Incubi are pretty good.

In all the time I have been playing this game.. since 1ed on, GW has made it pretty clear that they are strictly incapable of creating things that are not inherently broken. They just can't do it. I don't know if it is intentional, or simply that they rush things out too fast, or what, but there has never been a game of theirs that was not inherently broken, except maybe Talisman.

You do all know that the Initiative penalty doesn't happen if the unit you charge is already locked in combat from a previous turn, right? Is everyone going 'lone star' with their Incubi or something?

I just run assault units that can handle it themselves, then if I happen to run multiple and wish/need to assault into an ongoing combat it's just icing on the cake.

Timatron wrote:

You do all know that the Initiative penalty doesn't happen if the unit you charge is already locked in combat from a previous turn, right? Is everyone going 'lone star' with their Incubi or something?

It is nice to have a little tactical flexibility with what is supposed to be the baddest melee unit in town.

"We be the baddest mofos around! We gonna kick your butt! Oh, wait.. you're in cover? HALPS!! SOmeone halp!"

Our units arent so cheap that we can just sacrifice a unit so incubi can get into combat, it either wouldnt be cost effective or overkill.

@Thor: 10 marines are like 160+points. 5 Incubi are 110 (klaivex).
And I don't see 10 marines squad since...well, a lot of time

Guys I really dont see the issue here... doesnt anyone realize how broken would incubi be with nades and their abilities and price? They are amazing just as they are. I have never had any problems with them save for my poor tactical decisions. They are perfectly in line with the tone of our army - deadly, but difficult to use. If they had nades they would be without question THE best assault unit in the whole game and thats not something we should want. I know it seems like something that GW did not think about or overlooked - assault units with penalties for assaulting through cover, but if you think about it bit deeper you will find out that from the rules and game balance point of view it is perfectly OK. A top-level assault unit in superfast assault vehicle that can get a charge from any angle they want and you would want to ramp up all this with nades?

Fluff point of view - OK as well. They are not warriors in the conventional sense (Navy Seals or other specials), they are graceful and artful swordmasters, where the heck does a grenade come into the picture?

The problem is not with Incubi not having grenades, its with Marines having them and everybody is used to it. Devastators should have defensive nades and krak or meltabombs, not assault. Tacticals should have none, but option for all. Assault marines should not have kraks and option for meltabombs. Oh and ATSKNF... its THE most idiotic rule in whole W40K which is totally destroying the whole assault phase. 30K rule is muuuuch better.

So no... I do not want Incubi to have grenades, nor will I pine the loss of the PGLArchon. :-)

If anyone should have grenades in our army it is Trueborn. Not Wyches, not Scourges, not even Hellions or Reavers. None of them are soldiers. I could imagine a raider or Venom having an option to buy a launcher instead of one weapon that would make any unit hit be treated as being hit with assault nades by any charging unit in that turn. But thats synergy. Not an unit with any disadvantages. And is balanced out by the fact that you have to sacrifice a DL or SC to have this.

aurynn wrote:

Guys I really dont see the issue here... doesnt anyone realize how broken would incubi be with nades and their abilities and price?

Sorry but a T3 model with 1W and a 3+ save that can only attack you after you've attacked them is pretty far from most people's version of broken.

What? I said broken IF they had grenades.

And a model that has WS5 S4 AP2 not-unwieldy weapon and 3A on charge, Fleet and most probably FNP and later Furious Charge, Fearless and Rage for 20pts? With the option to take one of the best assault transports in the game, now jinking for 3+ and option to take a Klaivex with Rampage? Huh... yea... if they had grenades they would be totally broken. Now they are just great. They have so many advantages and only two weaknesses... T3 and absence of grenades. I think we should be able to play with this... :-)

They cost just 6pts more than vanilla marine! What would you pay for assault grenades? I hope you dont say 2pts. Because nades would be so great force multiplier that they would have to cost much, much more than that to be fair.

EDIT: No unit should be perfect. Every unit should require a good hand to play them. Incubi are greatly made and balanced unit IMHO.

aurynn wrote:

What? I said broken IF they had grenades.

