Shall we go hunting with Lhamaeans, my fellow Archons?

Venom blades, may they rest in peace, historically found a way into the hands of almost every combat units hands' - be they Reavers, Archons, Wyches, Wracks, you name it, we could take it and we loved it. I mean, it was even an ok choice on Syrabites, if we chose to run those.

Currently, our Wyches are dirt; they die like flies and hit like flashlights.

There's numerous ideas about changes we could implement to make them better - Here

Most of these changes suggested, involve increasing their damage, not their staying power. What I propose, or ask for opinions on, is to replace Wyches with Lhamaeans instead. Conversions would be easy enough imho.

Consider this: a modified, slightly more vulnerable Wych, with a better version of a venom blade.

What are we losing - Grenades, 4+ invul in combat, drugs, access to bad wych weapons.
What are we gaining - Shaimeshi Blades, HQ slot filled, LD9.

Overall, they're in the same boat in terms of defence - you will die horribly if anything so much as aims at you, just like Wyches. The invulnerable save is the only redeeming quality of a Wych, but its not reliable at only 4+ anyway, and you pay all of your points for that, because the Wych itself hits like a wet rag.

For offensive, however, things are quite different. They have the same values for WS/A, and I5 is usually just as good as I6. Most of drug rolls help the Wyches a little, but not terribly so. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but it seems like a 10 points model capable of wounding anything on 2's, and ID'ing all of that on 6's, is kind of a big deal.

The only exception, is of course, a Gargantuan Creature.

But I feel that Lhamaeans, in a pinch, can be 'ok' against them. So, we're only wounding on 6's, but for each single inflicted wound, if he fails his save and FNP, he's eating between 2 and 4 wounds. Its not like Dark Eldar have any 'good' weapons against GC's, so settling for 'ok' ones is fine with me.

The only games I've tried them in featured no GC's, but they butchered regular infantry quite well, and accounted for a squad of Ogryns once, and a unit of spawn another time - both of which the Wyches would straight up get dunked by.

Has anyone else played with a big squad of Lhamaeans? Care to share your experience with them?

Dont think a gargantuan would get FNP- instant death rule trumps that. So they can be bad asses, but only 2 attacks on the charge, for what thats worth.

I usually run a lhamean-(10 pt HQ FTW!) and put him in with my Dark Reapers or even just walk him on/hide him.With a squad of 3+ save makes him more durable, and he will usually get a wound in.

Problem is the same thing wyches have-no reliable or abundance of AP punching weapons. Its why Reavers are our go to assault unit. They hit and run, have rending HOW, and are T4. Just better all round really.

Darkgreen Pirate wrote:

I usually run a lhamean-(10 pt HQ FTW!) and put him in with my Dark Reapers or even just walk him on/hide him.With a squad of 3+ save makes him more durable, and he will usually get a wound in. .

Lhamean isn't an independent character. So can't join other units.

But I too pay the Lhamean HQ tax at times.

Silverglade wrote:

Darkgreen Pirate wrote:

I usually run a lhamean-(10 pt HQ FTW!) and put him in with my Dark Reapers or even just walk him on/hide him.With a squad of 3+ save makes him more durable, and he will usually get a wound in. .

Lhamean isn't an independent character.  So can't join other units.

But I too pay the Lhamean HQ tax at times.  

Sorry should have clarified; he rides along near them. He cant join but I keep him nearby as a counter, if I dont hide him on an objective

But she got three attacks on the charge. Should be enough to kill a gigantic creature.
I will definitely run those. Any idea how to convert them?

The problem is the lack of greneades. I had play a mix of Lam and Sslyth, to have T5 in majority AND some poison attacks in CC.

It works fine, but I had felt the lack of greneades

Darkgreen Pirate wrote:

Dont think a gargantuan would get FNP- instant death rule trumps that. So they can be bad asses, but only 2 attacks on the charge, for what thats worth.

They definitely get 3 on the charge - they have 1 base, a pistol and shaimeshi blade for 2 weapons bonus, plus their charge bonus. But wow I hadn't thought of that - they actually beat FNP?

That makes them seriously awesome at eating wraithknights. They won't be touched by overwatch either. You could quite realistically put between 2-6 wounds on one of those in a single phase of combat.

CptMetal wrote:

I will definitely run those. Any idea how to convert them?

You can use the Wych legs you have been stockpiling since they blow. I plan on using both the torsos and legs, and then adorning them with a little green stuff/left over kabalite gear. The arms of wyches are fine, but perhaps the ccw needs to be a long thin sword, rather than the jagged standard issue wych knife. Easy enough to find replacements.

