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Aurelia Malys (HQ, Power Rating 5)
Brilliant, beautiful, and quite genuinely insane, Lady Aurelia Malys of the Poisoned Tongue Kabal is one of Asdrubael Vect's most dangerous rivals; and once, among his closest companions. Embittered by Vect's arrogance, Malys delved deeper into the Webway's shadowed corners than any before her, and breached a hidden extradimensional gaol. What she released was a celestial entity of pure light and layered reality, an ancient intelligence that challenged Malys to a game of wits and wills... and lost. Stumbling back to Commorragh with the entity's crystalline heart embedded in her chest and its shapeless blade clutched in her hand, Lady Aurelia Malys quickly ascended to the pinnacle of the Dark City, guided by her own vicious intellect and the broken mirror of causality that now lay unveiled before her.

1 Aurelia Malys: M 8", WS 2+, BS 2+, S 3, T 3, W 5, A 5, Ld 9, Sv 4+

Aurelia Malys is equipped with: The Lady's Blade; soulsteel fan. Your army can only include one AURELIA MALYS model.

Wargear

The Lady's Blade: Range Melee; Type Melee; Strength +1; AP -4; Damage 1; Abilities: Each time an attack is made with this weapon, invulnerable saving throws cannot be made against that attack.

Soulsteel fan: Range Melee; Type Melee; Strength User; AP -2; Damage 1; Abilities: Poisoned Weapon (3+)

Abilities

Blade Artists: See Codex: Drukhari.

Power From Pain: See Codex: Drukhari.

Overlord: See Codex: Drukhari.

Precognisant: Once per battle, when you use the Insidious Misdirection Stratagem, reduce the Command point cost of that Stratagem to 0.

Shattered Brilliance: Once per battle, at the end of the Fight phase, if this model is within Engagement Range of any enemy units, it can fight again.

The Crystal Heart: This model has a 4+ invulnerable save, and cannot be targeted or affected by psychic powers. In addition, in your opponent’s Psychic phase, the bearer can attempt to deny one psychic power as if it were a PSYKER.

Warlord Trait

Towering Arrogance: See Codex: Drukhari.

Keywords

Faction: AELDARI, DRUKHARI, KABAL OF THE POISONED TONGUE

Keywords: INFANTRY, CHARACTER, ARCHON, MASTER ARCHON, AURELIA MALYS

Points Costs

Aurelia Malys: 85 points

The Lady's Blade: 0 points

Soulsteel fan: 0 points

Plasma grenades: 0 points

Automatically Appended Next Post:
I originally costed Aurelia somewhere in the region of 100 points; a Master Archon (75pts) with a Relic-equivalent weapon (evens), a free Stratagem (10-ish?), and the chance to use Splintered Genius again (10-ish, with the downside?) plus Crystal Heart vs Shadowfield (call it +5 tops, if that).

Then I looked at Lelith's cost compared to a standard Master Succubus, and Urien's cost compared to a standard Master Haemonculus, and gave up. I have no idea how that works.

Lady Malys is the reason I used the Poisoned Tongue rules throughout 8th edition despite being convinced they were the weakest of the kabals. Always cool to see what people do with her. Let's see...

RevlidRas wrote:


Wargear

The Lady's Blade: Range Melee; Type Melee; Strength +1; AP -4; Damage 1; Abilities: Each time an attack is made with this weapon, invulnerable saving throws cannot be made against that attack.

Soulsteel fan: Range Melee; Type Melee; Strength User; AP -2; Damage 1; Abilities: Poisoned Weapon (3+)

Interesting choice between those weapons. Vaguely callidus-esque. You've got the anti-save sword that will only wound marines on a 4+ or 5+ (bikes and gravis) but basically shuts down all saves. And then you've got the fan that will wound things better but doesn't get through armor as well. Shutting down daemon saves with her mysterious sword (probably a gift from Cegorach) kind of makes sense, but it's a little weird that her sword can somehow prevent a wych from dodging or a forcefield from turning aside her attacks. So I wonder if a different ability might be in order. More on that below.

