Archons: load outs and uses

I really would like to hear everyone's opinion on using the new archon, and how to kit him out. As far as I can tell there are 2 main uses:
1) Beatstick: Shadow field, huskblade, armor of misery
2) WWP: Blaster, Shadow field, WWP

How will you use your archon, and what will you give him? I can't decide on huskblade or agonizer, and if a soultrap Is needed for either

RikuXIII wrote:

1) Beatstick: Shadow field, huskblade, armor of misery

I don't see the point of this build.

Even if we accept that AP3 is somehow useful (which it isn't), S3 doesn't really seem like beatstick material to me.

Against units, S3 is awful and ID is useless. And, most of the characters or MCs you'd actually want to ID have 2+ saves. Any that don't can almost certainly be torrented to death with poison shooting. Well, actually, it might be useful against a Wraithkinght... oh, wait, T8. Nevermind.

If you want a beatstick, I think you have to take a succubus.

RikuXIII wrote:

2) WWP: Blaster, Shadow field, WWP
How will you use your archon, and what will you give him? I can't decide on huskblade or agonizer, and if a soultrap Is needed for either

The Shadow Field and Blaster may well be optional, depending on how you're planning on using the WWP. Certainly most of the builds I've seen seem to be based around suicide missions.

Personally I think if you want the Archon to be useful, he needs a Soul Trap. Its so much more useful now, all you have to is make sure to aim him at units with weaker characters to start to buff him to where he needs to be to take on a decent HQ character.

Squidmaster wrote:

Personally I think if you want the Archon to be useful, he needs a Soul Trap. Its so much more useful now, all you have to is make sure to aim him at units with weaker characters to start to buff him to where he needs to be to take on a decent HQ character.

Then you remember that your opponent has no obligation to ever accept a challenge.

The Shredder wrote:

Squidmaster wrote:

Personally I think if you want the Archon to be useful, he needs a Soul Trap. Its so much more useful now, all you have to is make sure to aim him at units with weaker characters to start to buff him to where he needs to be to take on a decent HQ character.

Then you remember that your opponent has no obligation to ever accept a challenge.

Unless you're facing a CSM.

The Shredder wrote:

Squidmaster wrote:

Personally I think if you want the Archon to be useful, he needs a Soul Trap. Its so much more useful now, all you have to is make sure to aim him at units with weaker characters to start to buff him to where he needs to be to take on a decent HQ character.

Then you remember that your opponent has no obligation to ever accept a challenge.

Then you remember Chaos Space Marines and giggle a little before scrapping that idea.

WWP Archon with blaster in a raider with 4 blaster born and deacon with blast pistol. DS, 6 lance shots (snapshots) flatout behind cover, 6" move next turn 5/6 lance shots. That's terminator killing potential, land raider mauling potential. Imperial knight killing potential.

Thank you everyone for the great ideas!

I have been trying to integrate 2 units of wraithguard into my 1850 point list. The WWP seems like a safe bet: 5 WG, archon, spiritseer DS no scatter and start popping tanls or scary MC's. Any thoughts?

I'm thinking of running the following:

Archon, shadow field, power sword, soul trap - 120pts (add a WWP if desired)

It's cheap, survivable, and not particularly scary.

Archon, shadow field, agonizer. Same price as soultrap and power sword but you won't give your opponent the option to deny your soultrap and you dont need to care much about toughness.
But also, killing an single opponent with two lp in a challenge makes the powersord/soultrap combo more valuable against most enemies.
But to be honest, the only way to force a challenge is csm or fighting characters without a unit. You can't deny a challenge if it's only one model.

I'll give both a try but I think the agonizer will be best in most cases

Well, id start with 5 incubi.

Then armor of misery, agoniser, Clone Field, TGL.

Or just Agoniser, Clonefield and one more incubi.

He is no challenger, thats an illusion. What he can beat wont accept challenge, what he cant - Klaivex will kill much better. So he is better just chopping regular troops and be defended by Look out Sir.

RikuXIII wrote:

I really would like to hear everyone's opinion on using the new archon, and how to kit him out. As far as I can tell there are 2 main uses:
1) Beatstick: Shadow field, huskblade, armor of misery
2) WWP: Blaster, Shadow field, WWP

How will you use your archon, and what will you give him? I can't decide on huskblade or agonizer, and if a soultrap Is needed for either

I'm not sold on the huskblade anymore. Even in its hayday it wasn't all that but now ap3 killed it. ID is for multi wound = either high toughness or 2+/X++ characters almost exclusively.

Meanwhile on the brighter side of town grotesques gained ID on every model but what they lack is AP value so an agonizer to blend infantry would be welcome and let the grots do the heavy lifting.

In general I think cheap utility builds possibly with ranged weaponry are probably the better option.

