Sslyth conversions

I read some discussion about this and would draw attention to some nice Bones Reaper figures of snake sentient creatures with arms and swords and bows. Remove the bows and quivers and fill the holes with putty. Pin and Supa Glue or Araldite some spare arms from DE kits and there you go. They are only a couple of mm taller than the official GW ones but cost only three or four dollars each. I used them as an Archon retinue with 3 Sslyth last night against terminators and they did well with their S5 and T5.

I love the Sslyth. I love the GW models as well. If i could have my time again, I'd still buy the GW sslyth

You mean this model? http://www.reapermini.com/Miniatures/Bones/latest/80039#detail/80039_w_2
I have to say that it looks really similar to GW ones.

Whaaat?

I haven't purchased one yet to see how they compare; however, I'm looking into seeing how the Razorspine Rattler from Malifaux can be used or converted as an alternate Sslyth. It's about the same price so it would truly be just for the sake of being an alternate than a more cost effective solution.

https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=751&q=malifaux+dawn+serpent&oq=malifaux+dawn&gs_l=img.3.0.0i30.3132.6865.0.8715.13.12.0.1.1.0.302.1737.4j2j3j1.10.0....0...1ac.1.64.img..2.11.1738.j9rhrRHnfeM#tbm=isch&q=malifaux+razorspine+rattler

Can anyone post their sslyth conversions? I've been seriously considering picking four up and right now the GW model is still my favorite.

I am painting the Reaper conversions now so when I finish I'll post them.

The problem with the Sslyth is that it makes for an effective unit but it's a pain to actually field them. The GW model is great but it's only one model. There are some alternatives to make converted Sslyths but again you can only pick up single pose models. This means you either have to field multiple identical models in a unit (like old school 40k that looked ugly when fielded) or you have to go to town converting the crap out of them. GW really needs to get some kits out for the Court models so you can field complete units of them.

My recommendation (I haven't tried to do this myself) would be to get whichever model (from whichever range) has the most workable snake body and try to repose that for each model. Make the humanoid torso and arms from other DE kits (easy to do with a mix of Kabalites and Wyches) and find decent looking helmets to unify the unit so as to avoid having to find snake heads. This is probably the only way of getting a unit of individual Sslyths without breaking the bank.

A bit of boiled water and a bits box goes a long way. Here's my court

I plan on using Lizardmen temple guard bodies and heads, and slapping splinter carbines from scourge onto them. I hope the scourge arms are nicely proportionate to the bodies.

Good work @Nexs.

I found these: Mierce Snakemen

They look amazing and would make for some great conversions. They do units too with different models (including female snakewomen) so they're better looking. Problems are there cost (they're not cheap at all) and potentially their size (they're sort of "Ogre size"). Might be workable for those with deep pockets and the time to convert them.

Does anyone have experience fielding a unit of 4 to 8 in a court with an Archon? Maybe with a Medusa and Heamonculus? It seems like deepstriking a raider with splinter racks and this squad would be decent at killing relatively soft targets but, I'm not convinced yet.

Yes I play this quite often but I do 9 in a raider with a lhamaean (for ld buff) and splinter racks. They tend to murderface whatever they shoot at, and once their transport is destroyed they are still pretty mean in combat and pretty tough

P.s here are my SSlyth conversions. Prob not the kinda thing you guys are after though

spellcheck2001 wrote:

Yes I play this quite often but I do 9 in a raider with a lhamaean (for ld buff) and splinter racks. They tend to murderface whatever they shoot at, and once their transport is destroyed they are still pretty mean in combat and pretty tough

P.s here are my SSlyth conversions. Prob not the kinda thing you guys are after though

Hahahaha! I love it!
"SslOgres"? "Ogresslyth"?

I'd probably have called those grots, but in any case those are way above my skill level. They're awesome.

New meaning of Freakshow

I have proxied sslyths in a game and thought them to be pretty decent, especially from deepstrike in a raider with splinter racks. Im currently working on sslyth using bits from wracks and scourges. Don't really like the whole snake thing

The damage potential of Sslyth coming out of DS with a splinter rack raider is huge, they can do a lot of damage to troops but the expense of that unit is considerable too. It's way more efficient to field multiple squads of warriors in raiders or even MSU's in Venoms. Point for point your troops will always do more damage than the very expensive Ssylth. The question you have to ask with them is whether you want high sustained DoT (damage over time) from troop units or high burst damage from the Sslyth. Nothing can pump out massive infantry burst damage like 10 Sslyth in a Raider, but that unit will die pretty quick and will suck up a lot of your points to do this damage. In an alpha strike strategy the Sslyth are probably better - hit hard and hope to win with a knockout punch. If you want to dance around the table and win from a thousand cuts then you're best ignoring Ssylth entirely and taking lots of warriors instead.