Then they'd be the same points as a Grey Knight. You know, those guys with the same armour save, T4, three types of grenades, psychic powers, psychic defence, ATSKNF and a force weapon.

I'm with you Aurynn. Just because they require planning and a bit of finesse (or an Autarch) doesn't mean they are not worth using. Also remember not EVERY unit is going to be in cover and their are so many ways to pull them out of cover as well. I think Incubi are a fine choice for a TAC list... I wouldn't theme my army around them but, when used all in conjuction that Wyches, Grotesques (for overwatch) -and they must be used together- it is well worth learning curve and the points.

I actually think having an assault wing in your army makes life a lot easier. After running pure shooty lists for all of 6th and the first few games of 7th I realized that if I had just a few assault units to pull scoring units off of objectives, tie up scary shooting units like Plasma Vets, Devastators or even freaking 10 man squads of Ratlings which were making my Wraithknights life miserable, it allowed my shooty units to work more cohesively instead of having one part of my shooting wing having to break off to deal with something that I couldnt ignore.

I think people are just down on assault because its not what it used to be- the spear-tip of your army, the heavy lifters, the engine driving the whole army. Assault units are now a utility, or just a splinter of your force that can break off and dislodge a specific thorn in your side.

I'm not saying its a must to run assault, but I do think it can bring a lot of dynamism to your army.

Quote :

I actually think having an assault wing in your army makes life a lot easier.

I agree with this. But why should I consider them over Grots? Not even their 3+ save or AP2 is gonna save them compared to T5, 3W, S5 poison and 6 A on average.

Count Adhemar wrote:

aurynn wrote:

What? I said broken IF they had grenades.

Then they'd be the same points as a Grey Knight. You know, those guys with the same armour save, T4, three types of grenades, psychic powers, psychic defence, ATSKNF and a force weapon.

True... BUT! GK role is different from Incubi. Force weapon is kinda situational, one type of grenade is situational, psychic defence is situational, while almost all of incubi rules are relevant to what they are meant to do. Not mentioning that when played right (thats the important issue of this whole debate), the incubi would murder the equal points of GK like little puppies with maaaybe some casualties. Well the GK do cost the same pts like incubi so in fact these two units should be "equal"... I think that GK are pulling the short straw here. You would have to compare them to some Assault-role marines with 3+ and power swords. And I still think that correctly used Incubi would murder them anyway grenades or not and vice versa ofcourse. :-) If you want to have an auto-win unit then no, Incubi are not that unit...

@Chardonyr
Because not everyone wants to take coven units.

@Count - thing is, with that comparison, the grey knights lose out every time against Incubi becuse if Incubi have grenades they would always strike first. Sure, grenades would be nice, but I agree with Aurynn and Cavalier that an assault unit with high WS, high I, an AP2 weapon that isn't unwieldy and has grenades needs no real thought or finesse to use. As it is, we have to bait units into assault or pick our targets carefully instead, which gives you a much better feeling of achievement when you pull it off. The touch required is not much different to picking assaults that you're likely to win in your opponent's turn to allow us to avoid return fire.

That being said, I still hate the way assault works in 7th edition (and 6th before it). Cannot understand why assault range isn't 6+D6" if it needs to be random at all, the idea that you can move in the movement phase (at basically walking pace) and yet race headlong into combat only one third of that distance is ridiculous to me. Added to which overwatch (surely should be restricted to units that haven't fired in their previous phase like it was in 2nd ed) and toothless assault units (personally i think anything aimed for assault should have some form of AP - Chainswords, AP-? Seriously?) relying on massed attacks to do any kind of damage, the assault phase isn't just a backup, it's something that needs a large dedicated section of your army to work with.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

@Count - thing is, with that comparison, the grey knights lose out every time against Incubi becuse if Incubi have grenades they would always strike first.

I'm not saying that they should have grenades without a points increase. But Incubi should murder marines in close combat. That's pretty much the only thing they can do! The Grey Knights might lose every time in cc against grenade-wielding Incubi but let's not forget that they also have a decent 24" shooting attack, the aforementioned psychic powers and access to heavy weapons. Let's also not forget that for the entire duration of their 5e codexes, Grey Knights won every single time because they always struck first as they had grenades and an even higher Initiative.

