Court of the Archon

Seeing as how the Art of War guys think very highly of a mixed Sslyth and Ur-ghul Court, I’m curious if anyone has actually played a game using a Court since the codex was released.

If so, what was the composition?

How did you use it?

And how did it perform?

Very interested to hear about using these in an actual game versus theory hammer.

Not played any games sadly (curse you Covid!) but, based purely on the number of wounds (24), I can see an argument for a defensive Court to hold a backfield objective. But if you just want cheap wounds, then why not take Razorwing Flocks (3pts/W)?

Offensively I'm just not seeing it. The same points value of Incubi will vastly outdamage the Court.

That being said, I'm not Nick Nanavati and I'm sure his knowledge of the game is vastly superior to mine!

He was also using them for WWSWF if I recall correctly.

They are point for point fine, but are more of a "wounds" unit with "Ok" attacks, they have lots of wounds and a good amount of attacks, are core and has <Kabal> so they get traits as well.

Ur-ghuls and Sslyths are still the best to take, Lhaemaeans are for sure the worst, and Medusa's are meh but can be strong against hordes with pistol flamers (can shoot while vehicle is in combat lol).

Their role has changed, they now want to actually go out help objectives, they are still T3, but a unit of 4-6 can work out well.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Not played any games sadly (curse you Covid!) but, based purely on the number of wounds (24), I can see an argument for a defensive Court to hold a backfield objective. But if you just want cheap wounds, then why not take Razorwing Flocks (3pts/W)?

Razorwing are also T2 with no save, can't go in transports and require you to being a Beastmaster.

Slyth are also no bad in combat with 3 S5 Ap-2 attacks and Urgul have 4 S4 AP-1. Along with Shard Carbines. The birds don't do anything

I could see using it for WWSWF but it just seems like a lot of points (relatively speaking) for a unit with okay but not great survivability (only T3) and okay melee that’s outclassed by Wyches IMHO.

I’m extremely curious to see Nanavatti’s stream house game against Lennon’s DA to see how he uses them. Anyone have any predictions for that matchup? I haven’t played the new DA yet but I have friends who have and they’ve described the experience as “oppressive” and “non-interactive.”

I get his point on using them for backfield holding and maybe scramblers but WWSWF for my lists it wont work. Id need to make a unit of around 100pts or above to make them qualify and that's a lot of points sitting on an objective doing nothing.

With my current list I would never take WWSWF as it's basically handing my opponent 15 VPs. I think you need to tailor your list to taking that objective.

They are not doing nothing though, they're getting points. If you need a point scoring unit to be that durable will depend on a lot of things but I'm pretty sure that "do nothing" units will be more effective towards winning the game than something like a Ravager.

The fact that you can compound several objectives to be scored with a single unit (by making it WWSWF) kind of makes it cheaper since it's able to multitask multiple objectives.

100ish points seems very effiencent for what you get out of them, I look forward to experimenting.

I can see going for the Court over the Razorwing Flocks due to lack of FA slots in our Raiding Forces. But you would need to take an Archon to unlock the Court, and so far I would prefer to take Drazhar as my Kabal HQ.

Also, for the same points you could get 17 Wracks that would do a very similar job. Possibly better in some match-ups.

I am curious to see how it goes for Mr. Nanavati. The proof will be in the (hedonistically deprived) pudding

Far be it for me to disagree with Nick Nanavatti, but I think WWSWF is a secondary that kind of goes against our general play style.  One of, if not the biggest, strength of our new codex is that it allows us to trade up with almost all of our units.  Most of your army is going to die, but as long as they’re doing their specific task before they do, we’ll almost always come out ahead because we’re very points efficient and we will usually have more models/units to trade than most opponents.  

WWSWF forces us to alter this and play more defensively with a sizable chunk of our army, which I think hinders what we do best which is controlled, surgical strike aggression.  In my games so far, my turn 2/3 blitz assaults have been so ferocious that I’m not worried about the opponent’s counterpunch because I’ve guaranteed that I will win the war of attrition on turns 4/5.

fisheyes wrote:

I can see going for the Court over the Razorwing Flocks due to lack of FA slots in our Raiding Forces. But you would need to take an Archon to unlock the Court, and so far I would prefer to take Drazhar as my Kabal HQ.

Also, for the same points you could get 17 Wracks that would do a very similar job. Possibly better in some match-ups.

