CC-Haemi

So, let's look at the Dark artisan formation.

It has a Haemi, a support monster, and a CC-monster (Literally and Maybe figuratively).

Most likely, You'll get into CC.

Now lets look at the haemi. It will get a majority toughness of 7, and a 4+ FNP, and give the monsters what I would call a 3½+ FNP (Worse than 3+, better than 4+). She could even take the doll for a 3+ FNP, and with majority toughness 7, be able to tank a lot. (Also, the doll gives a great conversion/modelling opportunity.)

With the pancreas, she'll be even harder to kill, but, since she'll most likely deep strike with her engines, and is a master of pain, she'll get IWND anyway, but only at 5+ instead of 4+. Is the pancreas worth taking?

Now lets look at her offensive capabilities.
The vexator mask, which I consider cheap, gives her (and her Monsters) virtually I10 in challenges. Her monsters you say? Well, against a lone character (Wraithlord, Mephiston, Dreadknight), the monsters also get to strike. This will most likely hurt, if not outright kill, the character in the first turn of CC, and hopefully finish off the opponent in the opponents turn, thus avoiding to be shot.

The sump seems to be a good way to get rampage. Good If you want to attack units bigger than 3 models, but not if you're attacking a lone monster/Character. It can even give you a first turn IWND while you're waiting for your real IWND to kick in. I, however would take the haemi in the grotesquerie formation, give him an agoniser, and give him the sump, and put him in a unit of 3 grotesques with an agoniser aberration instead, to guarantee that all with 3+ saves (Or worse) in range would die.

However, lets look at weapons.

The two main candidates, in my opinion, is the scissor-hand and the agoniser.

The scissor-hand will ignore ½ 2+save per CC-round, but is AP-, and is cheaper. The agoniser is AP3, but it's more expensive.

Which should I take?

I was thinking of mask + doll + WWP + either scissor or agoniser. Maybe the pancreas. Should I take the pancreas? Would this character be too expensive for what she does?

In my opinion, with a Talos and a Cronos together you don't really need her to do anything. The Vexator only works in challenges, and she would have to be daft to go around accepting challenges when she's got her babies with her. I would go for just a scissorhand, for the odd Rending wound here and there, and let the babies do the work.

That actually bothered me a little bit. The formation worked great, but after delivering the babies through the woopwoop portal, there was really not much else for the Haemy to do. She's basically a 130 point Drop Pod for them. They don't get any benefit from having her with them, since they don't have Power From Pain.

It's kind of worth it, just to drop two nasty monsters right on top of them, but I'm already thinking that I will probably give it up after a while.

Nice Topic MarcoAvrelis, I was about to create the same

I was planning on making the Heamy my Warlord for maximum survivability of the Pain Engines. I would give the Heamy Nightmare Doll and a Scissorhand. I was considering adding a LG but than you would lose an attack right? My main purpose would be to boost the wall of death from the Chronos but which infantry would be foolish enough to charge this unit.
Marco: sadly you can only take one Artefact per HQ. So no Mask and Doll combo.
I thought the mask was pretty useless as you already have I5 on all models in the unit but if the monsters would be able to strike at a challenged IC, that would change everything around.

I wasn't planning on them soaking up wounds for the rest of my army. So I would field them as forward as possible in cover and literally run them up towards the Enemy. The Heamy can soak wounds for the Pain Engines with Cover Save, 3+ FnP on T7. Unless they have cover ignoring S8+ shooting of course.
I will be using this unit as a spearhead/area denial and FnP boosting blob. It might even be able to provide mobile cover for other transports. Imagine a Venom shooting and than this units runs in front of it.

Thanks Agatha to remind me that Pain Engines don't benefit from PfP. I had wet dreams of this unit regenerating back up as the battle continues.

I do agree that a 130 drop pod is quite expensive. But the Heamy also boosts the Pain Engines and can puts 3 extra wounds in the unit. Which can regenerate from Turn 3 up.
As I have explained I see more value in soaking fire than precision DS. As you need to rely on Reserve roll and the unit only has one template to take advantage of precision DS.

