Wyches and haywire

Hi guys!

After a hiatus, I've gotten back into 40k and have almost finished painting my DE Battleforce. I've begun reading about which units are good and which units are bad, and it seems that it's an universal truth that Wyches are no longer a viable choice after losing their Haywire Grenades.

From what I can gather, the only use for HG is to assault vehicles. Is there something I'm missing? In my small group of gamers, we don't run many vehicles (they are expensive, you know ), so I guess Wyches are still a fine choice for me? Or what do you think?

I'm mostly asking since I've painted the 10 in the battleforce, and I have another box ready to assemble and paint.

Sadly, Wyches are of little use now as they lack both survivability and offensive power. Most DE players accept that their units will always be fragile (outside of the Coven units) but expect that to be offset by their offensive power and maneuverability. Wyches simply don't hit hard enough to make up for their fragility. 3 attacks at WS4, S3 with no AP or other special rules just doesn't cut it and a Wych struggles to overcome even a lowly Tau Fire Warrior in assault. In 5e this was compensated for by having access to haywire grenades which gave them the role of tank killers. They no longer have that role and therefore have no role whatsoever.

Hmm, I didn't consider the whole S3 debacle. If I remember correctly, that would mean, if in CC with MEQs, that you're hitting on 4s (WS4 vs. WS4) and wounding on 5s (S3 vs. T4)?

So in 20 attacks, you hit on half (10). You wound 20% (2). With 3+ armor saves, you're looking at 0-1 casualties, on average, from 20 attacks.

That's actually very unimpressive... It makes sense why noone picks Wyches anymore :/

For what they actually do, they should cost 2-3 points less.
Too much points for a unit that can't stand a close combat or destroy vehicles.

Ultimatejet wrote:

For what they actually do, they should cost 2-3 points less.

If we're pricing them based on what they actually do then they should cost nothing!

Count Adhemar wrote:

Ultimatejet wrote:

For what they actually do, they should cost 2-3 points less.

If we're pricing them based on what they actually do then they should cost nothing!

From what I gather, the only saving grace is their 4+ invulnerable save in CC... but with S3, you're gonna be rolling a lot of those.

They'll be relegated to bench duty for now, it seems.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Ultimatejet wrote:

For what they actually do, they should cost 2-3 points less.

If we're pricing them based on what they actually do then they should cost nothing!

I was giving some hope for them

Amen to that, hopefully they'll at least get a supplement.

XorpiZ wrote:

Hmm, I didn't consider the whole S3 debacle. If I remember correctly, that would mean, if in CC with MEQs, that you're hitting on 4s (WS4 vs. WS4) and wounding on 5s (S3 vs. T4)?

So in 20 attacks, you hit on half (10). You wound 20% (2). With 3+ armor saves, you're looking at 0-1 casualties, on average, from 20 attacks.

That's actually very unimpressive... It makes sense why noone picks Wyches anymore :/

Yeah, Wyches are pretty disappointing... I reckon they should have resistance to overwatch, couple with poison 4+ combat weapons or rending or shred or some combination of the above.

However, I have a solution for you; play your Wyches as Lhameans instead. A unit of 8-10 inside of your Raider will yield decent results. They cost the same, but come standard with a 2+ poison blade that instant deaths on 6s to wound. So they're effectively more fragile but hit several times harder.

You now wound 83% of your hits, so now your opponent is looking at making 7-9 armour saves if you hit with your 10 attacks; casualties should be around 3 or so instead. And some of those attacks inflict instant death, which can be decidedly vicious against multiwound squads such as Ork Nobs & Tau Crisis teams, and potentially game changing against things like a Carnifex brood (remember you can make the opponent make saves in whatever order you like; "please make these 2 instant death saves first!".

hydranixx wrote:

XorpiZ wrote:

Hmm, I didn't consider the whole S3 debacle. If I remember correctly, that would mean, if in CC with MEQs, that you're hitting on 4s (WS4 vs. WS4) and wounding on 5s (S3 vs. T4)?

So in 20 attacks, you hit on half (10). You wound 20% (2). With 3+ armor saves, you're looking at 0-1 casualties, on average, from 20 attacks.

That's actually very unimpressive... It makes sense why noone picks Wyches anymore :/

Yeah, Wyches are pretty disappointing... I reckon they should have resistance to overwatch, couple with poison 4+ combat weapons or rending or shred or some combination of the above.

However, I have a solution for you; play your Wyches as Lhameans instead. A unit of 8-10 inside of your Raider will yield decent results. They cost the same, but come standard with a 2+ poison blade that instant deaths on 6s to wound. So they're effectively more fragile but hit several times harder.