That said a lot depends on his role in the army. Delivering a court by DS? Blaster becomes less appealing when combined with templates, but they could use some combat ap value even if it is ap3.
Inside blasterborn? blaster is obvious. Misery armour makes the PGL more appealing, especially combined with a TGL/dissi raider and so on.

So it depends on what you plan to do with the head cheese.

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Meanwhile on the brighter side of town grotesques gained ID on every model but what they lack is AP value

They dont lack it, look at Electrocorrosive option very closely.

I'm struggling to see a particularly pressing need for him. Taking him to get accesss to a court full of Lhameans, Sslyth or Medusae seems like the obvious choice. Keeping him cheap and using him to get stuff where it needs to be with a webway portal probably wouldn't be so bad, especially now you're not obliged to make the model with the highest leadership your warlord, so you could be quite bold with him. I'm tempted to give him an agoniser, shadowfield and soul trap though, seems like a pretty good combination. If he does a couple of wounds with the agoniser he'll get re-rolls against MEQ, and if any characters choose not to accept his challenge, that means the guy in the squad who had the best chance of killing him is kicking his heels whilst the Archon cuts down two or three of his friends. If only they'd said he goes up by a point in strength for every wound he inflicts in close combat full stop, rather than just in a challenge, then he'd be really scary! I can see the bulk of the close combat killing being done by Succubi this edition though, which is arguably the way it should be.

I'll keep using him for now. He does put me in mind of a scary Autarch with less versatility and utility though.

Actually grots don't lack access to ap3 (agonizer is better here too). I just don't feel its worth paying pts to give up ID weaponry on the unit.

The point about the power sword, soul trap build, is that it looks so harmless: Only an AP3 weapon, wounding T4 on 5s, I'm gonna accept that challenge... Or i'm going to refuse the challange because i'm scared of the soul trap. Either way its a win for the dark eldar player, that's the fun.

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Actually grots don't lack access to ap3 (agonizer is better here too).

Electrocorrosive whip is better then Agoniser on Abberation- you still wound on strenght, reroll to wound in most of the cases, and have concussive which in case of Grots can actually matter.

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The point about the power sword, soul trap build, is that it looks so harmless: Only an AP3 weapon, wounding T4 on 5s, I'm gonna accept that challenge...

And at that point Archon is just as good as with agoniser...which you may as well buy from start for the same points

Azdrubael wrote:

And at that point Archon is just as good as with agoniser...which you may as well buy from start for the same points

But no one is going to refuse a challenge from an agoniser archon. Soul trap on the other hand for some reason makes people want to refuse challenges.

Mushkilla wrote:

The point about the power sword, soul trap build, is that it looks so harmless: Only an AP3 weapon, wounding T4 on 5s, I'm gonna accept that challenge... Or i'm going to refuse the challange because i'm scared of the soul trap. Either way its a win for the dark eldar player, that's the fun.

That's a good way to look at it. I'd still rather pay the points to know I can wound anything though, even if it means he doesn't often get to make use of his soul trap (my regular opponent plays CSM as one of his armies though. Hehe!) Perhaps I'll just try and make him seem less scary to my opponents so they foolishly accept challenges. He can be Archon Cuddles, leader of the Fluffy Wuffy Kabal of Cutesy Pies.

Maybe, maybe. Guess they will refuse challenges when they will try some with Klaivex. He got massively better and cheaper.

Mr Believer wrote:

Perhaps I'll just try and make him seem less scary to my opponents so they foolishly accept challenges. He can be Archon Cuddles, leader of the Fluffy Wuffy Kabal of Cutesy Pies.

That's why I went for the power sword, it makes him look so harmless, but we all know how unpredictable a shadowfield can be. Come to think of it I'm reconsidering the husk blade now even if it is only AP3, it is after all the same cost as an agoniser.

Why does he got cheaper and better? Isn't he forced to pay extra for his Demi?

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it is after all the same cost as an agoniser. Smile

Hey ) Agoniser is 10 pts cheaper. That matter!

Mr Believer wrote:

I'm struggling to see a particularly pressing need for him. Taking him to get accesss to a court full of Lhameans, Sslyth or Medusae seems like the obvious choice.

Still seems pointless to be honest.

I mean, DE aren't exactly overloaded with awsome HQ choices, so why not just take the Court as a standard HQ?

The Shredder wrote:

Still seems pointless to be honest.

I mean, DE aren't exactly overloaded with awsome HQ choices, so why not just take the Court as a standard HQ?

Because I hadn't twigged that you could do that I read the special rule "Retainers" as the old codex one, so in my head I had to take an Archon if I wanted a court. I see now that I don't, thank you for making me realise that! He could still be useful if you went down the Medusae route I suppose, giving him a portal allowing them to get right behind a squad if they go with him. And he is the cheapest way to portal something in.