Warlord Traits and the Dark Eldar

There was a thread in general discussing Warlord Traits and how one's local club handled it and/or how you personally chose to handle it;
http://www.thedarkcity.net/t5057-warlord-traits

But it got me thinking, a couple of the DE generals discussed that they favored 'strategic' and I know that I also favor 'strategic' as the one to choose from when rolling randomly. Are we all just clever bastiches? Or are we being silly for the same reason? So I said to myself, 'self,' says I, 'I wonder what sort of armies those traits help, and specifically what sort of DE builds they would or wouldn't help.'

And myself, being a bit of a glutton, said: 'Hey, let's find out!'

So here we go - a consideration of every one of the Warlord traits, and which DE Warlords they would help.

Warlord Traits

Command

Inspiring Presence - a leadership boost to your troops within 12"
Intimidating Presence - a leadership penalty to enemy forces within 12"
Dust of Worlds - Warlord and units within 12" have move through cover
Master of Vanguard - bonus run dice
Target Priority - re-rolling some shots against foes near objectives.
Coordinated Assault - +1 to charge distance roll.

Okay, so we see that these abilities are "command" because they have that bubble effect to them. That's super exciting and all, but let's really look at what these suckers are giving us;

3 of the powers, specifically, are affecting movement speed. Now - the DE army is already fleet, also generally is assaulting out of fast transports and thus won't need to run, and already has overall one of the best assault distances possible in the game across the entire army. Now, *maybe* for a pure Coven army these might be useful, but what that means is, generally speaking, 50% of the effects on this chart are already pretty suboptimal for a DE army (and, also, are useless if your army is a shooting focused army)

The leadership hijinks are...okay. I personally think so much is fearless out there that the Intimidating Presence is mildly useless. The leadership boost is actually pretty good, though, again, how many foot units will you have in the radius? Most DE units that are breaking Morale checks are already mostly dead anyway - we're fragile, we go quick if we're going.

So, frankly, I would tend to toss both of these on the 'semi-useful to us, at best' category.

Finally, the shooting one...that one is just wussy and conditional in any case.

So, basically there are about 2-3 semi okay options in this chart for DE in general.
It goes up in value if you are an all assault army and/or a strong theme Coven army I would call it good for Coven, and a poor choice for anything else.

Personal

Master of Defense - Counter Attack in your deployment zone
Master of Offense - Furious Charge in opponent's deployment zone
Master of Maneuver - Warlord and unit he joins gain outflank.
Legendary Fighter - Bonus VPs for killing characters
Tenacity - FNP when near objectives
Immovable Object - Warlord is a scoring unit.

Okay, so, clearly these are abilities about your Warlord individually being a tough bastich. Still, it's a little weedy for us.

FNP near objectives is basically a laugh, as any Warlord we plan to be a fighter should already have this or will gain it easily.
Our Warlord being a scoring unit seems equally laughable to me - any Warlord I'd take this table with isn't going to be wasting time with objectives. It's not useless, but is *very* conditional.
Master of Maneuver is also pretty interesting. It gives you Outflank...now, the catch to that is, you've got a beefy fighter Warlord coming in late...we're so fast, does this really help us much? I have doubts.

The Masters of Defense and Offense are a mixed bag. The defense one looks just bad for us. The Offense one, considering our speed, actually could be pretty good, as I often get in assaults in opponent's deployment zones. The only question is - will you already have it by the time you get there?

Legendary Fighter is flat out good - especially with one of our primary Warlords to be rolling on this table, the Huskblade Archon.

So, again, 3 of 6 are...kinda useless to us.
1 of 6 looks weak.
2 of 6 look pretty good with one being awesome for a particular build.

So, as long as you're playing a beatstick Warlord you can manage a 50% shot to get something useful, that's not too bad.
This could be a good place for Drazhar, A huskblade Archon, Baron Sathypants leading Beasts (or possibly Hellions, though it helps Beasts more), or Asdrubael to roll.

Strategicl

Conqueror of Cities - you are just awesome in City Ruins.
Night Attacker - force Turn 1 Night Fight.
Master of Ambush - Acute Senses to outflankers
Strategic Geni-CREEED! - re-roll Reserve rolls.
Divide to Conquer - penalty to opponent's reserve rolls.
Princeps of Deceit - 'The Malys' redeploy units after setup.

These traits are described as 'tricks set up ahead of time' so, naturally, they feel very right for the DE.

Master of Ambush is bad for us, because we don't need it at all, it does nothing for us.

The Cities one rather depends, on a City map it is *huge* and on a non City map it doesn't matter at all. Oddly super conditional one, all things considered.
The Malys one can be a little conditional, but it's not a bad one.

The Reserve role control effects are pretty awesome, straight up. Either slowing your opponent or helping to control your reserves, these are both excellent powers.
Finally, with army-wide acute senses and our speed and fragility, forcing Turn 1 Night Fight is good for us.

So, we have 50% of the options just being generally good.
2 are conditional, but in the right conditions both are quite good for us.
1 is useless.

So, a 50% chance for good, and a 66% chance for good if you're on a City map or wish to do redeploy hijinks.
On the whole this is indeed a good general selection option for DE generals

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To sum up;

Command is really only a good chart for a Coven (especially where the Haem is with the Grots) and/or near total assault style army. Maybe WWP too.
Personal is potentially a good option for very specific assault Warlords - is the least statistically likely to help you out.
Strategic is the most statistically stable of the choices, and is generally at least a 50% chance to get something "good" for your army.


If anyone thinks I'm selling anything short, or ruling it too high then feel free to let me know.
Feel free to point out other DE army types might be served better by certain trait tables.