Abilities

Blade Artists: See Codex: Drukhari.

Power From Pain: See Codex: Drukhari.

Overlord: See Codex: Drukhari.

Precognisant: Once per battle, when you use the Insidious Misdirection Stratagem, reduce the Command point cost of that Stratagem to 0.

Shattered Brilliance: Once per battle, at the end of the Fight phase, if this model is within Engagement Range of any enemy units, it can fight again. When it does so, you can roll a D6; on a 1-3, this model cannot make attacks with The Lady's Blade until the end of the battle. On a 4+, this ability can be used again in a subsequent Fight phase.

The Crystal Heart: This model has a 4+ invulnerable save, and cannot be targeted or affected by psychic powers. In addition, in your opponent's Psychic phase, this model can attempt to deny any psychic powers which target or affect a unit within 3" of this model, as if it were a PSYKER.

Precognisant is a good nod to her 5th edition special ability. The wording bugs me slightly as, iirc, Insidious Misdirection is only a once per game strat, but that's a nitpick. I'd be very tempted to give her a more flexible form of stratagem/CP management. Maybe a CP recycler or an extra CP at the start of each turn that she's alive or something. Redeploying pre-game is nice, but a very limited manifestation of her titanic intellect. Plus, you stop feeling the impact of her smarts after the first turn of the game. But making her subfaction's stratagem free to use once per game is probably better as it's more limited and leans into what the faction is good at (and is a nod to Malys's original rules.)

As written, can't you technically take Splintered Genius on top of Shattered Brilliance as she's an Archon unit? More thoughts on her melee prowess in general below.

Crystal Heart looks good. I see what you're doing with the 3" limitation and don't mind it at all, but you could probably simplify the wording by dropping the range limitation and simply letting her deny the witch (per various relics and warlord traits out there).

Warlord Trait

Towering Arrogance: See Codex: Drukhari.

It makes perfect sense to give the leader of the Poisoned Tongue the Poisoned Tongue warlord trait... I just really don't care for our trait. Oddly enough, this locked in trait would probably encourage me to always make a different model my warlord thus giving my opponent less reason to gun for Malys, thus giving Malys a better chance of surviving the battle. So having a bad locked in trait is kind of appropriate for a schemer too smart to put herself in the enemy crosshairs, in a roundabout way.

Overall, this seems like a very faithful adaptation of her 5th edition rules. I'd absolutely use these rules in my games. That said, I wonder if a little too much emphasis has been put on her melee abilities here. Malys is definitely no slouch in combat (she duels a Solitaire to a draw in one story, though admittedly he wasn't trying very hard), but her brains are definitely her main gimmick. Here, you've represented her brains with 1.5 rules (the 4+ invul used to be attributed to her simply being smart enough to not end up in the wrong spot in the first place), but you've given her 2 special weapons, basically the splintered genius rule, and a chance to use splintered genius additional times to represent her swordplay. To me, your rules say that she's kind of smart but really, really good at blending enemies in melee; better at it than most archons, even.

Instead of making her a blender, what do you think of making her more of a troll that focuses on punishing the enemy's efforts and keeping herself alive? Something like...
* Get rid of the proposed profiles for her melee weapons. Replace this with:

The Lady's Fan and Blade S+1, AP-3, D1, melee attacks made against a model with this weapon suffer -1 to to-hit rolls.

* Shattered Brilliance no longer grants re-uses of the fight again ability and no longer threatens to take away her sword. Replace with the following:

Each time this model saves against a wound caused by an enemy unit within engagement range, that unit suffers 1 mortal wound. Unmodified saves of 6 cause 1d3 mortal wounds instead.

*Maybe give her the standard Splintered Genius (fight again) rule; maybe don't. She should feel comparable to a generic archon but not better than one.

