinx and Quicken to ensure the charge. Lets assume Jinx and Quicken go off and the Knight is Doomed.

Shooting:
Total Shots: 24 / Total Hits: 16 / Wounds Caused: 4.889 / Unsaved Wounds: 3.333 / Total Damage: 3.333

Melee:
Total Attacks: 12 / Total Hits: 8 / Wounds Caused: 7.778 / Unsaved Wounds: 3.889 / Total Damage: 7.778

That's a total of 11 wounds on average. That whopping 11 wounds is predicated on you going first, having all of your powers go off, and not losing anyone to overwatch.

 mokoshkana wrote:

operkoi wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:
Short answer, NO. Warlocks are highly situational, and most assuredly not effective combat units. Taking them with the intent to charge against a knight is not a smart idea.

Agree with the caveat that a 36" doom can be crippling assuming the conclave is not able to be squished turn 1

Meh, Doom is potent not really that big of a deal for the Conclave as they already wound on 2's thanks to Witchblades.

Thats not what the warlocks are for seeing as they'll just get squished in combat or even just approaching it. you keep them 36 inches away and preferably fully concealed and thus unshootable, cast doom, then go to town with proper anti tank weapons like fire prisms, wraithguard, fire dragons, brightlances etc.... Giving knights a 5/6++ save as opposed to a 4++/5++ really makes a huge difference in damage dealt ime and if your playing alaitoc getting a knight down a wound bracket or 2 will really cripple them unless they're playing Hawkshroud, which i haven't seen personally (everyone I have seen generally goes Cadmus or Raven for dakka and Mortan or Terryn for melee)

operkoi wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:

operkoi wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:
Short answer, NO. Warlocks are highly situational, and most assuredly not effective combat units. Taking them with the intent to charge against a knight is not a smart idea.

Agree with the caveat that a 36" doom can be crippling assuming the conclave is not able to be squished turn 1

Meh, Doom is potent not really that big of a deal for the Conclave as they already wound on 2's thanks to Witchblades.

Thats not what the warlocks are for seeing as they'll just get squished in combat or even just approaching it. you keep them 36 inches away and preferably fully concealed and thus unshootable, cast doom, then go to town with proper anti tank weapons like fire prisms, wraithguard, fire dragons, brightlances etc.... Giving knights a 5/6++ save as opposed to a 4++/5++ really makes a huge difference in damage dealt ime and if your playing alaitoc getting a knight down a wound bracket or 2 will really cripple them unless they're playing Hawkshroud, which i haven't seen personally (everyone I have seen generally goes Cadmus or Raven for dakka and Mortan or Terryn for melee)

Warlocks have nothing to do with Doom, that is a Farseer power. The save reduction power is called Jinx, and the best way to cast it is from a Hemlock Wraithfighter platform that needs to push up the board anyway to get its guns in range. The only way the Warlock Conclave has any value is that it potentially allows for a deny roll to be avoided, but a Skyrunner Warlock can probably achieve the same thing with careful planning.

 mokoshkana wrote:

operkoi wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:

operkoi wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:
Short answer, NO. Warlocks are highly situational, and most assuredly not effective combat units. Taking them with the intent to charge against a knight is not a smart idea.

Agree with the caveat that a 36" doom can be crippling assuming the conclave is not able to be squished turn 1

Meh, Doom is potent not really that big of a deal for the Conclave as they already wound on 2's thanks to Witchblades.

Thats not what the warlocks are for seeing as they'll just get squished in combat or even just approaching it. you keep them 36 inches away and preferably fully concealed and thus unshootable, cast doom, then go to town with proper anti tank weapons like fire prisms, wraithguard, fire dragons, brightlances etc.... Giving knights a 5/6++ save as opposed to a 4++/5++ really makes a huge difference in damage dealt ime and if your playing alaitoc getting a knight down a wound bracket or 2 will really cripple them unless they're playing Hawkshroud, which i haven't seen personally (everyone I have seen generally goes Cadmus or Raven for dakka and Mortan or Terryn for melee)

Warlocks have nothing to do with Doom, that is a Farseer power. The save reduction power is called Jinx, and the best way to cast it is from a Hemlock Wraithfighter platform that needs to push up the board anyway to get its guns in range. The only way the Warlock Conclave has any value is that it potentially allows for a deny roll to be avoided, but a Skyrunner Warlock can probably achieve the same thing with careful planning.

I find my best source of casting jinx is from my 2 man warlock conclave. This way I can use the double range stratagem and stay out of denial range.

Gangrel767 pretty much sums it, a small 2 Warlock Conclave on foot lurking behind LoS cover and using to double range stratagem is probably the optimal use, as anything else is just too expensive and squishy