You now wound 83% of your hits, so now your opponent is looking at making 7-9 armour saves if you hit with your 10 attacks; casualties should be around 3 or so instead. And some of those attacks inflict instant death, which can be decidedly vicious against multiwound squads such as Ork Nobs & Tau Crisis teams, and potentially game changing against things like a Carnifex brood (remember you can make the opponent make saves in whatever order you like; "please make these 2 instant death saves first!".

That's actually pretty clever. They don't like 100% alike, the Wyches and the Lhameans, but I think I could persuade my friends to let me try it, at least.

Would you suggest adding Sslyths to add some toughness?

You could convert Witch Elves to look like Lhameans. Personally I prefer those models to wychs anyway.

Wyches right now have great many uses, here is some of them:

1) Practising painting skin
2) Practising painting leather
3) Practising painting tatoos
4) Practising painting metals
5) Practicing painting shades
6) Practising painting blood splatters
7) Practising painting OSL from Agoniser
Practising painting eyes and faces

Oh, did i meantioned they look really cool?
You should probably put them in reserve each game, the one on the shelf.

Don't forget practising painting hair!

XorpiZ wrote:

That's actually pretty clever. They don't like 100% alike, the Wyches and the Lhameans, but I think I could persuade my friends to let me try it, at least.

Would you suggest adding Sslyths to add some toughness?

Minor conversion work is all that's required, really. I've chopped their hair and top knots off and sculpted little hoods. But anything that makes them look a little more sly/mysterious works. Don't bother with any of that until you've tried them and see if they're to your liking.

You can add Sslyths, just remember that they're expensive and you'll have to pay for at least as many Sslyth as Lhameans to get majority toughness 5. The best ways to run this unit type is 5+ Sslyths, 1-3 Lhameans to boost leadership, with an IC to taste if you feel saucy. But, as I say, it's very expensive. By this stage, I'm now asking why I didn't go whole hog, and pick Medusae instead of Lhameans (Medusae are superb mixed in with Sslyth, particularly when they come in with WWP)

If I'm playing Lhameans at all, it's either a single one in a Venom, or it's 8-10 in a Raider, sometimes with Night Shields and/or Shock Prow. That way they do end up costing very similarly to Wyches after all, and serve a very similar function as well.

Thanks hydranixx. Your feedback is valued. I'll try them out, both as Wyches and as Lhameans, packing 8-10 in a Raider and seeing what works.

You used to put a seargent with agoniser in a group of wyches to bind a target and kill it slowly with the agoniser, but that was hardly worth it when they still were anti-tank as well with one haywire each.

Edit: I want to be more precise: you used to add a 50 pt heamonculus which provided them with a feel-no-pain token (using the old codex). The Haemi would leave them and liquify out of the transport while the 9 wyches with 9 haywire and FnP would run around agonising stuff and blow up parking lots.
Don't forget they have fleet and grenades.

This is partly still possible: you get a heami with fleet from the coven book or better urien and they still have 5+ FnP turn two.
Just that everything else got better and cheaper and since I run grotesques I do not need wyches any more.

Really, run Grotesques ....

I've only been playing DE with this codex so it's always interesting (and sometimes puzzling or irritating) to see legacy players lament (sometimes bitch) about older roles of models. It would never occur to me that the Wyches were ever meant to be tank killers. That seems really strange and off to me. They should be the models that define the whole faction. Fast, super dangerous in melee, but fragile.

I don't at all want them to get Haywire grenades. I don't want to ever even think of them going after tanks. I want them to ignore rough terrain for move and init penalties. +1 attack per model. Poison of 3+. And 1-3 cool abilities to make them more dangerous and interesting.

Reworking a model is fine in a new codex, IMO. What's so problematic is that GW has some crazy arbitrary hatred against DE that forces them to take stuff away but they stop there.

Can't a unit have a well-defined combat role and simply HAVE haywire grenades? I mean, fire warriors have them. Swooping Hawks have them. They don't define those units as purely anti-tank units. As a matter of fact, fire warriors are rarely considered AT units despite having haywire grenades.

The point is, wyches shouldn't be retards. Only GrimDark Retards leave home without their haywire grenades when they're perfectly technologically capable of building and carrying them to battle in the 41st millenia.

That'd be like me leaving my smartphone at home because I'm a badass triple blackbelt in judo-fu. Sure, I'm a badass, and my role isn't to call people and order pizza, or look on the internet n' stuff. But only a jackass uses that as an excuse not to use a modern tool to be able to call a cab to get a lift to the spot where I'm supposed to judo-fu a guy.