Try proxy a unit of normal wyches first to test the waters on if you actually like the unit. I know I'm sold on it, but if you don't like them, don't bother converting them imo.

Cerve wrote:

The problem is the lack of greneades. I had play a mix of Lam and Sslyth, to have T5 in majority AND some poison attacks in CC.

It works fine, but I had felt the lack of greneades

All our good combat units suffer from this. Look for opportunities to fight units in the open, or bring in the Harlequin shooting character with the special rule "Death is not Enough" - pulls enemies out of cover and close, which is pretty cute.

A Sslyth is 2.5 the cost, and dilutes the charge of what 10 of these ladies can do. There's better builds with an emphasis on Sslyth, but if you're playing Lmahaeans in bulk, it should be literally 5 in a venom or 10 in a raider. They seem like their talents are wasted when you put Sslyth in, because they both want vastly different targets to fight in close combat.

The good part of this unit, they're cheap from the get go. Which is unlike our Incubi/Grots/Reavers/Sslyth. Sure they're not efficient against GEQ, but once FNP kicks in, you get a hell of a lot from a 10 point model.

Yes, but the units who lack in greneade are T5, or at least 3+ save.

These are Kabalites with poison CC :-/ anyway, they can work as harrass (just like our entire Codex)

I use them once in a while. A Wych will get 1/9 kills against MEQ on the charge (assuming no useful drugs), while a Lhamaean will score 5/12 kills. An Incubus, at double the points, score slightly more than double the kills at 1 MEQ kill on the charge. Whether the model mass of Lhamaeans or the 3+ save of Incubi is harder to deal with depends entirely on the opponent. Generally though, I'd have to give it to the Incubi. A Grotesque, meanwhile, costs 3.5x as much as a Lhamaean, but scores 28/27 kills (assuming you get Rampage off), negligibly more than an Incubus while being nearly double the points. Of course, they've got Toughness 5 and 3 wounds, and like the Lhamaean, do much better than the Incubi against higher toughness targets.

Still, 10 points for a single Lhamaean that does nothing is still a 10 point tax, where a larger squad can get something done. When it comes to the HQ slot for a CAD/RSR, I like to either go with a Raider packed with Lhamaeans, or give my Grotesquerie Haemonculus a WWP so he can ride with a group of Medusae in a Venom. Sometimes even take an actual HQ, in which case I like to roll with the Succubus.

I don't want to burst any bubbles, but my issue with Lhamaeans is one of 'why am I bothering with melee again'?

Even with 2+ poison, it seems like you'd be better off just using Venoms (especially once you factor in transport costs, overwatch, retaliation attacks etc.).

More importantly though, if I'm using melee at all it should be to cover my weaknesses - e.g. vehicles, GCs, units in cover etc.

Lhamaeans cover... none of these weaknesses.

hydranixx wrote:

That makes them seriously awesome at eating wraithknights. They won't be touched by overwatch either. You could quite realistically put between 2-6 wounds on one of those in a single phase of combat.

If by 'realistically' you mean 'once in a blue moon', sure.

Let's break this down. 10 Lhamaeans is 30 attacks on the charge.
15 hits
2.5 Wounds
0.8 Failed saves

If it fails a save it's taking 2 wounds on average, but it's important to note that you're not actually averaging a single failed save. Hence, the odds of doing 4-6 wounds are hardly in your favour.

Moreover, because you've got no invulnerable save, your squad will almost certainly be stomped to oblivion in return.

And, that's assuming you can even catch the WK with them - given that it's just as mobile as you, but its speed isn't tied to a paper-thin transport.

hydranixx wrote:

All our good combat units suffer from this.

Hence why most of them aren't actually 'good'.

Also, whilst Grotesques (our only good melee unit) suffer from this, they're at least resilient enough to take a hit.

hydranixx wrote:

All our good combat units suffer from this. Look for opportunities to fight units in the open, or bring in the Harlequin shooting character with the special rule "Death is not Enough" - pulls enemies out of cover and close, which is pretty cute.

Or, you know, if we're using Harlequins anyway we could just make use of their vastly better melee units and avoid the issue altogether.

Haven't different organizations (such as ITC) ruled that a weapon that can't harm a creature of a given toughness, still can't even if there is a special rule which ignores toughness?

Mathhammer is also programmed to ignore wounds achieved solely through these special rules.  Seekers of slaanesh for example should shred a wraithknight with 4 rending attacks each on the charge.  They hit first and should always wound on 6, at ap2.  But since they're natural strength of 3 can't ever wound toughness 8 math hammer registers 0.00 wounds for any and all of their attacks.

