Critiques on certain units and abilities

Today I lost to an Ork players, him at 1800 pts, me at 1495, I learned a handful of things though as I'm still new, I figure some who are indecisive on what to take may want to have a bit of a reassurance.

Archon with a Huskblade, sadly let me down pretty badly today. Though Huskblades are intimidating they aren't exactly the greatest when it comes to performing, through about 6 rounds of assault, starting out with a small Incubi retinue, the Archon had maybe 5 kills to himself against basic Slugga boyz. The Archon is very weak, though he hits easily, his wounds are the issue, with his strength and the Huskblade itself, he requires a 5+ to wound, and as most people know that higher strength gives the archon the upperhand, hardly anyone is going to bother accepting a challenge to make the Soul Trap compensate, Shadow Fields are great, but still can be a pretty bad let down, If running with a Huskblade, I'd say armor of misery is a must, which a shadow field gone, Kabalite armor is hardly going to do much, I had to give a new Archon an Agonizer to use instead, since it doesn't need strength.

Drazhar, I'd say one of the best gems on the DE army. The initiative and amount of attacks he has, along with moderate strength and toughness, Drazhar can hang with about any melee unit he touches, and usually flays them all as well, locked in combat against 20+ Boyz, with only about 7 Incubi, Drazhar was the only one standing at the end of it, only suffering one wound, the armor of his, 2+, is insane, mixed with power from pain, Drazhar is a literal tank, with Rampage he's even scarier, murderous assault gives him the ablility to possibly slay entire squads within 2 rounds of assault, definitely a keeper to battle other melee units.

Incubi, I made the mistake of forgetting that Klaives grant an additional bump to strength, I played the length of the game with them at 3, which sucked, in hindsight, the only real reason I actually lost the game, their AP along with initiative gives them basically kills on 4+ guaranteed, against basic units at least, not to mention their armor is decent enough to let them hang with most other armies melee units, mixed with Drazhar the bump to the WS isn't much but it can help, just never forget, with a single Klaive, it is S4 not S3! haha.

Ravagers with Dark Lance, never let me down, a Dark Lance is literally one of my favorite weapons in the DE arsenal, the strength and AP make these things utterly lethal. Tank busting is childs play, and even after that, they can pick squads apart with relative ease. My game today, the Ork player was using a Stompa, and one of my ravagers got the lucky vehicle explodes on the damage table, 13 hull points of chaos was put down with a single shot of a Dark Lance, only not too durable, keeping them away from enemy units is a must.

Hopefully this can help some people that may have a few questions on certain things, I'm aware that most people may already know this or differ, but it is that little thing for other new players that may have questions or concerns about most units.

The Fume Knight wrote:

Today I lost to an Ork players, him at 1800 pts, me at 1495

Why did he have 300 more points? Was it a campaign? I'm not being cynical, but you might find the game a little more fun when the armies are of same sizes.

When it comes to the Archon, there's really nothing like learning by doing Everyone can agree that the huskblade is mostly useless, and that shadowfield saves can cause panic attacks.

It's nice to see that you like Drazhar, but I just want to say that you can take him out and add 9 Incubi in his place.

If the ennemy was always declining challenges, the soultrap and huskblade did their job: Get the expensives, combat freaks heroes outside the fight.

But I still don't like them.

20 boyz...with 7 S3 Incubi...well thats not a battle you want to be in. They are not troops killers, at the best of times, unless those troops are marines.

You spare very quality AP2 atacks on some lowly grunts, and returning weight of atacks if they hurt even one incubi is really not a fight in your favor. You'd never get your points back, even if you largely win the fight.

In that scenario its probably shoot and then assault what remains - that is way more favorable for Incubi. Especially when they wait for their S5.

Oh, in my opinion there are only 2 weapons for Archons - Agonisers and Blasters. Everything else is kinda veeeery strange. Even then you basically take Archon for 2++ or barebones blaster, otherwise its Succubus everytime.

Why did you use 300 points less? O.o

Azdrubael wrote:

Oh, in my opinion there are only 2 weapons for Archons - Agonisers and Blasters. Everything else is kinda veeeery strange. Even then you basically take Archon for 2++ or barebones blaster, otherwise its Succubus everytime.