Wyches need guys to get out of the metal boxes so they can stab them. Haywire grenades are a non-lethal(to passengers) way to get people to come out and get stabbed. I think there is nothing more wych-like than grenades that force passengers to face their attackers in close proximity by getting out of their metal box.

You're right but this is still a game and units need a purpose. Otherwise you wouldn't need Kabalite Warriors at all. Why not Kabalite Warriors with witch Rules and all weapons. Including the Grenades...?

Personally I think Wyches get a bad rap.

They are an assault-based troops unit that is designed to take out their light to medium infantry equivalent in other armies. For your meta you may not value that function and thus pass them over in favor of other units but it is not the same as saying they are bad at the job they are designed to do.

Consider:

1. They have assault transports and Fleet. They will get into assault.

2. Their high initiative makes them go first in almost every circumstance which gives them an edge in grinding down opponents.

2. They have variable special rules that all boost their primary mission of killing units in assault. Even the leadership & initiative boosts assist with them staying stuck in and also increasing their odds of sweeping their opponent.

3. A 4+ invul with a 5+ FNP save is statistically equivalent to a 3+ save. If you were taking them in an assault based army, the availability of the Cronos to buff their FNP save further makes them much tougher than people give them credit for.

4. Their choice of special weapons increases their ability to reliably put out wounds and removes the AP5 save which matters against the light infantry foes they are supposed to be going after. They also have plasma grenades which let them toss an AP4 small blast into every fight they go into, making them shootier than people realize against Neurons or worse.

5. They are cheap. Forget the statlines and look at the unit costs. You can take a full Wych squad with a tooled up Hexatrix & Agonizer for about the cost of a marine tactical squad. I know who will win that combat.

So why the hate?

I think folks are blinded by the changes they underwent in the codex update which significantly changed their role, but as a 7th edition DE player I don't have that hang up and look at them in the context of what GW thinks they should do now.

I also think people are frustrated because they are a specialist unit and don't scale. You can't take them, like most marine units and gear them up into some kind of melee deathstar. They share the same design ethos as the Eldar codex in that they are a dedicated specialist unit - light infantry killer. You can't take them, like a marine command squad, and give everyone an agonizer and charge them at whatever.

You can see this in that all the home-brew suggestions for Wyches go down that route with ideas for rending etc. but that isn't the point. They are chicks in thongs with knives. If anything the one rule I would give them (if any) would be hit and run. It would support nice tactical gameplay. Tie up a unit with your Wyches. Pop out of combat and let your army shoot them up, then dive right back in and tie them up again. It would make them a nice force multiplier without having to make them individually stronger than they are.

My 2 cents but I figured we needed a good controversial thread to liven up an otherwise slow DE news day .

I kind of agree with Ultra Magnus in the sense that this forum seems to be dominated by people who have been playing the Dark Kin form at least 5th edition onward, thus having experienced the Deldar being a top tier army. But since they have fallen from grace in 6th and 7th edition those same people will compare the current Deldar with the Deldar of old, thus perceiving many units as "worthless", reasoning that our army is already low-tier in the current scheme of things and thus we have to take only the most powerful of our units, because taking non-optimal units like Wyches or Hellions etc. is "a waste of points", since we don't spend those points on say another Razorwing etc.

This however is a phenomenon across all armies. For players who seek advice or for those who are just starting out with the army, this is really discouraging as it gives me the impression that our codex is 95% smoking ruins and if I want to avoid being tabled every match I have to optimize my list as there is either utter defeat (because of an unoptimized list) or a tough victory (with an optimized list).

Still, my Warhammer and 40K experience so far have shown that often those units considered bad or dysfunctional are just a specialized tool. And since it is easier to kill someone with a hammer than with a scalpel those specialist units are often unpreferred.

I am not saying that Wyches are exceptionally awesome or that the complaints about them are invalid. I would just like to see a bit more "openness" from the veteran players. Instead of just saying "Don't take unit X, it is bad and here is why", try something along "I wouldn't recommend unit X because of... but if you want to field it, here is how to best do so" etc.

Dark Eldar already are one of the least-played armies in the entire game. And if people don't lose their disappointment and bitterness over how they lost their strength compared to 5th edition then how should the few new players that pick up this underdog army ever develop any trust into their army?

I think the term "worthless" would get thrown around a lot less if the meta you played in represented the game GW actually designed.

If you were equally likely to see, says Orks, Tyranids, Sisters of Battle etc, as say marines or eldar, then many of the units and wargear that sit idle in our codexes would suddenly have quite a bit more use. Popularity and the general trend towards optimizing for the most OP or broken scenarios have led to the notion that at least competitively, 40K is essentially made up of 3 - 4 factions with just a few units between them.