So you end up with an archon that packs less of a punch on the offensive but whom your opponent has to be nervous about attacking. I'm picturing Assassins Creed style counter-attacks where she uses her opponent's own movements to create openings, trick them into hitting their allies, etc. Very Cursed Blade, but also very fitting for how I've always pictured her. She's as good a fighter as the next archon, but defensive counter-attacks feel brainier than simply swinging her sword faster and harder like most of her peers. This would also (I hope) make her feel like she's a different/alternative archon rather than just being a more killy archon. I always try to avoid making special characters that are better at their main job than their generic counterparts. Melee is arguably the archon's main job right now, and your original pitch probably makes Malys a better blender than any archon that isn't sporting Hatred Eternal and a Djinn Blade.

Hope that wasn't too much of a ramble. Malys is definitely one of my favorite named characters.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Interesting choice between those weapons. Vaguely callidus-esque. You've got the anti-save sword that will only wound marines on a 4+ or 5+ (bikes and gravis) but basically shuts down all saves. And then you've got the fan that will wound things better but doesn't get through armor as well. Shutting down daemon saves with her mysterious sword (probably a gift from Cegorach) kind of makes sense, but it's a little weird that her sword can somehow prevent a wych from dodging or a forcefield from turning aside her attacks. So I wonder if a different ability might be in order. More on that below.

Honestly, the Lady's Blade is just a straight copy of the xenophase blade from Deathwatch, because I think her "mysterious entity" maps pretty well to a C'tan shard in current lore. Phase blade has the same ability, but is -1S/AP for +1D. Ignoring invulnerable saves is the iconic "Necron Weapon" ability, despite... not showing up on any regular Necron weapons. Oops.

Originally her one "combat trick" was extra attacks from The Lady's Blade, which was a considerably more powerful weapon than the Soulsteel Fan; that increased the risk/reward of potentially losing it. When I realized I "had" to give her Splintered Genius, I ended up upgrading the fan a bit, smoothing out the curve. I also ended up making the Soulsteel Fan a Poisoned Weapon just because the Poisoned Tongue Kabal takes itself extremely literally in 8e/9e, so it'd be a bit rubbish if she didn't have any way to benefit from the Poisoned Weapons boost of her own Kabal.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Precognisant is a good nod to her 5th edition special ability. The wording bugs me slightly as, iirc, Insidious Misdirection is only a once per game strat, but that's a nitpick. I'd be very tempted to give her a more flexible form of stratagem/CP management. Maybe a CP recycler or an extra CP at the start of each turn that she's alive or something. Redeploying pre-game is nice, but a very limited manifestation of her titanic intellect. Plus, you stop feeling the impact of her smarts after the first turn of the game. But making her subfaction's stratagem free to use once per game is probably better as it's more limited and leans into what the faction is good at (and is a nod to Malys's original rules.)

That was my thinking, yes. I originally just wrote out that whole ability before realizing they'd already given her Kabal a nod to those rules, so I might as well use them. Insidious Misdirection isn't once-per-game, however; it's just very pricey, at 2CP. You might be thinking of Webway Portal, which also has a "discount" option, or Screaming Jets.

I was very tempted to give her a more potent/dramatic in-game "tactical genius" ability, but most of those are represented via "roll a D6 to refund CP when you spend CP" (Hyperlogical, Adept of the Codex, etc). That's fine, but... well, it's already a Warlord Trait, just not one associated with her Kabal. I really would prefer her to have Labyrinthine Cunning (Black Heart) over Towering Arrogance (Poisoned Tongue), especially with her Crystal Heart already shutting down psychic mortal wounds, but she doesn't have the keywords for that, and none of the vanilla Kabal traits really fit. It's tempting to just give her Labyrinthine Cunning (she used to be Vect's ally, after all) and a note that says she ignores the usual keyword restrictions.

One alternative that's been percolating in my mind is a different take on the refund abilities, more of a "gamble" effect? To represent the shattered nature of her genius. Something like:

Shattered Brilliance: Once per turn, when you select a friendly KABAL OF THE POISONED TONGUE or BLADES FOR HIRE unit that is within 18" of this model for a Stratagem, you can reduce the Command point cost of that Stratagem by 1 and place a token by that unit. Remove the token if that unit destroys any enemy units; otherwise, at the end of that turn you lose 2 Command points and remove the token. You cannot use this ability if you have 0 Command points.