Or a Lhamaean...

Quote :

Or a Lhamaean...

Homeruled out in my area.

Azdrubael wrote:

Quote :

Or a Lhamaean...

Homeruled out in my area.

Does your group also ban the most efficient HQs on all other books?

They have no quarell with D-Scythes escorting Archon, which seems to be mainstream.

What works and what doesn't depends a lot on the armies and the players. I love agonizers but prefer the huskblade for my archon. Forcing refused challenges bypassing fnp and dropping t6 things in 1 wound is why. Sometimes it's not the damage but the threat. Shadow field is for low volume high strength hits which doesn't work in incubi nearly as well because in addition I'd rather be protecting the archon rather than the unit. It's the little things that add up.

Brom wrote:

What works and what doesn't depends a lot on the armies and the players. I love agonizers but prefer the huskblade for my archon. Forcing refused challenges bypassing fnp and dropping t6 things in 1 wound is why. Sometimes it's not the damage but the threat. Shadow field is for low volume high strength hits which doesn't work in incubi nearly as well because in addition I'd rather be protecting the archon rather than the unit. It's the little things that add up.

I think personal taste also plays a role. e.g. one of the reasons I prefer the Huskblade is that it's unique to the Archon - whereas any squad champion can take an Agoniser.

Not that any would, admittedly, because it would be a waste of 35pts. But the point still stands.

The Fume Knight wrote:

My game today, the Ork player was using a Stompa, and one of my ravagers got the lucky vehicle explodes on the damage table, 13 hull points of chaos was put down with a single shot of a Dark Lance, only not too durable, keeping them away from enemy units is a must.

This isn't possible. Stompa is a Super-Heavy Vehicle, and do not respond to the vehicle damage table as other vehicles do. 1-6 on the table is simply ignored, while 7 (Explosion) instead just removes 1d3 Hull Point. So at the very least you need 5 Explosion results to remove the Stompa.

After reading these, I do have to say I am still pretty new, that was only my third game, we play pretty casually at this game store, and the opponent was mildly new, I honestly didn't know he had 1700 till after the game. Pre-skirmish we were choosing who was playing who with what, I wasn't expecting to vs him, but after it all was said and done me and him were the only ones left, it was kind of ridiculous that he was even using a Stompa to begin with, the table itself was like maybe 6ft by 3ft, not to mention anytime he moved his units, he happened to really move all the others right up next to, if not slightly farther than the initial unit that was the closest, so he was cutting corners to work better for his own units, which was annoying but nothing I was going to freak out about, none of us at the store realized that the super heavy walkers had that stipulation, but being honest I'm glad it worked the way it did, he was kind of your overly cocky geeky person that liked to take little shots here and there, so taking that out actually made the battle even, since even with that gone he had arguably 60 Ork infantry units on the table(I'm not sure if he took his infantry's weapons and abilities into his point value, as a spectator that was painting even quoted saying 'wow, isn't there supposed to be a point limit?' but I hear Ork units are fairly cheap.) The biggest flaw I had was not taking the Klaive strength into account, so all my incubi were wouding on 5+ when it should of been 4+, which easily probably would of been the game changer.

Overall it was still fun, especially noticing that Drazhar was literally nothing short of a terror on the field, my army is kind of dumbed down to what I have, and I have 18 Incubi after counting all, which, is not good.. I need more shooting units, but I was excited to see how my Incubi would deal with Orks, this game I had 16, Drazhar with 4, the Archon with 4, a squad of 5, and another squad of 3, all except for the 3 were using Venoms as dedicated transports, even wounding on 5+ they were still able to hang with the massive numbers of orks, but not taking the Klaives into account were the biggest issue.

My next step is buying more firepower, first of which is probably going to be another Kabalite squad, a Razorwing, then probably some reavers, and after that I'm thinking of a voidraven.

The worst part of the game though, was the fact that his army wasn't painted. at all. like literally. I think 7 of the orks in all, had their arms painted, I was almost tempted to ask if he'd like to pay me to paint them for him. haha