So for me the Dark Artisan Formation is a giant shooting absorbing Anvil. If the opponent ignores them, they will boost nearby troops survivability and it is killy enough to take on a variety of targets.

I can't wait to try this out

El_Jairo wrote:

Marco: sadly you can only take one Artefact per HQ. So no Mask and Doll combo.

I believe the Coven book does not contain that restriction. Still only one of each per army but a character can take one or more different artefacts.

Wow if that's true than Sumps is a great way to get Rampage and boost the unit in CC. Although I should refrain from sinking in too many points in the Heamy.

Haemonculi have 3 weapons base, so you can exchange one for the flamer and it will still have extra attack in combat.

How does a Haemi boost the talos unit exactly? They dont have PfP.

The haemi only boosts them if she's the warlord. Otherwise, she's just 3 additional wounds, with a potential 3+FNP and a potential INWD but with 4+. She can kinda tank for them.

EDIT: As this guarantees the Dark Artisan Warlord Trait, It might be a fun combo with a Corpsetheft Claw. (I really want an army consisting only of a Dark Artisan Formation and 1+ Corpsetheft Claw formations. And maybe a Grotesquerie.)

Vs one single char in Challenge, Monsters don't strike against him.
The wording says to "assign wounds" on the Char if there's no more models alive on the unit.

But for "assign" a wounds, first u need to hit and if there's only the enemy Char in CC with you, and there is a Challenge, Talos and Chronos cannot hit the Char (by the Challenge's rules).

That works [i]only[i] if Monsters hits the unit around the enemy Char, kill them off, and you have some other wound to assign.

(puff...I try my best to speak :S)


Anyway, I like Deepstrike them with a Webway Portal, and choose with Haem the Trait wich gain +1/-1 to reserve rolls.

A question: does this trait affect the entire army, or just the formation? Can I use the +1 for roll my Archon with another WWB from the standard detachment?

Cerve wrote:

Vs one single char in Challenge, Monsters don't strike against him.
The wording says to "assign wounds" on the Char if there's no more models alive on the unit.

But for "assign" a wounds, first u need to hit and if there's only the enemy Char in CC with you, and there is a Challenge, Talos and Chronos cannot hit the Char (by the Challenge's rules).

That works [i]only[i] if Monsters hits the unit around the enemy Char, kill them off, and you have some other wound to assign.

(puff...I try my best to speak :S)


Anyway, I like Deepstrike them with a Webway Portal, and choose with Haem the Trait wich gain +1/-1 to reserve rolls.

A question: does this trait affect the entire army, or just the formation? Can I use the +1 for roll my Archon with another WWB from the standard detachment?

Thanks for clearing that out Cerve. It didn't make sense that you could still hit an IC which is locked in a challenge. You can spill over wounds to the IC. So situational this might be handy: IC only has 1-2 mooks left. Equip Heamy with Mask, to make sure that your I5 Pain Engines get that AP2 wounds in on him.

On how the Haemy boosts this unit, there is also the bonus of +1WS and +1I to the Pain Engines in this Formation. So you don't even have to make the Heamy Warlord. The fact that they are in a unit makes it possible to effectively hide the Chronos and make them chew through 6 T7 FNP 4+ wounds before they can start to hurt the Chronos.

@ Cerve: how can you choose the Warlord trait you want for a Heamy? Sure you can RR if you pick the Coven Detachment but that's still only 33% for Reserve manipulation. It would apply to your whole army, as do all Warlord traits (respecting restrictions like "friendly units" and what not).
And btw, if the Heamy in this Formation is your warlord, you auto get the Dark Artisan Trait.
So yeah Corpseteft Claw Formation combo's well with this one. You can run them in front of the Dark Artisan unit. That would be some areal denial.