Wyldhunt wrote:
As written, can't you technically take Splintered Genius on top of Shattered Brilliance as she's an Archon unit? More thoughts on her melee prowess in general below.

Nope; you can't use the Lords of Comorragh rules for named characters. This is presumably why both Urien and Lelith are MASTER [WHATEVER] units, and have the relevant ability baked directly into their datasheet... and both also gave it a different name. I have no idea why, but I did the same here.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Crystal Heart looks good. I see what you're doing with the 3" limitation and don't mind it at all, but you could probably simplify the wording by dropping the range limitation and simply letting her deny the witch (per various relics and warlord traits out there).

That'd work just fine, yeah, but I felt it was a little too little, simply because Drukhari don't really have any sources of Deny the Witch. There's the Helm of Spite and that's it. Giving her unlimited Denies, but only for allies within 3", felt much more like a hard "anti-psyker bubble". Though I suppose I could also replace it with a simple Psychic test penalty bubble like the Culexus/Sisters of Silence. That'd certainly be simpler.

Wyldhunt wrote:
It makes perfect sense to give the leader of the Poisoned Tongue the Poisoned Tongue warlord trait... I just really don't care for our trait. Oddly enough, this locked in trait would probably encourage me to always make a different model my warlord thus giving my opponent less reason to gun for Malys, thus giving Malys a better chance of surviving the battle. So having a bad locked in trait is kind of appropriate for a schemer too smart to put herself in the enemy crosshairs, in a roundabout way.

Yeaaah. I kind of feel like she has to have it, but it might be worth tying another ability to her being your Warlord, just to avoid people being turned off by this trait.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Overall, this seems like a very faithful adaptation of her 5th edition rules. I'd absolutely use these rules in my games. That said, I wonder if a little too much emphasis has been put on her melee abilities here. Malys is definitely no slouch in combat (she duels a Solitaire to a draw in one story, though admittedly he wasn't trying very hard), but her brains are definitely her main gimmick. Here, you've represented her brains with 1.5 rules (the 4+ invul used to be attributed to her simply being smart enough to not end up in the wrong spot in the first place), but you've given her 2 special weapons, basically the splintered genius rule, and a chance to use splintered genius additional times to represent her swordplay. To me, your rules say that she's kind of smart but really, really good at blending enemies in melee; better at it than most archons, even.

Instead of making her a blender, what do you think of making her more of a troll that focuses on punishing the enemy's efforts and keeping herself alive? Something like...
* Get rid of the proposed profiles for her melee weapons. Replace this with:

The Lady's Fan and Blade S+1, AP-3, D1, melee attacks made against a model with this weapon suffer -1 to to-hit rolls.

* Shattered Brilliance no longer grants re-uses of the fight again ability and no longer threatens to take away her sword. Replace with the following:

Each time this model saves against a wound caused by an enemy unit within engagement range, that unit suffers 1 mortal wound. Unmodified saves of 6 cause 1d3 mortal wounds instead.

*Maybe give her the standard Splintered Genius (fight again) rule; maybe don't. She should feel comparable to a generic archon but not better than one.

So you end up with an archon that packs less of a punch on the offensive but whom your opponent has to be nervous about attacking. I'm picturing Assassins Creed style counter-attacks where she uses her opponent's own movements to create openings, trick them into hitting their allies, etc. Very Cursed Blade, but also very fitting for how I've always pictured her. She's as good a fighter as the next archon, but defensive counter-attacks feel brainier than simply swinging her sword faster and harder like most of her peers. This would also (I hope) make her feel like she's a different/alternative archon rather than just being a more killy archon. I always try to avoid making special characters that are better at their main job than their generic counterparts. Melee is arguably the archon's main job right now, and your original pitch probably makes Malys a better blender than any archon that isn't sporting Hatred Eternal and a Djinn Blade.

