500 points coven list

Hey all, I am new to collecting Drukhari and kind of new to 40k overall. I've been collecting 40k models for a while but never got around to actually playing. Now that my lgs is allowing gaming again I figured I should try and get into the game. I wanted to make a 500 point coven army, the horror elements of their minis appeal to me. Though I do wish grotesques had more than 1 sculpt. I was able to snag a venom dirt cheap so that's one model already covered.

For my shopping list I was going to get 1 haemonculus, 2 boxes of wracks, 1 or 2 talos, 5 mandrakes, and the regular combat patrol box for the incubi and raider (and also so I can do a seperate kabal list later on). So all that along with the venom I should have some good options. I am pretty puzzled about how to outfit the wracks though, and if it's worth upgrading the haemonculus/doing haemoxytes instead of regular wracks.

To be honest: I am not sure, if Coven is a good choice to begin with. You miss the the, well, killyness of the Drukhari,
as well as their speed. Practically all you get is a bunch of sturdy guys, without the means of taking your advantage of that.

to answer your question Deckard_2049: Haemoxytes are really good! seriously really sturdy So they are really worth it. Also the Master Haemonculus resurection ability is really good, especially in 500pts list (its almost as if you we're adding 100pts to your list).

Personnally i really love to equip my 10 mans squad of Wracks with 2x Ossefactor and 1x Hexrifle; the Electrocorosive Whip is really good too and if you go with the Custom Coven +1S, than instead use the Mindphase Gauntlet

Talos are amongst my favorite models, especially with 2x Heat Lance and 2x Macro Scalpel.

For Grotesque, i really recommend the +1S and reroll charge (or ignore save) custom made obsession.

Knowing at 500pts you probably intend on playing friendly, i invite you to continue your goal to do a ''horror'' list as you intend to do, they are far from being unplayable as some think, just not at a competitive level

The Combat Patrol box is a must for every newcomer to the Drukhari
Enjoy you army creation and wishing you the best of luck for your future games

Try the Hexrifle and Ossefactors with Dark Creed. Their Strat lets you ignore 'Look out, Sir!'

good catch for the Ignore look out sir for the Ossefactors!!

Your priority for model collection seems to be about right. Talos kits have all sorts of extra bits that are very commonly used to kit-bash Grotesques. Take a tour thru Google, there are a lot of cool stuff.

For a 500 point Coven army, my suggestions would be approx:

Master Haemonculus - 100
10 Haemoxytes (with Electrocorrosive whip on the Acothyst) - 105
5 Incubi - 80
1 Venom - 75
1 Talos (equipment is up to you, but you cant go wrong with an Ichor Inector and Dual Heat Lance).

I would recomend Artists of the Flesh for your Coven (-1 damage helps iwth the Talos, Venom, and ensures your Wracks/Haemoxytes get their 5+++ FNP saves).

Personally I dont really like the Wrack weapons other than the ECW, but if you go Dark Technomancer than they do work fairly well.

The trick with playing Dark Eldar is positioning. You always got to be thinking of your next turn, and positioning so that you can run out and do your buisness (remember you can Advance and Charge on Turn 2, and everything either has Infantry or Fly to move thru/over walls)

No Raiders? They are great Dark Creed units. With grizzly trophies and PGL.

Thanks guys, my opponents will likely be running custodes, necrons, marines of all flavors if that changes anything. But yeah we won't be playing competitively or in some kind of local competition. Some of these guys are also very new to the game (as in never played before at all). My lgs has been out of stock of the codex for a little while, so I don't have the rules on hand yet to see the differences with the covens. I've been messing around on battlescribe a bit though.

Basically, the Dark Eldar are split into 4 sub groups:

Kabal - The shooty guys. Strongest unit is Trueborn, generally Obsidian Rose (for the extra range and re-roll) or Black Heart (for the reroll and the Vect Strat).

Cult - The stabby girls. Strongest section of the codex. Main units are Succubus, Reavers/Hellions and the humble wych. Cult of Strife is the go-to, due to a variety of reasons I will not get into now.

Coven - The durable stabby monsters. Probably the "weakest" section of the codex, but still very powerful. The jury is still out on the "most powerful" unit, since the recent FAQ that kills Wracks with Liquifiers. There are a LOT of ways to build around these flesh creatures.

My recomendation to a new player is to run Artists of the Flesh (a custom coven for -1 damage). It is best with Grotesques, but it doesnt look like you have figured out how to build them yet. Wracks like it because they get their 5+++ FNP save against damage 2 weapons, and Talos love it because it reduces the damage from Anti Tank weapons.

There is a 4th subgroup - Blades for Hire
Basically mercinaries that can jump between the sub factions. Incubi are SUPER stabby, Mandrakes win you games by scoring points, Scourges are highly mobile and able to take special weapons. All are great, but Incubi are my personal favorite.

Anything in particular you have questions about?

