Homebrew Codex: The Huskblade

The Shredder wrote:

Archon Rievect wrote:

A side note.... we need the 'Dark Gate' back from the previous codex..... and we still need it ST10 and Ap1....other weapons we need back from the previous codex are the shattershard and the orb of despair....all the cool little stuff... bring back with old stats, that would add a little oomph to the cannon part... BUT i say dont make them '1 shot' ,make them useable every turn, hell ,finally have stuff back that would garner respect and terror a little....

That would be nice.

I'm also wondering if our ranged poison weapons should be Fleshbane (4+), instead of poison. If Gargantuan Creatures are going to be in the game, it seems rather idiotic that they're just immune to what is basically our only weapon against them.

Archon Rievect wrote:

i mean can DE really ever be called OP nowadays?....

I think Sisters of Battle players will offer to handicap themselves against us to even the odds.

I have a SOB army and as long as I stay out of CC my army is pretty resilient,exorcists are not lascannons and such but if I am facing cheese I bring 6 to the table...possible 48 x 48"8,1 shots still makes people cringe... some eldar players hate my exorcists, the whole army invul seems to work on my vehicles but sucks when I roll for troops.... I run them pure ,no allies.... bUT may have to run that plane since all the gnats buzzing around now.....

The Shredder wrote:

Archon Rievect wrote:

A side note.... we need the 'Dark Gate' back from the previous codex..... and we still need it ST10 and Ap1....other weapons we need back from the previous codex are the shattershard and the orb of despair....all the cool little stuff... bring back with old stats, that would add a little oomph to the cannon part... BUT i say dont make them '1 shot' ,make them useable every turn, hell ,finally have stuff back that would garner respect and terror a little....

That would be nice.

I'm also wondering if our ranged poison weapons should be Fleshbane (4+), instead of poison. If Gargantuan Creatures are going to be in the game, it seems rather idiotic that they're just immune to what is basically our only weapon against them.

I dunno.  Still wounding on 6's against T8+ models is still kind of nice.  Especially given the volume of fire we enjoy.  It's not perfect, but barring grav it's a better option than many other armies have.

If we're going to wishlist, I'd prefer Soulfright worked on them.

Jimsolo wrote:

I dunno.  Still wounding on 6's against T8+ models is still kind of nice.  Especially given the volume of fire we enjoy.

But that's the thing - wounding on 6s makes our volume of fire worthless. When the GC gets its armour save (usually at least 3+), and then FNP as well, it takes an utterly ludicrous amount of fire to bring one down.

But that isn't a codex imbalance. The default weapon of every other army but Tau, CWE, and Necrons is completely worthless against T8, and the field narrows to just the Eldar and Crons at T9+.

It would seem a little odd to me to have Poison to work the same against GMCs and MCs.

Jimsolo wrote:

But that isn't a codex imbalance.  The default weapon of every other army but Tau, CWE, and Necrons is completely worthless against T8, and the field narrows to just the Eldar and Crons at T9+.  

You're forgetting though that it's not just about basic weapons. If only our warriors couldn't hurt GCs, I wouldn't mind. But, you seem to be forgetting that a great deal of our other weapons (including heavy weapons) are also poison.

We don't get Grav, Wraiths, D-weapons or other stuff to combat MCs - only more poison. So, having our main weapon be utterly ineffective against Gargantuan Creatures, when we have no alternative sources of damage, seems ludicrous.

Or, if our weapons are going to be worthless against GCs, then perhaps they should also be immune to D-weapons and Grav.

Grav should certainly have a reduced effect on them. (D should too.) Agree completely.

I think de escalation is preferable when possible in the 40k arms race.

Jimsolo wrote:

I think de escalation is preferable when possible in the 40k arms race.  

To be honest, I'd rather GCs were removed from 'regular' 40k and put back in Apocalypse/Epic.

Regardless, I agree that 40k really needs to de-escalate.

5th edition, when the strongest long-range anti-armour was a Psyfulman Dreadnough, seems so long ago.

Lol, that's a whole 'nother argument.

I'm really looking forward to the supplement.

