Save the HQ tax: Sslyth + Lhamaean Court

Hello together,

I have been thinking about this a lot lately, because my experiences taught me more and more that our HQs are very pricey for what they can deliver. And my main purpose is to take the HQ for my unit of Grotesques, thus shifting my perception towards a tax I have to pay to run Grotesques.

Here is how I came to the idea of favoring a small unit of 4 Ssylth and 1 Lhamaean in games up to 1500 points. And for comparison I use a unit of Grotesques + Succubus, as they have a lot of commonalities.

The Grotesques + Succubus are without any doubt one of our best choices in the book, however I found spending roughly 300+ points on that unit including transport in a game up to 1500 points is quite a big portion of my budget. In the back of my head Sslyth were always there, due to the similar stats.

The above mentioned court loadout with venom costs only 175 points. Sure, it is not as powerful in cc, but lets take a closer look and compare the two choices:

4 Grots (300 points):
-12 majority T5 wounds
-Attacks 16-32 (S5 poisened, ID on 6)
-FNP, 6+ armor
+Succubus (ini 8, 4-6 AP 2 Attacks, 3 wounds, grenades)
-PfP (e.g fearless on T5)
-Raider (lance)

Court (175 points):
-9 (majority) T5 wounds
-18-23 Attacks (S5, 2-3 2+ poisend, on 6 ID)
-FNP, 5+ Armor
-PfP only on Lhamaean (whole unit still fearless on T5)
-Fleet
-12 poisoned shots range 18"
-Venom (or Raider)

Looking at this small summary, my opinion is that the court is generally more versatile: it can fire, it can be transported by a venom, it has fleet for mobility. Most of all, it gives me the option to purchase an additional unit of kabalites with blaster and venom for the points I save.

The pros and cons for the court vs Grots + Succubus:

++no HQ tax: points for additional Troops or others
+fleet, higher chance of reaching cc with charge
+may take venom
+poison shots/versality: Can kill without need of CC/leaving objective
(+ no backup raiders required: only my personal opinion)

+/- Warlord (Sybarite Troops): Not in "suicide" CC unit, but more fragile vs enemy shooting

--hit less hard in CC
--less durable vs enemy shooting and CC
-no ap2 in CC
-no grenades at all

Similarities of the choices:

> LD9
> footprint
> lots of S5 attacks in CC
> chance for instant death MCs in CC

To conclude my considerations, I want to propose the court as an alternative to all the Grotesque players, and to those who dont like the models/Covens, especially in smaller games.

In larger games, as the CAD moves towards maxing options even more, so the points might be well worth to be added to upgrade from Court to Grots. But I also find that the Court is a viable choice when running the expensive Dark Artisan formation. In such a list they providde a cheap multi purpose CC conter unit that gives me room for additional troops.

I bought my Court recenlty and I am looking forward to use them in a 1000 pts tournament, and regularly for 1500 pts games. I am glad the new codex finally offers this alternative: a low cost, multi purpose, "mini" Grotesques unit.

What do you think? Have you also considered, but for some reason discarded that option? Please let me know why, and add experiences if you have made some.

Cheers fellow Archons,
Aroban

Lahemian on Venom= 75 points
Best HQ ever


Anyway, yes. I found Sslyth better than Codex Grotesques for a lot of qualities:
-Sslyth aren't bulky (can go in Venom)
-They have fleet
-They shoot

If I take some Grotesques, they come from Coven Supplement.

For 15 points more take the medusae her str 4 ap3 flamer is better than than anything the lhamean can put out

*double post

Grimcrimm wrote:

For 15 points more take the medusae  her str 4 ap3 flamer is better than than anything the lhamean can put out

Really?

I have killed a Wraithknight with 1 Lhamean

I simply love that girls! 10 point for a lot of potential damage. 5 of theme get a great saturation in CC, and a potentially istant dead on 6.
50 points

Personally, I dislike the idea of having my army led my a sergeant or the like.

It just feels wrong to me.

Our HQs are overpriced for what they bring, but they're also part of the flavour. Haemonculi are one of the things that make me love DE, so I always bring one as my Warlord.

If I wanted to win that badly, I'd just play Eldar.

Excellent food for thought, and certainly something I will put some thought into!

I regularly use a slyth bodyguard for my HQ and they do not disappoint.

They share many of the strengths of grots and are cheaper, shoot very well and are not bulky.

The Shredder wrote:

Personally, I dislike the idea of having my army led my a sergeant or the like.

It just feels wrong to me.

Our HQs are overpriced for what they bring, but they're also part of the flavour. Haemonculi are one of the things that make me love DE, so I always bring one as my Warlord.

If I wanted to win that badly, I'd just play Eldar.

