Reminiscing on the Long Lost Characters

So we all know that 5 characters were removed in 7th.

Rather than complaining about it (which would obviously be a completely new thing for me ), I thought it might be fun to ask about the experiences of those who used them in 5th/6th.

Did anyone here use The Duke, The Baron, Lady Malys, Vect, or (heaven forbid) The Decapitator?

If so, how did they perform? Were there any memorable moments involving them?

For my part, I had a friend who made heavy use of the Duke (mainly for his buffs). I gave the Baron numerous tries leading units of Hellions (apparently Beasts were better but I didn't own any back then), but I fear my most memorable experience was the fact that he developed a reputation for embarrassing failure. Losing his Shadowfield after failing a dangerous terrain test (even with his reroll), losing it on another occasion after an embarrassing slapfight with a Zoanthrope (I think it might even have headbutted him to death). Not exactly a shining example of the Baron's mastery, though it was quite funny.

So what about you guys? Any fun memories of these long lost characters?

I loved the Duke: he was my second HQ, holding the backline together, securing back objectives with a few squads of troops.
My main Archon was at the front, hunting down characters, and using her Huskblade/Soul Trap to double or even quadruple her strength.
The Baron's expanded drugs cabinet helped her get there and achieve it.

It made the army really feel like there was a good reason for two HQs in a race that is suppose to have a viciously competitive power structure.

I have many fond memories of the Baron and his hellion henchmen hiding in forests, chasing down troop units, and hit-and-running back onto objectives on the last turn. He also failed leadership tests all the time. Baron Sissypants I called him.

Sathonyx+20Hellions+Haemonculus+3Wracks. Magician's tricks with pain tokens and go with one of the best deathstars of the 5th edition!

I miss those guys.

Cerve wrote:

Sathonyx+20Hellions+Haemonculus+3Wracks. Magician's tricks with pain tokens and go with one of the best deathstars of the 5th edition!

I miss those guys.

I'm curious - what was the pain token trick?

I know you could attach the Haemonculus to the Hellions and then leave his pain token with them, but where did the Wracks fit in?

You could also have Sathonyx start the game with the Wracks, then leave their pain token with him while he runs off to join the Hellions in the same way that the Haemy starts with the Hellions and leaves his pain token with them.
That way you'd have two pain tokens and Furious Charge on your Hellions: One from the Haemy and one from the Wracks.

mynamelegend wrote:

You could also have Sathonyx start the game with the Wracks, then leave their pain token with him while he runs off to join the Hellions in the same way that the Haemy starts with the Hellions and leaves his pain token with them.
That way you'd have two pain tokens and Furious Charge on your Hellions: One from the Haemy and one from the Wracks.

Oh, I see. Very clever.

I would always run lady malys, given her fluff and my play group I was allowed to run some homegrown rules for her that everyone agreed on, which included her codex rules, so she had her own set of psychic powers ... outside of when we did our own local tournaments where I did my absolute best to make use of all the relocation abilities I could so deploy the redeploy all my raiders, though I think the best memory goes to her right hand, a standard archon that charged a group of fire warriors with his retinue of incubi ... and lost in a spectacular series of absolutely awful rolls that could only have been a gift from slaanesh itself, 3 incubi died to overwatch, the 4th whiffed all of his attacks, the archon hit all of his then failed to cause a single wound, the last incubi died to their return cc attacks ... rolled box cars for leadership so the archon runs away ... then roll snake eyes for distance while the Tao rolled a 6 ... so he is then overtaken and wiped by this group of fire warriors...

I made frequent use of Decapitator As a one-man drop in and cause mayhem, he was wonderful. Much like a Callidus, he would just appear and target a vital character in the enemy army, and I always found him a lot of fun to use.
BUT WHY AREN'T WE TALKING ABOUT KRUELLAGH THE VILE?! I WANT KRUELLAGH BACK!

Squidmaster wrote:

I made frequent use of Decapitator As a one-man drop in and cause mayhem, he was wonderful. Much like a Callidus, he would just appear and target a vital character in the enemy army, and I always found him a lot of fun to use.
BUT WHY AREN'T WE TALKING ABOUT KRUELLAGH THE VILE?! I WANT KRUELLAGH BACK!

Kruellagh was somewhat before my time, I'm afraid.

What was her shtick?

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Squidmaster wrote:

I made frequent use of Decapitator As a one-man drop in and cause mayhem, he was wonderful. Much like a Callidus, he would just appear and target a vital character in the enemy army, and I always found him a lot of fun to use.
BUT WHY AREN'T WE TALKING ABOUT KRUELLAGH THE VILE?! I WANT KRUELLAGH BACK!