If I use Dark Artisan formation (actually I've been using it for most of my recent games), that haemy must be my warlord for the FNP bonus. This means, if I play him defensively, my opponent would have hard time to earn Warlord Kill point. I prefer the doll and sump due to this reason

My logic indeed Lelith
If you can get a 4+ cover save (rubble, ruins or the like). You'll be at 4+ Fnp 3+ which has the same odds as a 2+ armour.
Now if you would add in a source to obtain Shrouded? 2+ Cover and FnP3+?
I would approve, knowing that it's a T7 unit.

Cerve wrote:

Vs one single char in Challenge, Monsters don't strike against him.
The wording says to "assign wounds" on the Char if there's no more models alive on the unit.

But for "assign" a wounds, first u need to hit and if there's only the enemy Char in CC with you, and there is a Challenge, Talos and Chronos cannot hit the Char (by the Challenge's rules).

That works [i]only[i] if Monsters hits the unit around the enemy Char, kill them off, and you have some other wound to assign.

(puff...I try my best to speak :S)

I'm not so sure about that. What is there in the Challenge rules that prevents the MCs from hitting a character in a challenge if there are no other enemy models in the combat?

Count Adhemar wrote:

Cerve wrote:

Vs one single char in Challenge, Monsters don't strike against him.
The wording says to "assign wounds" on the Char if there's no more models alive on the unit.

But for "assign" a wounds, first u need to hit and if there's only the enemy Char in CC with you, and there is a Challenge, Talos and Chronos cannot hit the Char (by the Challenge's rules).

That works [i]only[i] if Monsters hits the unit around the enemy Char, kill them off, and you have some other wound to assign.

(puff...I try my best to speak :S)

I'm not so sure about that. What is there in the Challenge rules that prevents the MCs from hitting a character in a challenge if there are no other enemy models in the combat?

I've looked and I can't find anything that says the other models can't attack the challenger - just that if there are any other participants then wounds must be allocated to them first.

Doesn't seem very fair to challenge a guy to single combat then three of you beat up on him (although we are talking DE here - seems very in character!), but I think the rules relating to outside forces were changed specifically to avoid a single character tying up a big unit for ages due to the challenge rules, when clearly everyone else in the unit would pile in instead of standing around watching

"Outside Forces
Whilst the challenge is ongoing, other models locked in the combat can only allocate Wounds to the models involved in the challenge after all other enemy models that are locked in that combat (if any) have been removed as casualties, even if the models fighting in a challenge are the closest models."

I believe Cerve's reasoning is that, as nowhere does it state that hits can be allocated into a challenge, the only way to allocate wounds into it is for there to be a unit to assign hits to, and then any excess wounds from destroying that unit are allocated to the model in the challenge. Kinda like an inverted version of Fantasy's challenges.

You don't allocate hits though, unless there are multiple units on either side. The 6e rules said that models in a challenge were considered only to be in base contact with each other. In 7e that word 'only' has been removed. There is nothing to stop the rest of the unit from piling into a challenge and laying the smackdown on the poor character. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the assault rules require them to do so due to the End of Combat Pile In rule.

I like where this is going.

Vexator mask it is then.

Question remains; Pancreas; to take or not to take?

Mmm...I have the Italian rulebook so I can't read the exactly wording but in Challenge (likes "outsranding forces" I dunno how is in English) I read that ohter models can assign wounds in Challenge ONLY after all other enemy models are removed as casualties.

Is that "absolute" like sounds in Italian? That's "only" makes me thing about

I am just starting to collect the dark eldar, mainly as allies to my CSM at the moment, but maybe as a full army too, as soon as I have bought enough models. So, while I am relatively new to DE I am not exactly new to 40k as a whole. Anyway, there is one question about the "Dark Artisan" formation that I've been pondering about. I thought about starting a new thread for this query, but since it applies to OP as well, I think this is a fine enough place to ask this.