My Archon stay on his tower, drinking a glass of blood, and laughing satisfy for his army in battle :p

The good thing about the court is they are scaleable, so you might take as well 9 Ssylth 1 Lhamaean, to make a fair compairson to grotesques, as the points would be also ~300. Adding the stats of 5 additional  Sslyth to above summary would result in:

4 Grots (300 points):
-12 majority T5 wounds
-Attacks 16-32 (S5 poisened, ID on 6)
-FNP, 6+ armor
+Succubus (ini 8, 4-6 AP 2 Attacks, 3 wounds, grenades)
-PfP (e.g fearless on T5)
-Raider (lance)

Court (300 points):
-19 (majority) T5 wounds
-38-48 Attacks (S5, 2-3 2+ poisend, on 6 ID)
-FNP, 5+ Armor
-PfP only on Lhamaean (whole unit still fearless on T5)
-Fleet
-27 poisoned shots range 18"
-Raider

When comparing these two now, I think it strongly depends on what they are fighting to say which unit is putting out more damage in CC. Thats because of poison, ID and AP2 wounds of the Grot combo.

The number of S5 attacks and poison shots are just massive of the Sslyth, I am convinced they can regularly kill stuff pretty well without great deviation of dice results (rule of large numbers in statistics ).

From this comparison I couldnt say which is the better unit overall. Like mentioned it depends on the meta more than anything else, but due to versatility I would favor the Sslyth I think.

The Shredder wrote:

Personally, I dislike the idea of having my army led my a sergeant or the like.

It just feels wrong to me.

I see your point, and I know there are people who dislike this idea. To be honest I struggled with it as well. But then I thought: "Hey, why would an Archon not send one of his Sybarites as leader to a (smaller) raid and have his trusted court support and report back to him?" Thats how I imagine it, and I think it is absolutely ok fluff-wise for me. But as you already said, it is personal opinion in the end.

One thing that bothers me though is what my opponents will think and if I can sell it to them as non-cheese...

If you want an HQ threat take medusas, ap3 flamers make people worry.

I want to try the court as follows:

2 medusea, 5 sslyths, a cc oriented archon with webway in a raider with splinter racks. As stated in previous posts, however you design this retinue, they become very versatile. Depending on what army I'm facing, I can stay on the raider jinking and just shoot. If I get assaulted, I have some flame and rerolled snap shots during overwatch, or I can shoot one turn and assault the next with a decent cc unit.

Anyone already try a court set up like this?

I tried it twice with a succubus. The unit is awesome, but expensive and comes from reverse. So without reverse manipulation this ~350+ pts unit can be delayed until turn 4.

But it can do nice stuff : deep strike without scatter is always useful with multiple S4AP3 templates.

Next time I may try a slightly cheaper version: 2 maedusa, 3 sslyth and a webway succubus, without racks or ns. And with another HQ as warlord.

Aroban wrote:

I see your point, and I know there are people who dislike this idea. To be honest I struggled with it as well. But then I thought: "Hey, why would an Archon not send one of his Sybarites as leader to a (smaller) raid and have his trusted court support and report back to him?" Thats how I imagine it, and I think it is absolutely ok fluff-wise for me. But as you already said, it is personal opinion in the end.

I get what you mean, but I still like having a proper character leading my army.

Of course, it could be interesting in a campaign - where the Archon only shows up personally later on.

Aroban wrote:

One thing that bothers me though is what my opponents will think and if I can sell it to them as non-cheese...

Honestly, it doesn't seem cheesy to me. I think buying a single Lhamaean (possibly with a venom) would be much more cheesy.

HQ tax isn't that bad with Dark Eldar. I'd say the lower point-cost your game is, the more beneficial a retinue HQ would be. Personally I wouldn't play without a retinue under 1000 points, but it's not a big deal.

Cerve wrote:

Really?

I have killed a Wraithknight with 1 Lhamean

pics

There are a ton of variables to consider; but for the sake of discussion, which would you prefer to take: 3 Grots, or 4 Sslyth? And why?

Nariaklizhar wrote:

There are a ton of variables to consider; but for the sake of discussion, which would you prefer to take: 3 Grots, or 4 Sslyth? And why?

With 2 rounds in combat and a round of shooting beforehand; x-axis representing toughness.


Taking Liquifier guns only increases the disparity between Sslyths and Grotesques -- except for in the cases where there isn't much disparity to begin with. In addition, Liquifier guns cause Grotesques to become much less durable than Sslyths.

Hidden variables include unit size, wound allocation, and combat wounds, and to a lesser degree, leadership.

Sslyths allow you to:
+Take larger numbers
+Take larger numbers in transports
+Shoot
+Higher leadership without an HQ attached
+Forego a traditional HQ slot, giving you more points to spend
+Have a higher armor save in combat, and to an extent shooting

Grotesques allow you to:
+Be more durable to begin with
+Have greater flexibility with wound allocation
+Have Instant death weapons



I'd rather have Grotesques if I had a CC HQ.
Sslyths if not -- the only problem is that Medusae are in the same slot, are the same price, and lay waste to nearly all infantry.

