The Freakshow- an army idea

So, with the new Dark Eldar (and Haemonculus Covens) books out, I've been tooling around with my lists trying to determine the best list to run. My normal 'Aerial Assault' list just makes me miss Sliscus, and that's just too painful right now.  

So I've been thinking about sticking with the Covens. I was waffling about, until someone pointed out that the Ld bubble from Freakish Spectacle stacks.

Which is what led me to this. I'm calling it the Freakshow. The idea is to field several Coven formations, along with allied support, all designed to take maximum advantage of the enemy's reduced leadership.

Farseers- Mounted on Jetbikes, the Farseer can come in with an ally tax of only 51 points, if he takes Windriders, who have the added advantage of bringing Objective Secured units to the table, something the formation-dependent Covens sorely lack. If the Farseers stick to Telepathy, they can generate several powers which can capitalize on the many negatives to enemy leadership, not least of which is Psychic Shriek, a power that gets much tastier when the enemy is taking -1 to -5 to their Ld scores.

Dark Eldar- Codex Eldar can bring some added long range firepower, enabling the Covens to handle hordes or MCs a little better. Perhaps tastiest of all, the DE can bring the Armor of Misery, which can stack its -2 Ld bubble with the Freakish Spectacle rule.

The Coven formations, which can be mixed and matched according to desire, collection, or points level, give lots of options for a wide range of situations, but there are a few things I'm still up in the air on.

Wraithfighters- The Hemlock Wraithfighter seems like a good pick for the list. The Mindshock Pods (successful Morale and Pinning tests within 12" must be rerolled) could synergize well with the core themes of the list. From my reading of the rules, they affect friendlies and enemies alike, but the majority of this list will be Fearless by turn 2 at the latest. It seems pretty expensive though, and for a flyer, it's weapons can only engage ground targets, which seems like a downside.

Torment Launchers- The upgrade definitely seems like it would be either SUPER useful in this list or SUPER wasted. It wounds based on Leadership, but it doesn't affect the majority of armies (Marines of all flavors and Daemons are immune). I'm undecided.

Warlock Council- It's no big deal to make this army Eldar primary to pick up a Warlock council. Bike mounted Warlocks could seriously add mojo to the Ld inhibiting game with Horrify, but that's only a 1/6 chance per 'lock, and they seem kind of pricey. I remain unsure.

Chain Snares- The ability to force a unit to make three fallback moves in a single turn seems like it might be very powerful, but I don't have any experience at all with Tank Shocking, so I'm not a hundred percent sold.

Archangel of Pain- It's one use only, but it could put some SERIOUS hurt on units already bubbled by the Freakish Spectacle. It's got the same negatives as the Torment Launchers though. It DOES give a -2 Ld for the test, which is sweet, Still, the wide range of models who are immune to it make it a sketchy choice, and the fact that to bring it you have to either bring a second Archon or forgo the Armor of Misery make it of questionable desire.

I don't know. What does the Dark City think? I'm already pretty set on running the Freakshow as my core concept list, so I'm not really looking to be talked out of it. I'm more looking for ways to fine tune it at this point. Any suggestions on what to bring/leave behind are more than welcome! Helping me make decisions on those questionable units would be dandy as well. And I'd LOVE to hear about any options I missed to capitalize on the near table-wide leadership negatives.

Please use this against a transcendant c'tan. I would like to know if this uber psychic scream killed it in one pass.

I think the premise of the army is a good one if the freakish spectacle rule stacks with other instances of it. I say if, because it's not been clarified by FAQ (though it is on our FAQ letter to GW) and until it is, you'll have people you play against arguing that it doesn't stack (trust me, there's even a guy at my club who's dead set against the idea and without an FAQ I'd have to roll for it every time I played him)

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

trust me, there's even a guy at my club who's dead set against the idea and without an FAQ I'd have to roll for it every time I played him

I trust you take Splinter Racks on one vehicle and have them twin-link every splinter weapon in your army against this guy?

Only played him once, I'm not planning on doing it again anytime soon since to be 'helpful' as I'd not played AdMech before he described them as 'high toughness, bad armour saves'. Turns out the worst armour save in his army was a 4+, on fearless infantry blobs, but the hitting power all comes with at least a 3+.

Next time I'll be lancing him from afar and dropping medusae into his infantry

I wouldn't play anyone who insisted on a roll off on that issue. There's no way to interpret the rules in such a way that they don't stack. What an unbelievable jerk.

I can't add anything you haven't thought of, really. But this is a great idea and I'm really looking forward to hearing how it works.

I've done torment launchers + armour of misery + archangel* before, on a raider with WWP. Plopped behind a bunch of firewarriors and left about a quarter of them alive for the gunboat to mop up. Did the same thing to an AM platoon. Luckily I'm the only guy in my group with a marine army of any kind, so it did make the choice to take the Torments easier. Anyway that was just me messing about with Ld attacks, when it's optimised in your list I think it'll be formidable.

*illegally, as it happened, because I had both relics on one character. But the principle remains the same - I wasn't using Freakish Spectacle etc.

I ran a game with it last week, turned out okay.

I played a 2500 pt game against Daemons. I won on objectives in the end, but it was a damn close game. Lost an entire Corpsethief Claw to a single round of attacks from a Greater Daemon, which hurt my damn soul. (Before that happened they were running around like a freight train, though.) I think I may reserve the formation for games over 2k points.

The Scalpel Squadron was probably MVP, though. Seriously awesome.

The Ld penalties (I also brought an Armor of Misery Archon and a Grotesquerie) helped quite a bit. I lost out on using Terrify, but when it came time to Daemonic Instability checks, I think they swung the game in my favor.