Actually it bothers me, when you just say OR and BH are best, because of Obsession or Relic or Strat.
I think, they all are strong in their special ways. Cult of Strife on the other side. Well, lets just say, they're the spoiled kids...

just a small correction about Artist of Flesh, it won't affect your Venoms (nor any vehicles)

also, if you want to play Cult of Strife properly, you need to buy an overcosted book called Book of Rust Charadon.........and when i say overcosted its 70$ here in canada (its even more expensive than our actual Codex!!!!!!!) for only 4 pages..............If you only play casual with friends it is really not mandatory to purchase it (in fact........DON'T buy it), there are a lot of other REALLY good obsession

When I build the kabal part of the combat patrol I was going to do black heart (mostly cause I like the colors). Out of the subfactions the wyches interest me the least, not because they are bad models but I just prefer the other stuff over them a little bit. Kinda curious about ossefactors though, I think as far as the wrack kit goes that is one of my favorite looking bits. There are actually a lot of cool little weapons but some of them I don't see being taken very often.

So it's looking like:
custom coven
Master Haemonculus (twisted animator, nightmare doll (not sure about this one), warlord

8 Haemoxytes, acolyte with hex rifle/whip, 1 with ossefactor

4 incubi and klaivex with demiklaives

1 Talos 2x scalpel, heat lances

1 venom, grisly trophies, additonal splinter cannon,

should come to about 495 (using battlescribe).

I could try and cut out the venom for a raider, but the point of the venom was to deliver the incubi where they need to be.

Kalmah wrote:

just a small correction about Artist of Flesh, it won't affect your Venoms (nor any vehicles)

also, if you want to play Cult of Strife properly, you need to buy an overcosted book called Book of Rust Charadon.........and when i say overcosted its 70$ here in canada (its even more expensive than our actual Codex!!!!!!!) for only 4 pages..............If you only play casual with friends it is really not mandatory to purchase it (in fact........DON'T buy it), there are a lot of other REALLY good obsession

Really? I did a quick google search and here in Germany its about 40-45€. Still lots of money though...

Zenotaph wrote:

Kalmah wrote:

just a small correction about Artist of Flesh, it won't affect your Venoms (nor any vehicles)

also, if you want to play Cult of Strife properly, you need to buy an overcosted book called Book of Rust Charadon.........and when i say overcosted its 70$ here in canada (its even more expensive than our actual Codex!!!!!!!) for only 4 pages..............If you only play casual with friends it is really not mandatory to purchase it (in fact........DON'T buy it), there are a lot of other REALLY good obsession

Really? I did a quick google search and here in Germany its about 40-45€. Still lots of money though...

and how much is the Codex in Germany?

Well, tbh: I bought mine per amazon. It was 23,5€.

Zenotaph wrote:

Actually it bothers me, when you just say OR and BH are best, because of Obsession or Relic or Strat.

Fair enough. I am in a highly competitive Meta, and all my comments come from that point of view.

TBF Poison Tongue is also really competitive, but I cant make them work so I cant really give advice regarding their use.

What is your opinion on the matter? Who is the "best" and why?

OK, you got me here. I honestly dont know and dont really care, who is best.
Its just not my way of thinking and/or playing.

But when I really have to choose a Kabal for competitive play, i would take OR or PT.

I can't find wracks for sale anywhere in the US for a reasonable price, brand new best I could find is 55-60 bucks. So I hit a roadblock on even beginning covens, bought the combat patrol set instead and have been working on a black heart force in the meantime. What do you think about outfitting scourges at 500-1000 point level? I've seen people suggest going all shredders, all darklances, they have so many weapon options I feel like i'm going to build them wrong.

Deckard_2049 wrote:

Though I do wish grotesques had more than 1 sculpt. I was able to snag a venom dirt cheap so that's one model already covered.

I'm not sure if others answered that already but there is a way to get grotesques cheap.
When you buy a Talos, save those masks and buy Age of Sigmar Crypt Horrors.
They are easily converted from leftovers of a Talos.

An example in this thread.(scroll down a bit)
https://www.thedarkcity.net/t12720-tainted-reborn

CptMetal wrote:

Deckard_2049 wrote:

Though I do wish grotesques had more than 1 sculpt. I was able to snag a venom dirt cheap so that's one model already covered.

I'm not sure if others answered that already but there is a way to get grotesques cheap.
When you buy a Talos, save those masks and buy Age of Sigmar Crypt Horrors.
They are easily converted from leftovers of a Talos.

An example in this thread.(scroll down a bit)
https://www.thedarkcity.net/t12720-tainted-reborn

Those look pretty good, not too expensive either so long as I have those head bits. I still wish we got more of a splash of models with proper grotesques and mandrakes though, especially after seeing all the ork reveals today.

But we got a whole new model range!! Only eleven years ago!

Zenotaph wrote:

But we got a whole new model range!! Only eleven years ago!

Hey I am pretty grateful for what we have

Could be worse, *glances over at craftworld units*

I really like our models. Well, except the Archon. The first one from 2010 was way better.

Zenotaph wrote:

I really like our models. Well, except the Archon. The first one from 2010 was way better.

I like the helmet on the 2010 one, I was meh on the current plastic one but now having it in hand I don't mind him that much. Would've been nice to have 1 or 2 more head options on the sprue but it is what it is. Could still use one of the spare incubi heads I suppose.

If you can find good enough masks, there are some crypt gouls from Warhammer Fantasy that work great for Wracks. I got 20 of those to back up my actual Wrack models. Actually look better due to the multi-pose nature of the set.