Retainers for each archon included in a detatchment the detatchment can include a court of the archon that dose not take up a force organisation slot. Wich meens you still have to take a hq and pay his tax but not put him in the court unless your playing unbound

ecam wrote:

Retainers for each archon included in a detatchment the detatchment can include a court of the archon that dose not take up a force organisation slot. Wich meens you still have to take a hq and pay his tax but not put him in the court unless your playing unbound

In fact, that's exactly what it doesn't mean.

ecam wrote:

Retainers for each archon included in a detatchment the detatchment can include a court of the archon that dose not take up a force organisation slot. Wich meens you still have to take a hq and pay his tax but not put him in the court unless your playing unbound

While I agree that was the way it should have been, it's almost completely unanimous that it works the other way.

Kordajj, does your grot-sslyth breakdown take into account upgrades? Like the presence of an aberration with a scissorhand? And does it assume codex Grots as opposed to supplement ones? Comparing optimally constructed sslyth to poorly fielded grots doesn't seem like a fair comparison to me.

The no-real-HQ strategy he have access to is technically legal but pretty cheesy. It also sacrifices what is otherwise a free special rule, as well as virtually hands your opponent a free kill the warlord point, all to avoid taking an HQ that requires a little finagling to be useful, rather than being a plug-and-play HQ like some of the easy mode armies enjoy.

I don't know, I guess I kind of thought of Dark Eldar as being a little more difficult to play than most other armies. Griming my way around the mandatory HQ slot seems like a cop-out, I suppose. I don't think I'd be upset if someone else tried it, but id get irritated if someone did it every time we played a friendly game. Lol, and I think if anyone ever suggests I do this, I might heave.

Count Adhemar wrote:

ecam wrote:

Retainers for each archon included in a detatchment the detatchment can include a court of the archon that dose not take up a force organisation slot. Wich meens you still have to take a hq and pay his tax but not put him in the court unless your playing unbound

In fact, that's exactly what it doesn't mean.

Any chance you can elaborate a little on that please

Personnally, I take a "real" HQ in my lists, unless I include Dark Artisan. Then, the haemie is my warlord, and I'm not ashamed to use a lhamaean as the CAD HQ since I pay for one haemie.

###

About the sslyth: I really love them. While not as strong is assault as coven grotesquerie, they are more flexible in many ways (not bulky, shooty, fleet, IC not mandatory, etc). They can be used like a tougher gunboat (splinter racks) while being a strong countercharge unit.

They have acces to some optional rules/equipment (medusa flamer, llamaean poison, fear from a urghul).

While it's also true for the grotesques, the fact that they shoot make them perfect as harlequin DJ or SS bodyguard. The benefits are interesting: Ld10, hit&run with Ini 7, fear, fearless, ranged pinning, Death is not enough to move a unit in charge range, defensive spells, a way to hurt AV10 at range (shrieker in shuriken cannon mode)).

Unlike talos/cronos, this countercharge unit is mobile (raider), unlike wyches they can actually kill something, and unlike incubi they have a chance to survive in the open if they wipe the other unit in the first charge (even more with a SS and veil of tears).

ecam wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

ecam wrote:

Retainers for each archon included in a detatchment the detatchment can include a court of the archon that dose not take up a force organisation slot. Wich meens you still have to take a hq and pay his tax but not put him in the court unless your playing unbound

In fact, that's exactly what it doesn't mean.

Any chance you can elaborate a little on that please

Quite simply, the Court is an HQ choice in its own right. The Retainers rule just allows you to take one without using a FOC slot if you take an Archon.

Jimsolo wrote:

Kordajj, does your grot-sslyth breakdown take into account upgrades?  Like the presence of an aberration with a scissorhand?  And does it assume codex Grots as opposed to supplement ones?  Comparing optimally constructed sslyth to poorly fielded grots doesn't seem like a fair comparison to me.

The Grotesques have no upgrades of any kind. Power from Pain wasn't factored into anything.

Jimsolo wrote:

I don't know, I guess I kind of thought of Dark Eldar as being a little more difficult to play than most other armies.  Griming my way around the mandatory HQ slot seems like a cop-out, I suppose.  I don't think I'd be upset if someone else tried it, but id get irritated if someone did it every time we played a friendly game.  Lol, and I think if anyone ever suggests I do this, I might heave.

I had something to say along the lines of blah blah blah inhibitions and self-restraints don't make us better people. But everyone has their limits, and I guess that's respectable.

Let's not forget the potential of grotesques with the coven supplement and the grotesquerie formation. The power from pain table in the covens book makes the grotesques fearless turn one (if paired with a haemie), AND they have a -1 leadership bubble to boot. I can't tell you how many people are frustrates to see either t6 or 4+ feel no pain grotesques deep strike in their back line.