Hellions: am I missing something?

I suppose you could take advantage of their flying bases and arrange them In front of a Cronos or Talos to provide cover for the big guy?

Although here again beast masters can do it for cheaper, unless you need the hellglaives in the air to get the MC 25% obscured.

This makes me sad. I finally finished painting some up, and I gotta tell ya.. they are pretty sweet minis both to paint and to look at. Ahh well, they will definitely look awesome on my shelf.

Hellions: Am I missing something?

No but they certainly are!

@Norrin,

use them as beast masters in a shooting support role. The beastmasters still come with the exact same stats, losing literally only the helglaive (and maybe combat drugs?). But they keep the splinter pods and gain move through cover meaning they can hang out in area terrain & shoot infantry for days without worrying about killing themselves. They're also 1ppm cheaper!

clever handle wrote:

@Norrin,

use them as beast masters in a shooting support role.  The beastmasters still come with the exact same stats, losing literally only the helglaive (and maybe combat drugs?).  But they keep the splinter pods and gain move through cover meaning they can hang out in area terrain & shoot infantry for days without worrying about killing themselves.  They're also 1ppm cheaper!

HAhahaha awesome

Yeah, this is a bit disappointing considering I was one of the Baron runners in the last Dex. I will still bring a unit of 15 just to dog a unit hear and there and I'm a fan of the aesthetic. But when I read "hit and run" in the reaver section, pretty much that was it for me. I knew what would ultimately become my standard shock troop so to speak.

Well, will they at least do something with suplemented haemunculi?

They will have some hitting power with loads of S5 atacks.

Agoniser is too expensive for these punks. Too much investment on risks.

Trouble is they dont have Loads of attacks. Only 1 attack each base... :-( if they had 2+1 on charge... that would be different thing... Anyway, if reserved, they can come in T2 at the earliest and cannot assault, so if they survive into next turn they will 100% mean S5 on charge. Potentially S6 with good drugroll.

the problem is they have precisely zero survivability. They're too tall to get intervening cover saves most of the time & don't want to hang out in area terrain due to the threat of dying.... they're also T3 with a 5+ save.

For 3 ppm more, you get bikes that move much faster, are T4, can jink for 3+ coversave in the open, can eldar jetbike JSJ move, do strong hammer of wrath attacks, bring better versatility in the form of AT weaponry... need I continue?

TL:DR? There is no place for hellions in a competitive dark eldar army. That being said, they're amazing models & can definitely work, there's just other units that do the same role significantly better in the same slot in the same codex (hell, like I mention above, take another look at beastmasters...)

Quote :

For 3 ppm more, you get bikes that move much faster, are T4, can jink for 3+ coversave in the open, can eldar jetbike JSJ move, do strong hammer of wrath attacks, bring better versatility in the form of AT weaponry... need I continue?

Well, as been mentioned - some of us do have loads of them. So there is metit in trying to find at least some use for them. The one i see is with combinging PfP charts from Dex and Suplement and dropping them via wwp.

At least they will have Fearless and FnP from the go. And 30 shots arent poof either.

Also they are requirment for purchase in Archon special formation - which gives them another +1 on PfP chart. Archon from said formation can take Animus Vitae giving another +1.

That can bring em in rage territory turn 3-4, which are just turns when you are assaulting after wwp drop. And with rage they are pretty much old Hellions.

I would wait for some Cult supplement. I get the feeling that it might do some good for wyches and Hellions both...

aurynn wrote:

I would wait for some Cult supplement. I get the feeling that it might do some good for wyches and Hellions both...

There's nothing to indicate that there even is such a supplement though. If there is, who knows when it will be published. And in the meantime, the poor Hellions sit there being sad and pointless.

Lol. I have 80 hellions. I think is time to go little shopping for different FA...

Count Adhemar wrote:

aurynn wrote:

I would wait for some Cult supplement. I get the feeling that it might do some good for wyches and Hellions both...

There's nothing to indicate that there even is such a supplement though. If there is, who knows when it will be published. And in the meantime, the poor Hellions sit there being sad and pointless.

Mine were anyway. I didn't use the baron with my old list (two character combo using duke and malys for drug/poison and redeployment shenanigans) and in the two games i used them the hellions spent almost every turn pinned (I'm hopeless at passing pinning tests, i've failed three in a row with a raven guard tac squad before now, and three more last week with warriors)

I think the real botch is that their strength isnt 4 at base if it was HoW at 4 followed by attacks at 4 would be more reliably useful, it wouldnt fix them but make them nearly usable, the only advantage they have is being 1 strength higher than reavers which is moot when the reaversalready hit as hard as you do when they enter fights, with their flavor sapped from the new book they arent just hollow they are borderline useless (as compared to our other units).

We just need Baron and Duke back, yelling something about research, super drugs, and New cooler hellboards.

AND A WAY TO RE-ROLL SPLINTERMIND AND HYPEX (Hypex slogan: "WERE GREAT if your fighting yourself")

Thank the godz i only got ten ...