Kruellagh was somewhat before my time, I'm afraid.

What was her shtick?

Kruellagh is Archon of the Flayed Skull! One of the named and "has abilities" Kabals!
And her primary schtick, other than having a joke name based on Cruella Deville, was having a pair of suction spikes grated into her arms that counted as a pair of poisoned weapons. Every time she killed someone, she got an extra attack in the next turn.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/8/8d/Kruellagh_the_Vile.jpg

She even had a model!!! More than most other characters have had before!

I used to have Vect and the Baron in a gigantic beastpack with khymeras & razorwings.
Mith stelth, preferd enemies and hit & run and a unit with a gurgatian footprint they wher all over the gaming table

Squidmaster wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Squidmaster wrote:

I made frequent use of Decapitator As a one-man drop in and cause mayhem, he was wonderful. Much like a Callidus, he would just appear and target a vital character in the enemy army, and I always found him a lot of fun to use.
BUT WHY AREN'T WE TALKING ABOUT KRUELLAGH THE VILE?! I WANT KRUELLAGH BACK!

Kruellagh was somewhat before my time, I'm afraid.

What was her shtick?

Kruellagh is Archon of the Flayed Skull! One of the named and "has abilities" Kabals!
And her primary schtick, other than having a joke name based on Cruella Deville, was having a pair of suction spikes grated into her arms that counted as a pair of poisoned weapons. Every time she killed someone, she got an extra attack in the next turn.

https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/8/8d/Kruellagh_the_Vile.jpg

She even had a model!!! More than most other characters have had before!

I mean, much as I'm somewhat nostalgic about Kruellagh as a character, her model was also one of the worst designs 40k has ever seen...

I used the Baron literally every game in 5th. I also used 3 Haemonculus (they were 3 for 1 slot) and sometimes an Archon.

The Baron gave lots of utility:
+1 to see what side you are on
gives a unit Stealth (+1 to cover save, so in 9th +2 to save)
gives a unit Hit and Run (Fallback shoot and charge)
gives a unit Fleet (run and charge)

He also had +2 to strength instead of +1 and made Hellions Troops (even thought I never did that).


The trick with him was you add him to a good unit that doesn't already have these rules to make them much faster, you can make a 10 man Incubi run and charge, have very good saves, and fallback if you need too and charge still. Or you can add him to a large Beastpack unit which was just an insane amount of wounds (4++/5+++ hit and run, run and charge).


Lady Malys was neat too, she was great if you wanted a model to add to a unit to kill Power armor. Say a beastpack  and let you redeploy D3 units. She was just a anti Marine beat stick with 7 attacks.

Vect was a unit multiplier, he gave re-roll all hits in combat, he also gets a roll of a 4+ to go first,, otherwise he is just a Beat stick Archon with lots of wargear. He was over costed tbh.

Kheradruakh, honestly I hated him b.c he HAD to DS and DS was random turns they come in and had a rule to say he can not charge that turn, if it was not for that he would have been an auto take for me every game, starts with Pain token (5+++) has a power weapon with Instant death on a 6 to wound, and he gets re-rolls vs a other named character. So I never took him, there could be games he never even gets to fight... so stupid.

Duke was Utility and was good at that, he was also a better melee character, wounds on 2+ and on 5+ he ignores armor saves, make a Kabal unit +1 to wound with point and let Wyches roll twice to pick their drugs, also he gave all Raiders, Venoms, and Ravager free DS.

Burnage wrote:

I mean, much as I'm somewhat nostalgic about Kruellagh as a character, her model was also one of the worst designs 40k has ever seen...

Heresy.
For third edition (when it was released) it wasn't too bad. Most of the sculpts back them were a little borky

Squidmaster wrote:

Burnage wrote:

I mean, much as I'm somewhat nostalgic about Kruellagh as a character, her model was also one of the worst designs 40k has ever seen...

Heresy.
For third edition (when it was released) it wasn't too bad. Most of the sculpts back them were a little borky

I'm a big fan of most of the third edition sculpts and was playing at the time.

Kruellagh was awful.

She was, there were a few that i hated, but some i loved. She is just a meme now. I love and still use the 3rd Reavers.

Duke was the keystone of my army in 5th, when he went, and along with Trueborn with Shardcarbines, I pretty much stopped playing DE. Shame that none of the named characters came back this codex.