You summed this up very well! Putting out in simple terms affirms my thoughts made in the heat of tournies!!!

Excellent summary, Thor, thank you. Nice to see the various options looked at from the DE perspective.

You pretty much re-affirmed what I have found with these traits. I usually roll either Personal or Strategic, but I don't really pay much attention to them because I hardly ever get something of great use to me. I think I can honestly say that they have never significantly influenced the outcome of one of my games.

Great summary!

I agree, command is very strong in a coven list, as long as you take an ancient all of the rolls are beneficial. I especially like the bonus run dice on talos. The leadership bubble is rather handy if you are running an ancient as wracks don't tend have squad leaders, it also helps grotesques with regular haemies or if they lose their IC (leadership 4-5 base). Intimidating presence is not bad either and can work well with Talos and Fear, but fear aside reducing a units leadership by 1 or more for all tests can have big consequences.

I do tend to use strategic but I find it very situational: -1 to reserves when your opponent has nothing in reserve, re-roll reserves when you have nothing in reserve, lady malys re-deploy when you are going second, conqueror of cities when their are no ruins, night fight when you already have night fight, and of course outflank when nothing outflanks. That being said most of the effects are rather potent when they do work.

This brings me to my next point, do any of you take into account warlord tables when building a list? (eg: make sure you take mandrakes so you can benefit from the outflank re-roll)

Mushkilla wrote:

This brings me to my next point, do any of you take into account warlord tables when building a list? (eg: make sure you take mandrakes so you can benefit from the outflank re-roll)

Take Mandrakes? Mush, you crack me up sometimes!

On a more serious note, no I usually etiher forget to roll for warlord traits or forget to use them during the game. About the only one that has ever been of any use to me was when playing BA and Mephiston became a scoring unit

Thor, about personal traits, i have a strong feeling you miss one unit and HQ out of equasion.

Thats novadays very popular Baron and Beastamsters Unit.

Lets look.

Master of Defense - Counter Attack in your deployment zone
Thats situational, but usefull if you planning to defend with the unit or hold it in reserve for some reason.
One of few rolls not so usefull.

Master of Offense - Furious Charge in opponent's deployment zone
Very usefull, beastmasters gaining Furious Charge is a good roll, and since unit is atacking and have crazy mobility and hit'n'run probably it will be usefull as a buff to already powerfull atack.

Master of Maneuver - Warlord and unit he joins gain outflank.
Thats a gem, in my opinion. Outflanking beastmasters with stealth. Just crazy.

Legendary Fighter - Bonus VPs for killing characters.
Semi usefull, but still nice. The enemy wont be giving sergeants with happy faces.

Tenacity - FNP when near objectives
Beastmasters dont have the option to have FnP, now they do. Very usefull in the Scouring mission, where beastmasters are scoring. Anyway in any mission usefull to help beastmasters deny VPs.

Immovable Object- Warlord is a scoring unit.
Also very usefull, because we have hit'n'run and good mobility, so we can have last run grabs.

So thats 4 very usefull and 2 mildly usefull, no losers at all.
Basically if you are taking Baron and Beastmasters, Personal Traits will help them do better what they are already doing. Thats a win.

In similar light to Azdrubael comment about beasts the personal table works really well for a unit of harlequins with a husktrap archon.

its either personal or strategic for me. The only time Ive had it really be a game changer though is when fuegan made my harliestar scoring and just walked over to the opponents objective and sat on it, and my HB/ST archon getting legendary fighter and going to town on some paliestar (when they were all characters)

Azdrubael wrote:

Master of Offense - Furious Charge in opponent's deployment zone
[snip]
Tenacity - FNP when near objectives

Good point, both of those really help out Beasts.

Azdrubael wrote:

Master of Maneuver - Warlord and unit he joins gain outflank.
Thats a gem, in my opinion. Outflanking beastmasters with stealth. Just crazy.

Really? Why not just start on the board though? I feel like that's burying a core assault unit for a highly negligible gain.

Azdrubael wrote:

Basically if you are taking Baron and Beastmasters, Personal Traits will help them do better what they are already doing. Thats a win.

On the whole I'll agree that they are good for Beastmasters - though I did note they were decent for aggressive assault HQs, which the Baron certainly is. I'll edit to clarify.

I must say, I use a non-Coven army, and I always pick Command. I almost always play Purge the Alien, and usually it works out. Strategic never really did it for me, though after seeing this, I might have to try it ;D

even when i use my Marines, i go personal or strategic! i havent yet used my DE (Still being painted...) but when i do, i doubt i'll ever use command!

Thor665 wrote:

Master of Ambush is bad for us, because we don't need it at all, it does nothing for us.

...

Finally, with army-wide acute senses and our speed and fragility, forcing Turn 1 Night Fight is good for us.

Where is it said that we have army-wide Acute Senses?

In 5th edition Acute Senses and Night Vision were the same rule.

I usually go with personal. I've found with all my armies including DE the warlord scoring is really strong.

I've contemplated going strategic for the night fighting.

[quote="lcfr"]

Thor665 wrote:

Where is it said that we have army-wide Acute Senses?

He means night vision but is evidently slipping back into 5th edition language.

I've found the 12" move through cover bubble to be a nice one with vehicle heavy armies. With venoms only having 2 HPs and us relying on keeping our mobility, failing a dangerous test ( or trying to avoid terrain) can be a big problem. I only usually get it when playing games with the "pick 3 tables then roll" rule since as a Baron/beast player personal and strategic offer way more if I can only chose one table.