Cult of the decapitator

so, today and last night i did abit of thinking, and decided to try to breathe some life back into the ultimate creeper of the warhammer universe and his befitting followers; Kheradruakh and the mandrakes, so i made this "dataslate":

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zrq4mznrzx9qu70/Cult%20of%20the%20decapitator.pdf?dl=0

:EDIT: forgot to give Kherandruakh "Infiltrate"... he is obviously meant to have that

so some might notice straight away, there is no points cost yet, this is because iam honestly not entirely sure, iam thinking somewhere around the 180-190 mark for the freak himself

second, ive tried to keep him as close to the original 2009 itteration as possible, but with some considerable buffs (such as surviability) and a more focused role of a hit&run assassin or disruption support.
same goes for the formation, it adds a cosiderable amount of punch (but not too much i think, especially considering their fragility) to the mandrakes, and aids their harassment role by offering potential support abilites for the rest of your force if you include the otherwise pointless nightfiends (a way to negate overwatch for your wyches and beastmasters), which is something dark eldar sorely lacks, and it encourages you to synergize different units rather than have a single deathstar

Also do note that Kheradruakh is NOT an independant character, so he has to roll around solo

Hello there, and welcome to The Dark City.


By way of a crtiique:

[*] ALTERED PHYSIQUE: I don't think there's much point giving Kheradrukh both an Invulnerable save AND Stealth/Shrouded. I would suggest dropping the Invulnerable save, but to make him more survivable in combat boost his Initiative to 7.

[*] HUNTER OF HEADS: I would recommend rewording so that instead of the Kheradruakh choosing who accepts, make it so that he can challenge specific characters instead.

[*] THE DECAPITATOR - You might be able to simplify the Decapitate rule by making it a Rending weapon.



CULT OF THE DECAPITATOR - Its reasonably common these days for Formations to contain slightly more units. About three is normal, so I think you may need to expand the unit requirements to a minimum of two Mandrake units.



I'm a fan of Mandrakes. I've always loved them, so I think you're onto a decent idea, but a common mistake is to try to overpower things a little bit. Good start though.

Thank you! good to be here

hmm, good points... however let me try to explain my thoughts here:
i gave him an invulnurable save to keep him more in line with the original (5++), and same goes for the I6 (in fact, the only difference in his statline is the sorely needed toughness boost). reason being that he needs some incentive to actually charge into combat and not just sit around bale-flaming people, having no saves of any kind in close combat would be quite the deterrent

the "Hunter of heads" rule is a nightmare to word in a sensible way honestly, but the idea of this specific version is that the opponent is not allowed to back down from the challange, the way i see it Khar' would just go straight for the yet-to-be-flayed skull of his choice rather than challange in the conventional sense

I was actually originally planning on giving him rending for simplicity, but then i would still have to add some sort of instant death effect on rends for flavor and to keep things in line with the original, besides, i did not want him to become a tank hunter with S6 and rending, so instead i opted for this, which is a fairly simple way of getting the desired effect with very little confusion.

2-5 units of mandrakes seems better though, yes, you are right, its not like they are an expensive tax anyway if you just want the "spiderman from hell".


as far as overpowering go, that is totally not what i went for, and i know that mistake very well, +1 strength and a soulblaze worth giving a toss is not as huge as it might seem, in addition, for the utility of the nightfiend you do have to buy the 10pts upgrade for him, he has to be alive, and you need to actually inflict a wound on the target unit for soulblaze to take effect.
The idea here was to actually give the mandrakes a role that would mesh with the exsisting dark eldar forces in that classic synergistic eldar way, providing something else than dark lances or a hailstorm of infantry killing, with the ability to harass and disable instead (infantry through special rules, and transports by sniping at rear armor), overall sporting a support role

I like the concept of him being out of control of either player...generally pursuing his own agenda and being entirely unpredictable. I know random hurts...but it's great fun.

I imagine that he must deeps trike. ..roll from turn 1...and he lands within cover somewhere near an enemy unit...then roll to see how he behaves with outcomes like appearing as a heroic intervention in challenges to take the head or heads of the duellists. Maybe he leaps to intercept deep striking enemies...or maybe he kills an enemy before they make it to the table. Something truly unique to DE

Love any home brew rules buddy!