In a perfect world, I would like to see a tournament where there were only so many spots available for each faction and so you would get an even distribution of opponents that reflected the actual 40K game universe. Would be interesting to see the take all comers lists people would create in that environment.

Ultra Magnus wrote:

Personally I think Wyches get a bad rap.

Sadly, it's a thoroughly deserved one.

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They are an assault-based troops unit that is designed to take out their light to medium infantry equivalent in other armies. For your meta you may not value that function and thus pass them over in favor of other units but it is not the same as saying they are bad at the job they are designed to do.

Except they are bad at the job they are designed to do. Terrible in fact. It takes two Wyches, on the charge, to take out a single Fire Warrior, one of the weakest cc units out there! And that's ignoring the issue of a T3 model with (effectively) no save even getting into combat in the first place!

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1. They have assault transports and Fleet. They will get into assault.

Their transports are AV10 and open-topped and it's probably even more dangerous to be inside them these days than it is to be on the table, what with S4 explosions killing, literally, half the unit and with No Escape making it impossible to hide inside.

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2. Their high initiative makes them go first in almost every circumstance which gives them an edge in grinding down opponents.

Which would matter more if they actually killed anything before the opponent gets to strike back.

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2. They have variable special rules that all boost their primary mission of killing units in assault. Even the leadership & initiative boosts assist with them staying stuck in and also increasing their odds of sweeping their opponent.

Combat Drugs can help but Wyches start from such a low baseline that the improvement simply isn't enough to make them dangerous.

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3. A 4+ invul with a 5+ FNP save is statistically equivalent to a 3+ save. If you were taking them in an assault based army, the availability of the Cronos to buff their FNP save further makes them much tougher than people give them credit for.

They actually have to survive long enough to get into close combat and make it t at least turn 3 in order to get that 3+ equivalent though.

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4. Their choice of special weapons increases their ability to reliably put out wounds and removes the AP5 save which matters against the light infantry foes they are supposed to be going after. They also have plasma grenades which let them toss an AP4 small blast into every fight they go into, making them shootier than people realize against Neurons or worse.

C'mon! Nobody takes the special weapons because they are overpriced rubbish and one plasma grenade is nothing to write home about.

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5. They are cheap. Forget the statlines and look at the unit costs. You can take a full Wych squad with a tooled up Hexatrix & Agonizer for about the cost of a marine tactical squad. I know who will win that combat.

10 points is not cheap. Ork Boyz are cheap. Termagants are cheap. Wyches are not cheap.

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So why the hate?

See above

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I think folks are blinded by the changes they underwent in the codex update which significantly changed their role, but as a 7th edition DE player I don't have that hang up and look at them in the context of what GW thinks they should do now.

I'm perfectly happy for them not to be tank hunters. It doesn't match my vision for them and I was not upset when they lost haywire grenades. But the reason everyone used them as tank hunters was because it was the only viable use they had! When GW took that away and gave them nothing in return it made them worthless.

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You can see this in that all the home-brew suggestions for Wyches go down that route with ideas for rending etc. but that isn't the point. They are chicks in thongs with knives. If anything the one rule I would give them (if any) would be hit and run. It would support nice tactical gameplay. Tie up a unit with your Wyches. Pop out of combat and let your army shoot them up, then dive right back in and tie them up again. It would make them a nice force multiplier without having to make them individually stronger than they are.

That might be effective if Wyches didn't die in droves to overwatch and in even bigger droves to any other shooting attack. Hit & Run only becomes effective if they actually damage the units they charge. In my homebrew Wyches are only slightly more survivable (4++ counts vs overwatch) but are actually deadly in close combat and they can get Hit & Run via a Succubus or Lelith if you wish. I had to increase their points!

Sure, Wyches could have Haywire grenades. Everything could have haywire grenades. Why not. Especially with the current FAQ allowing only one throw per phase. But it strikes me as "old-player" thinking. Tack it onto squad leaders and call it a day. The more specialized each unit is the more flavorful and interesting it seems to me. Crank up what Wyches could be doing and they'd be worth it. Currently, a squad of 10 Lhameans costs 100pts vs. 9 Wyches plus 1 Heckatrix with an Agonizer costing 106. I'm not bothering with further math, but it strikes me that the Lhamean squad is going to dish out more wounds than the same number of Wyches for a pretty similar battlefield role.

Technically the wyches will live longer if they could actually get to CC. Which brings us right back to the T3 with a 6+ issue.