I do like lhamean (although I've never found too much use for them), and in general could care less about tournament rules, but it might be a concern to some.

stilgar27 wrote:

Haven't different organizations (such as ITC) ruled that a weapon that can't harm a creature of a given toughness, still can't even if there is a special rule which ignores toughness?

IIRC, the ITC rule was basically that ID wouldn't apply unless the weapon/ability was capable of wounding the target in the first place. That's not an issue for poison weapons though because they are capable of wounding the target.

Whether that was the intention of the ITC or not is another matter...

stilgar27 wrote:

Haven't different organizations (such as ITC) ruled that a weapon that can't harm a creature of a given toughness, still can't even if there is a special rule which ignores toughness?

Does this affect Lhamaeans? I mean, their weapon is still poisoned.

stilgar27 wrote:

Mathhammer is also programmed to ignore wounds achieved solely through these special rules.

Eh? Not unless the guy doing the mathhammer is grossly incompetent.

stilgar27 wrote:

 Seekers of slaanesh for example should shred a wraithknight with 4 rending attacks each on the charge.  They hit first and should always wound on 6, at ap2.  But since they're natural strength of 3 can't ever wound toughness 8 math hammer registers 0.00 wounds for any and all of their attacks.

Why on earth would mathhammer register 0.0 wounds?  If you're doing mathhammer, then you're taking into account any special rules that affect the outcome. And, Rending is one of the easiest rules to mathhammer (especially in this case when you don't even need to bother working out non-rending wounds).

Let's go through this, Seekers have 4 attacks on the charge and WS5 (IIRC).

So, 4 x 2/3 hits (WS5 vs WS4) x 1/6 wounds (only rending matters) x 2/3 get through FNP (armour saves are obviously ignored) = 16/54 =~0.3 per Seeker.

So, each Seeker is doing 0.3 wounds to a WK on the charge (or 0.2 if it has the 5++). Hence a unit of 10 will inflict 3 wounds on average.

I'm not trying to get at you, stilgar27, I'm just genuinely confused. I've never heard of this form of mathhammer that seemingly ignores the most important (not to mention easily calculable) special rules.

Or, is there some sort of basic mathhammer site/program that I'm not aware of?

Might just be the one my group has always used.

http://www.mathhammer40k.com/

Specifically we use the android app, strangely the website isn't nearly as full featured as I don't even see a "rending" check box.

stilgar27 wrote:

Might just be the one my group has always used.

http://www.mathhammer40k.com/

Specifically we use the android app, strangely the website isn't nearly as full featured as I don't even see a "rending" check box.

Ah, I see.

I just use a pen and paper.

I often find myself doing little bits of math hammering in my head as I go about my day and occasionally I'll write stuff down, but for the most part I've become lazy and rely on the app for complex stuff.  I'll send in a request to fix this "bug" now that I know it's not intentional.

I always just thought it was just part of tournament rules I (obviously) didn't fully understand.

The Shredder wrote:

I don't want to burst any bubbles

Hey, that's totally fine!
I ritually anticipate the dreaded bubble bursting prowess of The Shredder. Seriously, you keep the crazy ideas quite grounded. I appreciate you calling out unnecessary shenanigans. Which to be fair, this idea might well be.

Hear me out though on this.

The Shredder wrote:

If by 'realistically' you mean 'once in a blue moon', sure.

Let's break this down. 10 Lhamaeans is 30 attacks on the charge.
15 hits
2.5 Wounds
0.8 Failed saves

If it fails a save it's taking 2 wounds on average, but it's important to note that you're not actually averaging a single failed save. Hence, the odds of doing 4-6 wounds are hardly in your favour.

Well, to be fair, its statistically 1+d3 (Unstoppable SR) so on average this should total between 2 and 4 wounds. 3 is a fairly common result. Relying on that 80% failed save of course.

Which in your defense, is not something to reliably rely on

The point I hasten to add though, is that this is more damage output than almost any other melee unit that would dare to tread on a Wraithknight, and its priced at 10 points per model. There's no 'good' answer for Wraithknights, but this is an affordable, ok option.

Wraithknights are dicks. Nothing we have can shoot at them well. I'm a staunch advocate of allied Eldar for wraithguard, but this is all we have in a pure Dark Eldar list.

You want to shoot ranged poison at it? Enjoy wounding on 6's, getting past the 3+ save and FNP, and then do it 5 more times. Lances at it? Go right ahead on 4's, hoping there's no cover, and beat his FNP, and once again do this all 5 more times, all the while their Wave Serpents wreck our entire fleet.

