Archons Court, specifically Sslyth and/or Medusae? How many?

Hi everyone!

So I've noticed this particular topic creeping up in various other threads, but never anywhere focused so to speak.

What, in your experience, has been an effective combination of an Archons Court, and what do you find it most useful against?

More specifically, as I am about to add a Court to my army I am wondering how many Sslyth and/or Medusae to purchase, not only but also because the models are fairly expensive in my opinion.

So far I've only used them once (proxied), as a group of 4 medusae attached to my archon with WWP, against a ravenwing bike spam army. They did OK damage wise, but immediately got flamed to death as my opponent registered them as a high threat to his precious 3+ army.

Next match I'd like them to to be operational a bit longer, or maybe swap them out entirely for Sslyth as they seem to be much better value for their points. What do you think?

Thanks!

In my opinion, the medusae are specifically aimed at doing one thing, which is killing marines in cover. Every 2 you bring should statistically speaking kill everything you can place under the template (hit automatically, 50% wound rate so two templates = 100%).

I honestly wouldn't bring more than 4 medusae in a unit, for the following reasons.

1. Gets really expensive really quick (both points and price)
2. template range is limited to 8", there aren't going to be too many situations where you'll need to kill more than 10 marines, which you should really be able to cover with 4 templates.
3. Medusae really need to be placed precisely to work, and to my mind that means a WWP. starting on the board and using flat out is ok, but your opponent can really screw you over if they want since you can't fire the templates if their transport moves over 6". WWP means investing in a character for the unit - see point 1.
4. Relating to point 3, 4 and a character fit nicely in a venom, which means if you want to avoid bring a min unit of warriors just to get venoms (assuming you don't have FA slots available) then they're a good option.

The primary way I run my court is 3 ssylth and then either 1 medusae plus IC or 1 medusae and 1 lhamaen

T5 majority, in a venom and a nasty template weapon backed up by poison shots

1 Lhamaen, cheaper HQ ever

2-3 Sslyth,1 Lhamaen, nice Venom squad, good shoot, quite good CC

5+ Sslyth, 1Archon/Haem/Succ, nice Portal unit, tasty shoot, nice CC, T5 Ts5+ fnp5+



Never used Medusae, I don't like them. In VII flamers can kill only models under the template, and is so difficult take more tha 2-3 models...multiple flames doesn't work to me.
Lhamaens get a lot of damage in CC, covered by Sslyhts.

And I don't see power armours since V ed..
Chaos? Cultist, Spawns, 2+ Lord, Obliterators
SM? Bikes (T5), Centurions, 2+ Masters
SW? Wolf Riders (T5), 2+ Rider Lords
DA? Bikes and Terminators
BA? Dreadnoughts, PA on Storm Reavers (good luck), Death Company (maybe u can kill one of them...still fnp5+)
Necrons? Wraiths, A LOT of Warriors (disembarked against medusae obviously), Destroyers
Tau? Good luck going DeepStrike to shoot him
etc etc..

I cannot find why I need to spend 25 points for a simply S4 ap3 flamer. Neither multiples.

To me, the Court are Sslyths and Lhamaens

Cerve wrote:

In VII flamers can kill only models under the template, and is so difficult take more tha 2-3 models...multiple flames doesn't work to me.

Not quite. They can only kill models within range of the weapon. The casualties do not have to be under the template though as you allocate wounds to the closest model first.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Cerve wrote:

In VII flamers can kill only models under the template, and is so difficult take more tha 2-3 models...multiple flames doesn't work to me.

Not quite. They can only kill models within range of the weapon. The casualties do not have to be under the template though as you allocate wounds to the closest model first.

Right, my bad. But I don't really like Medusae, find these worthless :-/

Cerve wrote:

2-3 Sslyth,1 Lhamaen, nice Venom squad, good shoot, quite good CC

What's the Lhamaean for in this squad?

The Shredder wrote:

Cerve wrote:

2-3 Sslyth,1 Lhamaen, nice Venom squad, good shoot, quite good CC

What's the Lhamaean for in this squad?

Leadership!


Well, there's a fourth setting that I have tried: 4 Sslyth, 4 Lhamaens, on Raider.

nice one, 140 points, 12+4 shots, nice CC (mixed, nice saturation), T5, 4 wounds with FnP.
Not bad.

The Shredder wrote:

Cerve wrote:

2-3 Sslyth,1 Lhamaen, nice Venom squad, good shoot, quite good CC

What's the Lhamaean for in this squad?

Sslyth don't have PfP but Lhamaean have it, so in addition to LD9 from Turn1 the Sslyth will become fearless by turn 5 from the Lhamaean

I tend to run 3 Sslyth and 1 Medusae, together with my Archon, in a Venom.
If I don't feel like fielding any HQ characters, I replace the Archon with a Lhamaean.

The Archon is the "Jack of All Traits" amongst the HQ choices, so I think he needs a versatile unit to go with.

Rokuro wrote:

The Archon is the "Jack of All Traits" amongst the HQ choices, so I think he needs a versatile unit to go with.

I thought the haemonculus was our Jack of all Traits HQ, with the Archon being more of a shooty unit in this edition.

The Shredder wrote:

I thought the haemonculus was our Jack of all Traits HQ, with the Archon being more of a shooty unit in this edition.

I see the Haemy as more of a support character; the guy who buffs his unit and brings an exotic weapon along.
The Archon is a shooty character only when he has a Blaster. But since I can't attach him to a unit of Blasterborn in Venom, it doesn't actually make much of a difference. Speaking of which; unless I'm faced with tank spamming IG and can't get enough lances, there are much better tank hunters available that aren't even HQ choices.

I personally only run a Court one way - 5 Medusae is a Deep Striking Venom.
I use them as a decent one drop, hope to land close enough to a Marine army to do serious damage to an important unit kind of thing. The Strength isn't great, but the AP on a Template weapon is just what I ened to deal with a frustrating Devastator squad or well stacked up Command unit.