I originally planned on running one eldar detachment per full thousand points, but I think I may increase it to one per partial thousand.

Jimsolo wrote:

Torment Launchers- The upgrade definitely seems like it would be either SUPER useful in this list or SUPER wasted. It wounds based on Leadership, but it doesn't affect the majority of armies (Marines of all flavors and Daemons are immune). I'm undecided.

Totally does affect Daemons. They're pseudo-fearless, not actual Fearless. Big difference.
Daemons won't be falling back from shooting, etc, but it'll still hurt them.
And for the record the Archangel also affects Daemons, as do all the -LD modifiers you're throwing around as you've mentioned.

Yeah, I knew the Ld modifiers worked on them, but I hadn't realized initially that Torment Launchers or the Archangel would. Still sketchy about them, since half the armies out there have ATSKNF. Been looking at Shadow Spectres though.

Got another game in with this army today.

2 Farseer/bike units
Scalpel Squadron
Dark Artisan formation
Archon (armor of misery) and 3 incubi
Unit of 5 wyches
Dark lance Ravager

I won on objectives in the end, but it was SUPER close. I ran into an Ork Killa Kan wall army, which hurt a bit since I had brought so very little anti-tank. I've never faced the new Orks before, and I have a hard time remembering that unlike SMs, my eldar SHOULD be assaulting them. I made several tactical screwups.

On the bright side, 1 Farseer per partial thousand seems like the way to go.

Holy crap, Shadow Spectres would be awesome for this! They project a bubble in which enemies have to take Morale and Pinning tests on 3d6.

Jimsolo wrote:

Holy crap, Shadow Spectres would be awesome for this!  They project a bubble in which enemies have to take Morale and Pinning tests on 3d6.

Good catch! You need an Exarch for it but that's still a pretty decent boost to any LD bomb tactics.

It's not just take tests on 3D6 - it's take tests on 3D6 and use the two highest results.

And yet if you want to do proper Ld bomb tactics, Eldar still do it better - Shadow Spectres combined with a Hemlock Wraithfighter (re-roll successful tests) and a wraithseer (psychic power that makes you take a pinning test at -2Ld) is very nasty. Of course, combine all of this with the freakish spectacle/armour of misery etc and you have a list that non-fearless armies are gonna despise!

Or Iyanden Spiritseers with Grotesques.
WWP AoM archon, Freakish Specticle Grots for T5 and Spiritseers for telepoathy. Second (extras) Spiritseer could use other grots in boats to get more of those LD spells.

Quote :

Chain Snares- The ability to force a unit to make three fallback moves in a single turn seems like it might be very powerful, but I don't have any experience at all with Tank Shocking, so I'm not a hundred percent sold.

Remember that this DOES affect Space Marines, and if you line up your vehicles, you can make the same unit run several times during the same movement phase. And once they're running, the next morale test faíls automatically.
Even Space Marines dissappear when they hit the board edge

Of course this is mitigated somewhat by the Death or Glory option, since our vehicles are slightly fragile....

Good comments. I went against some shadow spectres the other day. So annoying, even without all those other negative leadership modifiers. I note that no one has mentioned Iyanden spiritseers. You can take 5 in one HQ slot and of course they have telepathy and pyschic shriek. I'm always running out of points to spend but perhaps they have a place in some anti-leadership lists.

Spiritseers seem potent, but I worry about their lack of mobility. I still might try them some time, though. They're potent, no doubt.

Spiritseers can use wwp or raiders for mobility and grotesques (or clawed fiends) to keep them alive.

By www, you mean putting them with a DE character? I didn't think a transport would have been much use, since they can't cast out of it. (Except psychic shriek.)

Okay, got another Freakshow game in today. Here's the army list I threw down with.

Formation: Grotesquerie
3 Grotesques, 1 Aberration (Scissorhand), Raider (Night Shields, Torment Grenade Launcher, Dark Lance) - 250 Points
3 Grotesques, 1 Aberration (Scissorhand), Raider (Night Shields, Torment Grenade Launcher, Dark Lance) - 250 Points
Haemonculus (Syndriq's Sump, Scissorhand) - 90 pts

Formation: Scarlet Epicureans
Cronos Parasite Engine (Spirit Probe) - 110 pts
Haemonculus (Scissorhand) - 80 pts
5 Wracks (Ossefactor), Venom (Dual Splinter Cannons) - 130 pts
5 Wracks (Ossefactor), Venom (Dual Splinter Cannons) - 130 pts

Allied Eldar detachment
Farseer (Singing Spear, Runes of Warding, Jetbike) - 130 pts
3 Guardian Jetbikes (1 Shuriken Cannon) - 63 pts

We played Maelstrom, got the one with dwindling objectives. My opponent fielded a Sisters of Battle list. All in all, the Freakshow concept really clicked this game. I won with 12 victory points, six of which were scored by my Farseer's unit alone. Psychic Shriek and the Ld penalties from Freakshow are really nice together.

I got my "worst case" set of Telepathy powers (Shrouding, Mental Fortitude, Hallucination), but Psychic Shriek earned its biscuits a couple of times.

I think, on the balance, that I'm going to drop the Torment Launchers. Chain Snares for all the vehicles would have been more effective, probably. I tend to use my Raiders as safety-net anti-tank, and putting an anti-infantry weapon on them just doesn't add up. You can Tank Shock even if you've Jinked, right? That would make snares the better investment...

First time really getting to see Grots do their thing in this edition, and holy moly are they amazing!