Hope that wasn't too much of a ramble. Malys is definitely one of my favorite named characters.

This is an unfortunate consequence of trying to be too literal in my 5e translation, yeah. Malys essentially has four points to cover:

A precog and a genius (but crazy)

Crystal heart that stops psychic powers

Fights with a fan and a magic sword (that rebels against her?)

Head of the Poisoned Tongue

Unfortunately, the basic Archon statline already pumps up her combat skills to a relative peak, and then Splintered Genius is a mandatory addition if she's a MASTER ARCHON (which she should be). That leaves her inherently combat-focused, moreso when I have to include both a) magic sword, and b) risk-reward element for sword rebelling against her, which I ended up fusing into Splintered Genius just to try to save space/focus.

I think you're right that I ought to just ditch the "rebellious sword" element and return her to a standard Splintered Genius (albeit with a new name), then probably tweak her weapons stats a bit. Your idea for a "defensive" combat trait is an interesting one, and I'll definitely give it a look; alternatively, I might focus more on emphasizing that "tactical genius" ability.

This is an unfortunate consequence of trying to be too literal in my 5e translation, yeah. Malys essentially has four points to cover:
A precog and a genius (but crazy)
Crystal heart that stops psychic powers
Fights with a fan and a magic sword (that rebels against her?)
Head of the Poisoned Tongue

...

I think you're right that I ought to just ditch the "rebellious sword" element and return her to a standard Splintered Genius (albeit with a new name), then probably tweak her weapons stats a bit. Your idea for a "defensive" combat trait is an interesting one, and I'll definitely give it a look; alternatively, I might focus more on emphasizing that "tactical genius" ability.

Yeah. The magic sword angle has always been there, but speaking as a Malys fan (ba dum tish!), her sword and sword skills were never the thing that made me like her. Her genius and connections to the supernatural were. So if I were to ditch any of those elements for the sake of streamlining her, I'd probably ditch the sword angle.

That said, the sword is *probably* a super powerful item given to her by Cegorach (thus the insane laughter, encountering the entity in the webway, and her ties to the harlequins), and it seems a shame not to represent that. I think that working it into her, "stop hitting yourself," fighting style is a decent way to represent that. A blade from a trickster god in the hands of a genius doesn't necessarily swing faster and harder, but it would be veyr on brand for it to trick the enemy into making mistakes and leaving openings.

You mentioned Splintered Genius feeling kind of mandatory. Is that just because Lelith and Urien have versions of their own master-hq abilities baked into the datasheet? If that's the only reason, I actually wouldn't be too worried about ditching that ability to make room for something more appropriate to Malys. Is she a genius? Absolutely. Does fighting twice once per game represent that well? Probably not. Malys fights smarter; not harder. ;D

And just a quick rant from a Poisoned Tongue player: 8th edition made me really hate the Black Heart. Before 8th, I was pretty indifferent to them. But t hen the 8th edition codex rolled around and gave them Agents of Vect and Labrynthine Cunning, both of which are perfect for representing the smarter-than-you faction. Except Black Heart (with the exception of Vect) isn't really known for its cunning; it's known for its stranglehold on Commorragh and the resources that come with it. So what did they give the faction whose gimmick actually *is* being clever? Well, their warlord trait is the leadership buff aura the archon had in the index that everyone hated. Their relic is a sniper pistol. And possibly worst of all, their chapter tactic was a buff to literal poison weapons. They interpreted the metaphor for brilliant deception and manipulation in the kabal's name as them being literally into more venom-y venoms. I have to think someone as catty and skilled at worldplay as Malys (see: the Lukas the Trickster novel) would find such a literal interpretation gauche and insulting in the extreme. Especially given that, in 8th, it was basically a worse splinter weapon buff than that of the Flayed Skull kabal. Someone on the GW rules team is working for Vect to insult my archon, I tells ya!
(But at least the misdirection strat is nice, and the 9th edition chapter tactic isn't overshadowed by a similar obsession.)