I mean you can but the Wracks have a lot less wounds (but otherwise have better tank stats), don't fit in a transport, are harder to hide and require you to run a Coven.

sweetbacon wrote:

Far be it for me to disagree with Nick Nanavatti, but I think WWSWF is a secondary that kind of goes against our general play style.  One of, if not the biggest, strength of our new codex is that it allows us to trade up with almost all of our units.  Most of your army is going to die, but as long as they’re doing their specific task before they do, we’ll almost always come out ahead because we’re very points efficient and we will usually have more models/units to trade than most opponents.  

WWSWF forces us to alter this and play more defensively with a sizable chunk of our army, which I think hinders what we do best which is controlled, surgical strike aggression.  In my games so far, my turn 2/3 blitz assaults have been so ferocious that I’m not worried about the opponent’s counterpunch because I’ve guaranteed that I will win the war of attrition on turns 4/5.

I think one of the reasons WWSWF is worth considering is precisely because of our MSU, trade-up playstyle.

The amount of roadblocks we can put up, how easily we can tie up and intercept opponents and the fact that we can have really cheap WWSWF units ( I think I'd have more than 50% of my CSM list picked due to unit costs) means if built for it's a pretty neat idea.

@Yziel, you are absolutely correct.

Lets watch the game and see what happens. I really liked my Sslyth action monkeys in early 9th, still trying to wrap my head around the massive change they got

fisheyes wrote:

@Yziel, you are absolutely correct.

Lets watch the game and see what happens. I really liked my Sslyth action monkeys in early 9th, still trying to wrap my head around the massive change they got

I should really give TTS another shot since I can't find any drukhari boxes to play with IRL.

I was going to covert some Slyth from some AOS Melusai I have spare

Yziel wrote:

sweetbacon wrote:

Far be it for me to disagree with Nick Nanavatti, but I think WWSWF is a secondary that kind of goes against our general play style.  One of, if not the biggest, strength of our new codex is that it allows us to trade up with almost all of our units.  Most of your army is going to die, but as long as they’re doing their specific task before they do, we’ll almost always come out ahead because we’re very points efficient and we will usually have more models/units to trade than most opponents.  

WWSWF forces us to alter this and play more defensively with a sizable chunk of our army, which I think hinders what we do best which is controlled, surgical strike aggression.  In my games so far, my turn 2/3 blitz assaults have been so ferocious that I’m not worried about the opponent’s counterpunch because I’ve guaranteed that I will win the war of attrition on turns 4/5.

I think one of the reasons WWSWF is worth considering is precisely because of our MSU, trade-up playstyle.

The amount of roadblocks we can put up, how easily we can tie up and intercept opponents and the fact that we can have really cheap WWSWF units ( I think I'd have more than 50% of my CSM list picked due to unit costs) means if built for it's a pretty neat idea.

That’s a fair point. I will watch the game and see how it plays on the table against a really tough opponent.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Not played any games sadly (curse you Covid!) but, based purely on the number of wounds (24), I can see an argument for a defensive Court to hold a backfield objective. But if you just want cheap wounds, then why not take Razorwing Flocks (3pts/W)?

Razorwings have Ld4, and require a 40 point Beastmaster. I'd also argue that Elite slots are less in demand than Fast Attack. Sslyth and Ur-Ghuls also have a FNP they can leverage on top of armor, cover and whatnot.

I'm not 100% about this unit.... but it would give your Archon plenty of protection.

False Son wrote:

Razorwings have Ld4, and require a 40 point Beastmaster.  I'd also argue that Elite slots are less in demand than Fast Attack.

The Court doesn't take up any slots at all which is nice if you want to spam Incubi in the same Detachment.

sweetbacon wrote:

I could see using it for WWSWF but it just seems like a lot of points (relatively speaking) for a unit with okay but not great survivability (only T3) and okay melee that’s outclassed by Wyches IMHO.  

I’m extremely curious to see Nanavatti’s stream house game against Lennon’s DA to see how he uses them.  Anyone have any predictions for that matchup?  I haven’t played the new DA yet but I have friends who have and they’ve described the experience as “oppressive” and “non-interactive.”

Their survivability is outstanding for their cost. 24 Wounds 6++/5+++

Bonus frustration for the opponent if you manage to bring one back with the Cronos.

I do think an Archon needs a group of bodyguards around him. And Incubi can do that as well. However, If you're bringing Drahzar, it just makes more sense to put your Incubi with Draz.

An Archon with a few Sslyth takes way more points than they cost to remove from an objective. You don't want to try and take an objective with them, (that's where Incubi or Wyches come in), but just sitting on it and refusing to get off that objective is where a few Sslyth will shine in my oppinion.
Aka "Nope, this is mine now".