Warhammer 40,000: De-escalation

It'll sit nicely next to 'Strongpoint Negotiated Settlement' and of course the classic small scale game, 'Mediation Team'.

On a more serious note, I don't think poison only wounding GCs on 6s is the issue so much, not having better guns is.

If GW is going to start introducing more GMCs (and based on the fact that the Tau now have TWO, it looks like this is the trend), then I am worried about our ability to deal with them as DE. Single Wraithknights are pretty hard to deal with, but a squadron of three Stormsurges would be pretty much impossible to deal with for us. I'd be okay with Poison only hurting GMCs on a six if we had more options for Fleshbane in CC. If say, Grotesques or Reavers could take Ichor Injectors, that would go a long way towards giving us some more tools to deal with GMCs. But as it stands now, I don't see how DE can deal with more than one GMC in a game (and as mentioned above, even that would take a ton of shooting a lot of luck to accomplish).

But grotesques deal instant death on a roll of 6.

Very late to this party, but I've only recently really started playing with CC archons.  I'm completely in agreement with The Shredder and everyone else that says DE need a little more cannon to go with our glass-cannon archetype, but all the suggestions I've seen so far have seemed pretty timid to be honest (I fully agree that de-escalation would be better for the game, but good luck with that).

My suggestion would be to make it an Artifact for probably 50-60ish points with a profile like:
The Huskblade: Range: -, Strength: User, AP: 3, Special Rules: Life-Destroyer (Against targets with a toughness value The Huskblade is increased to Strength D, but the users strength value determines Instant Death)

Still AP 3, but you get all the best parts of Fleshbane, ID, Lethal Dose, and Rending (wounds on a 2+, ignores FNP/reanimation, get AP2 and functional ID on a "6" to wound) but without making the Archon able to pull apart Landraiders with his bare hands.  It'd make other CC characters seriously think twice about flinging themselves at you since they're one "6" away from needing their brown pants, but you're still a fairly easy to kill T3 model that relies on AV10 planes for mobility (I'm definitely opposed to any kind of serious durability increase for Archons. EW on anything besides Draz and coven stuff seems extremely out of character).  And against Walkers you're still going to get your @$$ handed to you (since fluff-wise I don't see an Archon or a Huskblade being able to do much against one).  In today's world of 40k I don't think it's really all that out of place.


My one concern would be Harlie/Eldar players snatching one up and throwing it into some super buffed psychic unit, so I might include another rule like:

Warp Thirst: Psykers (friend or foe) in the same unit as the bearer, or that target the bearer's unit, only harness Warp Charge on a "6" regardless of other rules or bonuses. If the psyker suffers Perils of the Warp roll a D3 on the chart instead of a D6.  

With the Fluff justification being that the huskblade is made of corrupted wraithbone containing the soul of one of the Dark Muses that still thirsts for life/souls and is particularly attuned to psychic emanations.  Might be a little overkill, and I'm not sure I like how resilient it makes his unit to enemy powers, but I despise psychic deathstars, and most armies have a non-psychic answer to pretty much any DE/Eldar/Harlie unit that isn't buffed.

I just wanted to take a moment of my time to say I thought this was a 4 page discussion on a Codex based on a single weapon XD

My thoughts on huskblade is to make it the "ultra poison" weapon. The idea being that just knicking will kill anything, but it has to get past armor first. It'd drop in price.

DE HQ weapons would be...
Huskblade: good for monster hunting
-fleshbane
-instant death on all hits
-AP5

Agonizer (E-whip/scissorhands/MP gauntlet now fall under the 'agonizer' category): all-rounder weapon, good against MEQ's
-shred
-rending
-AP3
-concussive to represent the agony/mind numbing effect of the weapon

Klaive/Punisher: good against terminators and light vehicles
-grants Smash USR (ap2, halve attacks to double s to 6 and armorbane)
-two handed
-master crafted so you won't whiff your precious smash attack as often

Bugs_N_Orks wrote:

Very late to this party, but I've only recently really started playing with CC archons.  I'm completely in agreement with The Shredder and everyone else that says DE need a little more cannon to go with our glass-cannon archetype, but all the suggestions I've seen so far have seemed pretty timid to be honest (I fully agree that de-escalation would be better for the game, but good luck with that).