Without grenades and against any sort of decent opponent, Incubi will rarely, if ever, perform their one and only job well.

So you think that our best melee unit should be able to take on the best melee units of other armies? Can you imagine how boring the game would be? Incubi role is not murdering everything. They dont even stand a chance against SS/TH termies. Their role is MEQ, Honour Guard and similar units hunting and thats what they do best and they WILL murder everything of that sort, grenades or not.

The game should not look like - I charge my elite CC to your elite CC. It should look like - I feed your elite CC something or just run away from it while my elite CC takes care of that trash of yours that feels so smug about their T4 and pwr armour... AND grenades.

Ever read Sun'Tzu's art of war? Let your fastest horse race against his mediocre, your mediocre against his slow and your slow horse against his fast horse. You win 2 races out of 3... :-)

Their secondary role is swallowing fire. They are tougher than most things we have and the enemy will have to spend quite a lot of fire to kill them, while not shooting our other stuff.

I'm on the Count's side on this as far as the GK compare/contrast goes.

Incubi are very one dimensional - so that one dimension should be good or else what is the point of them?
Look at Wyches - they are one dimensional (and have grenades and guns so are less one dimensional than Incubi) but are still a terrible unit because they're not actually that good at what they're supposed to do.

If Incubi are only built for close combat, and that is their one mission, then...yeah, I expect them to be pretty darn good at it and mulch things like Space Marines in assault. The thing is, without grenades, they don't. They can, and you can work around it by spending more points and doing multi-assaults and other gak, but at that point...are they even worth it? If I need to pay more points to get a second assault unit so my first one can do it's one and only job something is wrong with the dedicated assault unit, yeah?

I also hear the comment about 'well they should be hard to use'. My counter is - getting Incubi into assault is already a bit of a skill game considering our transports, and getting them into additional assaults is also a bit of work. Frankly, even if they were given grenades I'd probably run stuff other than them because I don't think they're that great - and that's a pretty good argument for why giving them grenades isn't exactly OP.

aurynn wrote:

Their role is MEQ, Honour Guard and similar units hunting and thats what they do best and they WILL murder everything of that sort, grenades or not.

Do they? I sort of think if they assault through cover the Honor Guard would stomp them flat.

Count Adhemar wrote:

 Without grenades and against any sort of decent opponent, Incubi will rarely, if ever, perform their one and only job well.

This really assumes that everything Incubi are good at killing are in cover at all times... in my experience this is rarely the case. My opponents constantly have to leave the safety of cover to grab objectives, especially due to cagey objective placement on my part, maelstrom missions, and most notably the relic mission. On top of all that there are many times there is simply not enough area terrain for every single unit my Incubi want to kill.

And if you do are constantly running into this sort of "worst case scenario" where everything is in cover at all times, and you find it near-impossible to pull units out of cover and you are dedicated to running Incubi take an Autarch with Soulshrive+Banshee mask like I do and you are guaranteed to go at initiative. Even if you hate CW allies an counts-as Archon Autarch, and 3 CW jetbikes wont corrupt you too much

But here we are running into the issue of looking at them from different angles. I consider them great. I consider our transports one of the best in the whole game too. I wouldnt swap a Raider for a Serpent.

And... The trick is not to charge the Honour Guard through cover. If it hides in cover, then its members can swing their powerswords at the winds for all I care. I wont be charging them because most probably I dont need to. I will just drown them in poison if I need them shifted.

We have solution for enemies in cover. Why use incubi then? Incubi are for the honour guard that comes at you and not the one that shivers under leaf and bough. :-)

aurynn wrote:

And... The trick is not to charge the Honour Guard through cover. If it hides in cover, then its members can swing their powerswords at the winds for all I care. I wont be charging them because most probably I dont need to. I will just drown them in poison if I need them shifted.