If you have any advice for me how to beat them with range, please tell me. I'm eager to find out more counters to these things.

The Shredder wrote:

Also, whilst Grotesques (our only good melee unit) suffer from this, they're at least resilient enough to take a hit.

I agree with you here. I love Grots. It is worth mentioning, though, that they still get stomped by strength D, Strength 10, poison, Grey Knights and other Force Weapons, ID and combat against 2+ saves units. They win hands down against their preferred targets, but there's plenty to rip Grots a new one.

Lhamaeans will like die faster to small arms fire, but they die just as quickly to the things above that I described above. They cost 3.5 times less, several more bodies to work with, strike before a lot of the things that would ruin them in combat, and have better stats for fighting high toughness mobs.

Their primary function is eating things like bikers/spawn/ogryns/grots, while being good enough to take on regular MEQ, and finally as a last ditched effort against GC etc.

The Shredder wrote:

Or, you know, if we're using Harlequins anyway we could just make use of their vastly better melee units and avoid the issue altogether.

You're completely right that these dudes are better melee units.

But they are not HQ choices, which we will have to auto-include, they cost more, they need to buy characters or wargear to be useful and they die as quickly to las guns or bolters as the lhamaeans once FNP kicks in.

I'm afraid Unstoppable means ID weapons inflict d3 wounds to a GC - not d3+1.

And it's giving your witches a new purpose.

I wanted to address a few of your points, but didn't have time earlier:

hydranixx wrote:

The point I hasten to add though, is that this is more damage output than almost any other melee unit that would dare to tread on a Wraithknight, and its priced at 10 points per model. There's no 'good' answer for Wraithknights, but this is an affordable, ok option.

Wraithknights are dicks. Nothing we have can shoot at them well. I'm a staunch advocate of allied Eldar for wraithguard, but this is all we have in a pure Dark Eldar list.

You want to shoot ranged poison at it? Enjoy wounding on 6's, getting past the 3+ save and FNP, and then do it 5 more times. Lances at it? Go right ahead on 4's, hoping there's no cover, and beat his FNP, and once again do this all 5 more times, all the while their Wave Serpents wreck our entire fleet.

If you have any advice for me how to beat them with range, please tell me. I'm eager to find out more counters to these things.

No, I quite agree, WKs are just plain ludicrous.

I just thought it was important to note that expecting Lhamaeans to do 4-6 wounds to a WK is really optimistic and far from the average result (which is a little under 2 wounds).

But you're right - we need to take anything we can get, and Lhamaeans are still better than most of our other options.

Apropos of nothing, but have you noticed that making Agonisers poison weapons actually made them worse against GCs?

hydranixx wrote:

I agree with you here. I love Grots. It is worth mentioning, though, that they still get stomped by strength D, Strength 10, poison, Grey Knights and other Force Weapons, ID and combat against 2+ saves units. They win hands down against their preferred targets, but there's plenty to rip Grots a new one.

Believe me - I know.

I've often found Grot survivability to be vastly overrated even against weapons that don't ID them.

But, even so, I'd still rather have them striking last than Lhamaeans striking last.

hydranixx wrote:

Lhamaeans will like die faster to small arms fire, but they die just as quickly to the things above that I described above. They cost 3.5 times less, several more bodies to work with, strike before a lot of the things that would ruin them in combat, and have better stats for fighting high toughness mobs.

The one thing that always concerns me with units like Lhamaeans (and Incubi, for that matter) is what happens to them when they win combat and are left in the open. Just seems really easy to end up stranded and shredded by enemy fire. However, this could just be paranoia on my part.

hydranixx wrote:

Their primary function is eating things like bikers/spawn/ogryns/grots, while being good enough to take on regular MEQ, and finally as a last ditched effort against GC etc.

You're completely right that these dudes are better melee units.

But they are not HQ choices, which we will have to auto-include, they cost more, they need to buy characters or wargear to be useful and they die as quickly to las guns or bolters as the lhamaeans once FNP kicks in.

Lhamaeans being HQs is an interesting one. In defence of Grots (and Incubi, I suppose), I'd argue that our Elite slot isn't exactly contested.

But, as you say, we have to take one HQ choice. I'll admit that taking no Character-HQs in a list always makes me sad, but that's a personal issue. Certainly a squad of Lhamaeans is almost certainly going to be better value than equal points of our character HQs.

Out of interest, how many Lhamaeans do you think would be best? Would it be better to go for the full 10, or might a smaller squad of around 5 be enough (WKs not withstanding)?

CptMetal wrote:

And it's giving your witches a new purpose.

For me, Corsairs have already done that.