My suggestion would be to make it an Artifact for probably 50-60ish points with a profile like:
The Huskblade: Range: -, Strength: User, AP: 3, Special Rules: Life-Destroyer (Against targets with a toughness value The Huskblade is increased to Strength D, but the users strength value determines Instant Death)

Still AP 3, but you get all the best parts of Fleshbane, ID, Lethal Dose, and Rending (wounds on a 2+, ignores FNP/reanimation, get AP2 and functional ID on a "6" to wound) but without making the Archon able to pull apart Landraiders with his bare hands.  It'd make other CC characters seriously think twice about flinging themselves at you since they're one "6" away from needing their brown pants, but you're still a fairly easy to kill T3 model that relies on AV10 planes for mobility (I'm definitely opposed to any kind of serious durability increase for Archons.  EW on anything besides Draz and coven stuff seems extremely out of character).  And against Walkers you're still going to get your @$$ handed to you (since fluff-wise I don't see an Archon or a Huskblade being able to do much against one).  In today's world of 40k I don't think it's really all that out of place.


My one concern would be Harlie/Eldar players snatching one up and throwing it into some super buffed psychic unit, so I might include another rule like:

Warp Thirst: Psykers (friend or foe) in the same unit as the bearer, or that target the bearer's unit, only harness Warp Charge on a "6" regardless of other rules or bonuses. If the psyker suffers Perils of the Warp roll a D3 on the chart instead of a D6.  

With the Fluff justification being that the huskblade is made of corrupted wraithbone containing the soul of one of the Dark Muses that still thirsts for life/souls and is particularly attuned to psychic emanations.  Might be a little overkill, and I'm not sure I like how resilient it makes his unit to enemy powers, but I despise psychic deathstars, and most armies have a non-psychic answer to pretty much any DE/Eldar/Harlie unit that isn't buffed.

I find it amusing that, even as a proposed 60pt artefact D-weapon... the Huskblade still isn't allowed AP2.

HokutoAndy wrote:

Klaive/Punisher: good against terminators and light vehicles
-grants Smash USR (ap2, halve attacks to double s to 6 and armorbane)
-two handed
-master crafted so you won't whiff your precious smash attack as often

THAT WOULD WWORK SO WELL WITH ME FLUFF

I've read pretty much this entire thread, and like a lot of what is being discussed here, but there is one thing I can't really get behind.

@ the OP, you've mentioned several times about not being able to ally with anyone else. This doesn't track. Dark Eldar aren't evil, really. Rather, they're selfish in the most extreme ways possible, and have been driven to require extreme emotional stimulation in order to remain vital. That stimulation can come from death, sex, love, hate, or any other behavior that has a tendency to make people FEEL strongly. That said, being selfish, they most certainly would temporarily ally which just about ANYONE, so long as it served their purpose. I could see an argument for not making them battle brothers with anyone, but not an outright ban on allying at all. To me, that reflects a more personal problem with the allies system in general than a real concern with the fluff of DE.

And other factions/races are similar. Craftworld eldar view DE with pity, and would most certainly ally with them if they felt it served their greater good of saving the dying eldar race. And speaking of Greater good, Tau...I could go on like this all day.

Huskblade should be Artifact of cruelty, instead of Djinn Blade (or this one need a fix)

Like
Huskblade str - uesr, ap -, Deathtouch, Master crafted, 35-40 pts would be enouth
Deathtouch - any to wound roll of 5+ is a deathblow. It`s ignore armor saves, wounds automaticaly any toughness and has instant death.

Devilogical wrote:

Huskblade should be Artifact of cruelty, instead of Djinn Blade (or this one need a fix)

Like
Huskblade str - uesr, ap -, Deathtouch, Master crafted, 35-40 pts would be enouth
Deathtouch - any to wound roll of 5+ is a deathblow. It`s ignore armor saves, wounds automaticaly any toughness and has instant death.

For that price, how about making it more like The Duke's weapon?

So, poison 2+, rolls of 5+ wound automatically and ignore armour saves (as you say), but give it the ID rule for all attacks.

I just wish it were AP2.