Ah, but is that not then the issue? If Incubi aren't to deal with rock hard units (like TH/SS Terms) and are also not the unit to deal with marines in cover (where you say splinter fire will work) at that point...what do I even need them for? Killing MEQ that is not in cover? Do I need to pay 20 points a model to accomplish that? I don't think I do, or if I wish to I could pay a bit more and get a unit willing to go into the cover as well.

That's part of the issue - if you compartmentalize them enough you're just pointing out and admitting to their limitations and flaws, and if you get enough of those...well, then that tends to show that they're not a good unit and are badly designed, yeah?

I believe you misunderstand me. They can shift MEQ in cover easily. Either by charging from the angle where they are not protected by terrain or even through terrain they should be able to kill them. Honour Guard is not typical MEQ. Its halfway TEQ with much better ability to strike back and there you have to be more careful. But Honour Guard cant do much from cover, can they?

Splinter fire has one flaw - it does not prevent the unit from shooting back. Incubi lock the unit in CC if they do not destroy it outright. In fact Incubi and Splinter fire complement each other absolutely perfectly.

I know what you are trying to say, but the issue is much less black and white IMHO. Of course they have limitations and flaws. So do Marines and Honour Guard. I am perfectly happy with that.

I have read many of your threads and I value your opinions, but this time I feel like you are looking at the issue and seeing it too black and white. Incubi will not work if the rest of the list does not synergy well with them. That is true for any unit.

As for your question of why take them consider this - a 110 unit of incubi will kill 79pts worth of vanilla marines (much more worth of devastators). It takes 45 Splinter shots (180pts worth of warriors) to kill the same amount. Thats where is the difference. Their use overlaps, but one is better at one thing and second at another. And it further mixes in different occasions. Thats why this issue is much, much more complex than stating - no grenades - no use...

Honour Guard
Aurynn, you're right, Honour Guard have a major issue - they may have grenades but the only assault trasnport in the entire marine codex is the land raider. Ignoring the cost of the honour guard unit itself, just the tax for having access and getting them into combat is nearly 400 points without upgrades.

aurynn wrote:

I know what you are trying to say, but the issue is much less black and white IMHO. Of course they have limitations and flaws. So do Marines and Honour Guard. I am perfectly happy with that.

Don't get me wrong either, i am not saying the unit needs to have no flaws to be viable. I field many and multiple units with flaws. All I am saying is that in comparison to other units we have available - the Incubi's flaws are too large to justify them as the optimal choice.

aurynn wrote:

I have read many of your threads and I value your opinions, but this time I feel like you are looking at the issue and seeing it too black and white. Incubi will not work if the rest of the list does not synergy well with them. That is true for any unit.

Agreed (also, thank you ) That said - Incubi require a surprising amount of 'synergy'. As in, they require additional assault units or just absolute avoidance of given units, or both. That means they're not actually that good at what I consider the purpose of assault units to be.

maybe that's what we should consider? Because, to my mind, the goal of an assault unit is not to beat up units in the open that are not potent assault threats. The purpose of assault units is to remove threats from cover, and to bog down/kill assault deathstars and/or to *be* that assault deathstar, able to assault anything in the game and be capable of at least harming it. Incubi are not particularly good at either of those tasks - ergo; they are not a particularly good assault unit.

aurynn wrote:

As for your question of why take them consider this - a 110 unit of incubi will kill 79pts worth of vanilla marines (much more worth of devastators). It takes 45 Splinter shots (180pts worth of warriors) to kill the same amount, which is more than . Thats where is the difference. Their use overlaps, but one is better at one thing and second at another. And it further mixes in different occasions. Thats why this issue is much, much more complex than stating - no grenades - no use...

The caveat is - the 180 points worth of Warriors has other uses, whilst the Incubi do not.
The Warriors are good versus flying MCs, the Incubi are not.
The Warriors (if they have a Blaster, I'm not sure of your actual unit here - but I take Warriors with Blasters always) can threaten vehicles, the Incubi can, albeit awkwardly and slowly, and not as many types.
The Warriors have ObjecSec, the Incubi do not.
The Warriors have a much larger threat bubble than the Incubi.
The Warriors will loose less of their damage potential when fired upon by most weaponry than the Incubi.
Et al.

