Clarification needed if possible,can court be stand alone HQ,gray area..

Greetings fellow Archons, I have not found a definitive answer on this...

Can the court be taken as a stand alone HQ , can the court be taken if you run a succubus,no archon or must you run an archon? I really do not care if they take a foc spot or not if taken wo an archon.
The codex is gray..court is HQ choice,does not say you can take ONLY if you have an Archon,just says may and takes no slot up..

Can anyone tell me a definitive way people approach this.? 'love' gw ambiguity on this...if there is no concrete opinion the up to personal interpretation..

Thank you all.

Barring a FAQ from GW or a specific ruling from a tournament that you're attending then the Court can indeed be taken as a standalone HQ choice. Having an Archon simply allows you to take one without using a FOC slot. You do not however have to have an Archon or indeed any other HQ in order to run one.

Something to follow up on - if you take a Court of the Archon as your only HQ choice they cannot be your warlord unless you take no other characters in your army. Starting in 7th edition, ANY character can be your warlord in your army (including a simple Sybarite in a Warrior squad) yet the models that make up the Court of the Archon are NOT characters. A non-character model can only be your warlord if you run an army with 0 characters in it.

This fact is often missed in a number of battle reports I've watched on Youtube recently. They'll take a Lhamean as warlord even though they have Sybarites in their warrior squads - one of which would have to be the warlord since they are characters while the Lhamean is not.

Many thanks,now if I can get a clarification regarding the tantalus I posted in another thread I may be golden and start planning some serious sneaky stuff.