Well, they used to be the "i´ll take the objective now sir" unit with the Baron deep striking in the enemy DZ objective...now, as i´ve read these posts, i concur, that if i was to use them now, it would be with Haemie WWP shenanigans and detach in the next round. BUT, Haemie with Warriors in a Raider with Splinter Racks´ll be the choice for me...They were not durable in the last codex (and i mostly face all types of Marines with flamers...) and now as the Reavers got their boost, darn...still annoys to shelf them...

Why shelf them though? Are they actually bad for the points, or just not as good as Reavers? With 6 FA slots you could fit them both in.

That is true. I have concentrated in creating a 1500p list, but they surely can fit in in bigger games...

Compare them to warriors, they are 5 points more expensive, and have about equal shooting capabilities (I'm going to ignore assault for now, overwatch kills them anyways).

So essentially you pay 5pt/model for:
Combat Drugs
NOT being able to take transports
NOT being able to take any AT (We have plenty of AI)

Just because i want to advocate - while they aren't as survivable or quite as effective as before, you do also pay for

Hit & Run - which helps for leapfrogging around and affords a great deal of maneuverability
Jump Infantry - HoW OR just moving around more quickly
Stunclaw - cheap, not nearly as useful as before, but good for quickly taking out lightly armored sergeant and command units to remove conferred benefits

In general i do think that PFP and strategic deep strike placement will be essential to their use, but they do have some neat qualities.

Quote :

Stunclaw - cheap, not nearly as useful as before, but good for quickly taking out lightly armored sergeant and command units to remove conferred benefits

Those said sergeants usually have 1 wound, making it useless.

Stunclaw now is just basically chalenge big bad character and hope you roll many 6s and he rolls one 1. And if you are atacking into cover he will just slaughter your T3 character before you swing. Crap in other word.

Better if they at least make it at least decent CC weapon, if they are dead set on removing anoything not related to core rule book.

Anterzhul wrote:

Compare them to warriors, they are 5 points more expensive, and have about equal shooting capabilities (I'm going to ignore assault for now, overwatch kills them anyways).

Overwatch will kill some of them. 6s to hit does not remove the primary strength of a unit. If you aren't considering them for Assault you aren't going to get the full value of the unit. As purely move and shoot units they have too big a footprint and cost too much per trooper. The ability to combine movement, shooting and assault is what makes Hellions work. One of the fundamental differences between a Kabalite and a Hellion is the ability to charge after getting the same 2 shots per model.

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So essentially you pay 5pt/model for:
Combat Drugs
NOT being able to take transports
NOT being able to take any AT (We have plenty of AI)

Combat drugs are awesome. Especially if you embrace the Assault Phase.

Transports matter less when you can move as Jump Infantry or Deep Strike. There is also the cost per trooper split among the cost of the transport. In other words, in place of a transport you take more Hellions.

Being S4 with lots of attacks is it's own form of AT. Combat Drugs and PfP can supply the rest. What they lack is anti MC capability.


They also occupy a very strange roll. Hellions are really well suited for killing Ork Boyz, IG, Eldar Guardians (although anything short of Striking Scorpions won't like them) and Nid Gaunts. They kill those units really well. Thanks to the sheer number of shooting and assault attacks they also can put the hurt on mid level units like Firewarriors, Scions and Scouts. Once you start facing MEQs their value starts to drop off. Anything that can survive their attacks to strike back is going to cause problems. As pointed out before, those are not targets that DE have problems with. IG and Gaunts I could see, if only because the Splinter Rifle has the same chance to hurt T3 as any other, whereas the Hellglaive can leverage higher strength.

I can't blame people for prefering Reavers. I just don't think Hellions are terrible.

Fals Son wrote:

I can't blame people for prefering Reavers.  I just don't think Hellions are terrible.

I think you are right. Hellion's have a special task where there are good at. Reavers on the other hand are better all around. I think that is a pattern in the new codex, that most units a very specialised. Only the ones that can threaten many targets are considered good units (reavers, grotesques).

But you summed up my thoughts on hellions very well, false son, thank you ;-)

Crazy_Irish wrote:

I think you are right. Hellion's have a special task where there are good at. Reavers on the other hand are better all around. I think that is a pattern in the new codex, that most units a very specialised. Only the ones that can threaten many targets are considered good units (reavers, grotesques).

I agree with this.

Though I think I put Hellions down as 'okay' at their task as opposed to 'good' at their task.
But I certainly agree they have a narrow field of functionality for what it is they're even functional for, and that hurts their playability in a TAC sense.

Thor665 wrote:

But I certainly agree they have a narrow field of functionality for what it is they're even functional for, and that hurts their playability in a TAC sense.

Will that is if you only think of them as a stand alone unit. I think that there is two ways to build aTAC list. Either from units that are on their own TAC, like grotesques, or from a combination of units that are all good at a few things and can TAC when they are combined.
I think the first one is easier to build and play but usually lacks the punch that a unit with the perfect matchup has.
The second one relies on multiple units that are good at the same job, so that there are not not all the eggs in one basket, thus must be build as a MSU list. Luckily the new codex supports that build.

That is the kind of list I'm working on at the moment.

Sláinte