Can the haemonculus get a 3+ FnP as part of the "Dark Artisan" formation? I am leaning towards no, but I'll present my reasoning here just in case. Nightmare doll says "add 1 to any FnP roll". So, that gives haemy 4+ FnP. Cronos' spirit probe rule says "all friendly DE models with FnP receive a +1 bonus to their FnP, this is cumulative with any other modifiers to FnP, but cannot improve their FnP beyond 4+". So, there it is. To me it looks like the only way to get 3+ FnP is through the "Master of Apotheosis" warlord trait, which gives haemonculus and a wrack unit he has joined a native 4+ FnP, which is then improved to 3+ FnP for the haemonculus with the nightmare doll. Haemonculus who is a part of the "Dark Artisan" formation cannot get this warlord trait though.

If haemonculus can get 3+ FnP as part of the "Dark Artisan" formation I'll consider taking the Nightmare doll too, but at the moment I don't think it is worth it, since it only protects against instant death, which is unlikely anyway with the majority toughness 7.

Personally I only gave my haemonculus a scissorhand and the panacea perverted. It keeps her cheap enough and yes, I think panacea is very much worth it. With 4+ IWND she can tank some shots for the Talos and Cronos and then more reliably regenerate the wounds back. She is my warlord and I don't want her to die, but then again, I'd rather not put wounds on pain engines too soon either, especially since they don't have PfP and can't get IWND.

The Coven artefact is not the "Pancreas". It is the Panacea. Could be autocorrect, but just saying. A pancreas is a human organ.

I agree with the Count's interpretation. There is no such thing as allocating hits.
Once all other combatants are slain, wounds can be allocated to an IC in a challenge.
Simple as that.


@Malaconia: The Nightmare Doll very specifically doesn't increase the FNP from 5+ to 4+, or 4+ to 3+. It adds one to your FNP roll.

So if you roll a 3, you count it as a 4. All it does is make passing your 4+ FNP save easier.

It totally stacks with the Cronos boost.

Thanks. That does make a big difference. After having read it once assuming it improves your FnP, that's how I kept reading it though it clearly states it improves the FnP roll. I even wrote it so in my quote, but still in my brain assumed it improved the FnP itself. Makes no sense why I did that, but it's a good thing I asked then!

I am still not sure if I'll take the doll, since it's kind of expensive, but that does make it a lot better.

Barking Agatha wrote:

They don't get any benefit from having her with them, since they don't have Power From Pain.

The haemonculus does get zaelot from pfp (from turn 4 thanks to the +1 from the haemi), which grants re-rolls to hit for the whole unit on the first turn of combat if I recall correctly.

He also grants them +1WS +1I which is huge defensively and makes grey knights a lot less scary. The guaranteed warlord trait is really nice. Personally I would run him with a flock of talos and use his unit as a +1FNP/Reroll 1s FNP buff bubble for the scouting formation of 5 talos. Though the WWP is nice.

Also it's not so much what the haemi does for the pain engines, it's more what they do for him it's a fantastic bunker for a warlord, making it a lot harder for your opponent to take him out.

That is all true!

I'd kind of rather put her in with the Wyches, though, just because they need her more.

Has anyone actually tried a Corpsetheft Claw Formation?

It costs a lot of pts, but it gives a VP for every non-vehicle it kills, but it's slow and expensive, thus kinda losing out on the objective grabbing race in maelstorm. Well, at least our deck has fewer Secure Objective cards. Also, 15 t7 wounds with 3+ and 3½+ FNP is hard to kill.

How would you equip them? (I'd say HL + CF on all). (Gives both a situational Anti Air, and anti tank, which is good against LR-hiding Termies. And are great in CC-against anything with T8 or less. If fighting a gargantuan creature, I'd take some Ichor injectors instead.)

It works, my bad. Vexator in

Why Not a Unit consisting of:

Urien Rakarth
Haemonculus with, Webway portal, Syndriq's sump, Nightmare doll, Flesh gauntlet (Cause I like the possible ID)
2 Talos
1 Cronos

It's alot of points but damn thats a scary unit to just drop down!