So for a minor point increase I can get a substantially more versatile and useful unit.
And this is fine - I don't need Incubi to be brilliant at everything, they are specialists, I am okay with that.
That said - whatever their specialty is...they better be pretty darn good at it and also have it not be too narrow of a focus.
The Incubi focus is either too narrow or they are not good at it - grenades would open up their focus by a solid margin, and that is why I find that a niggling point. Heck, even just give them a Banshee Mask like effect so at least they can swing simultaneously. But at 20 points each, I begrudge every one that dies before he gets to swing - and there's good chances of that happening to Incubi even if I get them to the assault phase with no losses - and that's the issue.

Compare them to their top rival (in my opinion) the Grotesque. The Grot is more expensive and also needs synergy support (in this case, an attached HQ...though that is a not uncommon thing to want to attach to an assault unit anyway).
Grots also lack grenades.
That said - Grots are able to lack grenades, because they are darn tough, so they can absorb overwatch and swings against them much better than Incubi, and the scary stuff to them will usually swing simultaneously, so is less of a point loss.
They are also good against a wide variety of targets - they can threaten mech, MCs, elite assault units, and hordes because they have good strength, a lot of swings, and can cause instant death.
They can attack nits in cover, they can beat up units out of cover, they can hold up or beat down deathstars.
They are more expensive and also lack grenades, but they accomplish the purpose of an assault unit. They also will require some skill and thought and will be made better by careful coordination with your army (just like Incubi) but, unlike Incubi, they don't force me to consider taking other units to deal with the stuff they can't. If I want to assault something, I have a reasonable chance to accomplish it with Grots no matter what the given assault target or situation is.
It doesn't have to do with "Grots are easy to play" it has to do with "Grots are good TAC choices because they lack many hard limiters".

Does that make sense?

What are your goals for an assault unit?

@Thor - off topic slightly, but how would you run a Grot unit? My biggest issue with them is that I can't see myself taking any more than 4 unless I go all out coven assault and take two big units to step out of a portal and go 'shoot me, let's see how much it hurts, and when you're done I'm going to squash what's left'

My thinking at present is 4 grots and a WWP Succubus with Archite Glaive (gives them high initiative AP2 attacks, backed up by a ton of attacks afterwards). I've tried to use it once, but sadly the only target that was left by the turn they could charge was a 5-man dev squad, and the Succy killed them all on her own.

As for what I look for from an assault unit, if the phases were balanced (which i don't think they are) I'd assault the shooty stuff and shoot the assaulty stuff. That being said, I wouldn't mind combining a wych squad to assault into cover (if they were better, like rending maybe) with Incubi to take down other targets. What I'd love to be able to do is put the Incubi squad there to bait my opponent to charge them, but sadly because the phases aren't balanced, my opponent would be likely to just sit there and shoot them (3+ is fine, but it doesn't make them resilient!)

I think that we are getting to the point of our difference in opinion. Firstly - I really do not like comparing one unit to another as the situations that would need to be considered are endless in number and comparing anything else than marines in terms of gear is again very very tricky and I think even impossible. Simple example. What value would you place on the fact that MEQ dont have a dedicated assault transport for most units? What value would you place on the fact that Incubi do...? :-)

I dont consider incubi to be "Assault unit" as in "go there and chomp everything". I consider them ... well something like "scalpel unit". I believe I can find use for them against every army. I consider them a bait too as seen in my recent batrep. I am also perfectly happy to keep them in reserves and exploit any opening my opponent provides. Just having them arrive with their scary AP2 weapons and putting them in the right place on the right time they can either kill something horribly or draw fire from other parts of my army. Thats where I see value in their overlapping with splinters. Actually they are not better. But they are sure more effective if the enemy leaves them to assault unchecked. And forces to make a decision between bad and worse. :-)

Grots. They have slightly, just slightly different role because they can bear different amount of targets and some punishment too. I love diverse lists and I am thinking of running a small Grot unit along with my incubi. :-) Again, their synergy could be absolutely great and they might be able to take on almost anything together and form a solid and great assault part of otherwise Shooty army.

Does this make sense? :-)