Another possibility for conversions, if you can find decent and cheap snake bodies to chop up is to use Kabalite parts on top of those bodies and throw on some helmets such as these: http://puppetswar.com/product.php?id_product=107

Demantiae wrote:

The damage potential of Sslyth coming out of DS with a splinter rack raider is huge, they can do a lot of damage to troops but the expense of that unit is considerable too. It's way more efficient to field multiple squads of warriors in raiders or even MSU's in Venoms. Point for point your troops will always do more damage than the very expensive Ssylth. The question you have to ask with them is whether you want high sustained DoT (damage over time) from troop units or high burst damage from the Sslyth. Nothing can pump out massive infantry burst damage like 10 Sslyth in a Raider, but that unit will die pretty quick and will suck up a lot of your points to do this damage. In an alpha strike strategy the Sslyth are probably better - hit hard and hope to win with a knockout punch. If you want to dance around the table and win from a thousand cuts then you're best ignoring Ssylth entirely and taking lots of warriors instead.

I remember seeing a thread on here a little while ago in regards to wound/cost potential.
If i remember correctly, the best value for wounds per cost was when you're looking at 10 Sslyth inside a splinter racked raider.

I did one of those analysis threads myself (it could have been mine you read). If you look purely at damage potential (discarding the value of toughness for the unit) then Sslyhts are considerably more expensive than Kabalites.

10 Sslyth, Raider + Splinter Racks: 24pts cost per wound (before saves).
10 Kabalites, Raider + Splinter Racks: 12.66pts cost per wound (before saves). This is an average as they cost 16.87pts p/w if they only fire once or 8.44 if they get to rapid fire effectively.

Both units are affected by snap shooting if the vehicle moves 12" (I don't think assault weapons are immune to this are they?) but the warriors have a range advantage over the Sslyth as their weapons are 24" instead of 18".

As you can see the Sslyth are twice the cost of a warrior squad for the same amount of damage. now they're tougher so their value increases somewhat because of that but an exploding Raider will still hurt them badly. But they have crappy Ld so you really need to bring them down to 9 models (diluting their capabilities) and add a HQ to make them work as you need them at shorter range and so they more susceptible to return fire than as your warriors. So they're toughness I'd say is offset by those disadvantages.

Where Ssylth do shine is in an alphas strike, because although they cost more to run than warriors and are less efficient through the whole game they do have more shots than the warriors and those shots aren't limited by the rapid fire rules. So on the turn they arrive or engage with the enemy they can deliver much burst damage in that first turn before they get blown off the board. If you can get them to shoot and assault in the same turn they have a massive advantage over warriors as they get all 3 shots and some decent CC ability on top of that. This is probably the best (and only good) use of Sslyth - use them as vanguard units to shoot and then assault, doing massive damage in that first round of engagement. If they survive the first couple turns being your spearhead that's just icing on the cake. If you sit back shooting with them you're wasting points, you could have had double the number of warriors and more raiders on the table instead.

Warriors on the other hand do their damage slowly over time, mixing up single shots and rapid fire shots, not really assaulting, relying on numbers and cost efficiency/unit redundancy to deliver sustained DoT -death from a thousand cuts.

The Sslyth are on of my favourite units in the codex but tactically I think they have a very specific role to play that doesn't fit into every DE strategy.

lament.config wrote:

Can anyone post their sslyth conversions?

++COMPLIANCE++






I'm still waiting for the MBF bases to arrive from Spain before I base and prime.
I used the dirt cheap reaper bones 77153: Snakeman Warrior and a squad of e-bay kabalites for most of it. The karbines are from the scourge set and there are some bits and bobs from other kits as well.
The snakemen, kabalites and bases cost about 120 NOK or roughly 15 USD. The rest depends on the depth of your bitz-box.

They are very nice although I wondered about snakes with breasts?

Thanks.
I agree. Having breasts on four armed snakemen living with space elves in an impossible dimension carved from the membrane between reality and hell, is unrealistic.  

Jokes aside, since the sslyth are hedonists like the dark eldar, I imagine they could be inclined to have the covens mod their bodies in order to get in on some of the fun that mammals are having.