I've Found a Use for Mandrakes in a Balanced List

While fooling around with army list concepts I found a use for Mandrakes:
1. Take a C.A.D.

2. Give it two H.Q.s and at least four troops: you now have two C.A.D.s

3. Get two aegis defence lines with quad guns: you've now got two anti-air platforms, something we tend to lack

4. Use Mandrakes to man the guns. Anything that doesn't ignore cover isn't touching these guys.

Granted there's a lot of stuff that ignores cover and quad guns aren't as good as they were in 6th but if let's be fair: Mandrakes aren't entirely useless. The real question is whether the quad guns are worth it since you have to pay for an additional H.Q. for he double C.A.D and in 7th Edition they fire snapshots at most ground targets.

I actually like the guys. They are dirt cheap because you don't take upgrades and against anything non choppy they are great.

For obvious reasons I ignore Tau.

That's a pretty good idea!

I wanted to add a themed Aegis to my Dark Eldar army anyway, and now I know what model to use for the gun: A Repeater Bolt Thrower, since my Mandrakes are Exodites converted from Sisters of Avelorn.
Thanks a lot for the inspiration!

For me at least, that begs the question though; what would a regular-Mandrake-themed Quad Gun look like?

i find 5 drakes to be useful in many situations. place em so that ignores cover stuff wont be able to lay them down and you are good with your 2+cover obj babysitter. sometimes they even get to shoot soulblaze can be tehlulz

doriii wrote:

place em so that ignores cover stuff wont be able to lay them down

You've basically just said "Place them so that a drop pod cannot land within 12" of them", which is pretty difficult to do! Especially when said Drop Pod can just aim for a spot an inch away from them and know that scatter won't take them onto the Mandrakes. Technology that has somehow eluded the more advanced races of the universe!

On the bright side, you can use Interceptor to shoot the guys coming out of the Drop Pod before they BBQ your drakes. Needing 6s to hit. And hoping they fail their saves.

Or I guess you could put them hard up against your table edge and hope the pod scatters off?

One droppod dreadnougt with a heavy flamer would kill them or the huge amount of ignore cover shooting... Something I face often when playing DE against friends. So vs non space marines, tau, eldar, AM with etc. I think 10 warriors would do a better job. As they a take more incoming fire because of numbers...

Count Adhemar wrote:

doriii wrote:

place em so that ignores cover stuff wont be able to lay them down

You've basically just said "Place them so that a drop pod cannot land within 12" of them", which is pretty difficult to do! Especially when said Drop Pod can just aim for a spot an inch away from them and know that scatter won't take them onto the Mandrakes. Technology that has somehow eluded the more advanced races of the universe!

if hes shooting at the mandrakes with his heavy flamer then i win . then again i dont play a lot against drop pod sm

I'd also add that I like adding small mandrake units for null deployment purposes. Keeping the units small makes it easy to get them out of LOS and get you through the first turn.

Alternatively, when I take a very aggressive assault force with lots of grotesque, reavers, and incubi, I often include a couple units of mandrakes to add more units that will be in the opponent's deployment zone in the early game.

I use mandrakes to null deploy usually

For null deploying I think I prefer using the Dark Artisan. They're so tough that I haven't had any fear of them getting wiped turn one. They also provide a massive focus for the enemies. The people I play with end up spending way too much time focusing that one unit, and by the time they've gotten the warlord kill, I already have my venoms and raiders tearing up their back lines.

I do agree that mandrakes are much cheaper. I think I play too much against Tau for any cover saves to keep them safe though. Those damned marker lights...