Purge Coterie and Corsairs list

I recently got the Doom of Mymeara book for my birthday, and have been looking for an interesting list to make with Corsairs. There have been a couple of interesting discussions on here that have helped inspire some of the ideas, so thanks to @amorrowlyday for the suggestions of best units for Shimmershields, thanks (I think) @aurynn for the ongoing discussion about the Purge Coterie and going back a bit @Fisheyes for the melee unit analysis identifying Lhamaeans and Sslyth as a powerful combo. I have also been redoing some of the analysis around anti-tank shooting for Corsairs, and that has helped with some of the selections. The other thread of note is the FAQ thread, which points out the Archon in a Purge Coterie can't point from a transport, and the restoring of Jinking Raiders in all their glory.

The army probably isn't top tier, but I think it should be fairly capable, and a bit different to most you will come across.

PURGE COTERIE (951 points):
Archon (Agoniser, Shadowfield, Soul-trap, The Armour of Misery, Webway Portal)
Court of the Archon - 8 Sslyth 4 Lhamaeans
5 Kabalite Trueborn (4 Blasters)
Raider (Night Shields)
6 Reavers (2 Cluster Caltrops, 2 Heat Lances)
3 Venoms (Splinter Cannon) - dedicated transports for Archon, Court and Trueborn

CORSAIR RAIDING FLEET COMPANY (895 points):

Comand Crew:
Void Dreamer (Level 3 Psyker, Shimmershield)

Titan Breakers Coterie:
Prince (Level 1 Psyker, Cloud Dancer, Collector of Ancient Treasures (Shard of Anaris)
3 Cloud Dancers (3 Scatter Lasers)
3 Cloud Dancers (3 Scatter Lasers)
3 Cloud Dancers (3 Scatter Lasers)
Hornet (2 Pulse Lasers)
Hornet (2 Pulse Lasers)
Warp Hunter

Total 1846 points

How it (maybe) works:

The Void Dreamer takes Aethermancy powers, hoping for Warp Tunnel or Warp Blink. The Prince takes Divination, mostly interested in the Primaris Power.

The Void Dreamer and Archon join the Court, giving the Shimmershield to the large T5 FNP unit. If the Void Dreamer got one of the good powers, then the Prince will at least initially join too. If the Void Dreamer missed Warp Tunnel or Warp Blink, then the WWP on the Archon is the insurance at being able to get to a useful spot (although that is not ideal due to the Purge Coterie bonus).

Unless he needs to use the WWP, the Archon will be on the table and not in a transport at the start of the first turn, so can point at a unit to destroy.

The Reavers are likely to get behind enemy lines turn one and look for the Prince to join them turn two once the Court is also at the back field. The Prince could start with them if the Archon is coming in with WWP. The Prince has Shard of Anaris to reduce the risk of Perils on the Void Dreamer ruining the game and stopping the Sslyth being effective behind the enemy.

Trueborn deploy in the Raider, and are likely to Deep Strike near a critical target, but could start on the board depending on the enemy.

The three dedicated transport Venoms aren't intended to transport anything, just to sit back and put 36 shots into their Preferred Enemy (if an infantry unit was picked).

The remainder of the Corsairs are designed to deal with vehicles, and I was choosing between Titan Breakers or Hate Bringers for the Coterie specialisation.

One concern is having the Court and friends with 8 T5 models and 6 T3 models (and one T4, but doubt that will matter).

Any thoughts or suggests appreciated. Will have to proxy this up and test out soon.

I can honestly say you will not want the psykers in competitive play - the corsair perils is horrific.

You seem to have also missed that the majority of the aethermancy powers can only affect Faction Corsairs...

The prince is fearless so is only impacted by 1 on the perils table. Per the final FAQ a unit consists of every faction that makes it up, therefore any unit that the Void Dreamer joins IS a corsair unit. Warp tunnel is banned on all units that aren't all corsairs in ITC tho.

That said lvl3 on the void dreamer is a little expensive if you can't get them fearless.

As an addendum I'd think 2 charges would probably give you the odds for what you want. As your building this webway breach is just as useful as warp tunnel or warp blink. WWP explicitly works in ongoing reserves as well.

IDK buddy. With only 4 WC, you can get shut down fairly easily by any Imperial/Chaos/Eldar army you come up against. However, you have a goodly number of scattbikes and hornets, so I doubt you will run into anything you cant handle.

I like the idea of the Prince going with the reavers, "showing them how its done" Wish we didnt need to jump to (FW) allies to get this.

TBH, the DE portion is by far the weakest. Almost 1k pts just for 4 units and 4 transports. Generally with a CAD I would have 8 transports with this amount of points (but obviously different units).

Would love to see how the Court do with a little help from a psyker and a ++ save. Please be sure to share!

EDIT: Was about to comment on how PC loosing out on ObSec outweighed the PE, but you have scattbikes to grab objectives, so NM

The ITC ruling, I am pretty much ignoring, because I have yet to play a game using those rules, and the local tournaments don't use them either.

To negate much of the perils risk, I have the Prince starting with the Court and Void Dreamer. Once the Sslyth and friends have reached their target, the need for the Aethermancy powers is much reduced, and I would mostly be looking for the Divination power or Primaris from the Prince.

If not using ITC, then Warp Blink doesn't need to be a Corsairs unit, and Warp Tunnel is either the Void Dreamer and their unit, or a non-vehicle Corsair unit, so that should be fine if targeting the Void Dreamer's unit. I hadn't considered Warp Breach as an option, which could be OK too.

In terms of the odds of missing Blink or Tunnel, with one power the chance is 4/6 = 2/3, with a second power 2/3 × 3/6 = 1/3, and with a third power 1/3 × 2/6 = 1/9. I could perhaps go with two, and swap a Lhamaean for a Sslyth to reduce the risk of the majority toughness getting dropped to 3, and take Haywire Grenades for the Archon.

Fisheyes - there are some risks of getting shut down on Warp Charges. If I am really scared of a large number of Deny the Witch rolls I could just reserve the Court and WWP them in. It clearly isn't the standard MSU approach for the Dark Eldar that's for sure.

So I just noticed something that you may or may not have taken into consideration: Titan Breakers only confers perferred enemy to infantry and jetbikes. Rerolls on just scatter lasers is fine, but I'd prefer something with a little more kick, and Lances are better on balestrikes with jetpacks than on jetbikes.

FYI ITC only bans the warp tunnel example. All other powers that can only target corsair units can target a unit with an attached void dreamer/prince.

Why are you buying a prince who fully intends to drop with infantry a jetbike when selling it puts you over half way to another shadowfield?

I really like the Warp Hunter, in part to deal with things like Wraithknights, but am open to other options there. If I went 5 jet pack Balestrikes with Dark Lances, I could actually jump them in the spare Raider on turn one and swap the Trueborn's dedicated Venom to a dedicated Raider instead. Certainly worth considering.

Titan Breakers was also giving the Prince a bit more kick if he goes after vehicles with the Shard of Anaris.

Depending on whether I am WWP striking in the Court, the Prince might start with the Reavers, and the other factor was reducing the risk of the Court losing some Sslyth and becoming majority toughness 3. The final little bonus was being more likely to be OK in a challenge with T4.

Kantalla wrote:

I really like the Warp Hunter, in part to deal with things like Wraithknights, but am open to other options there. If I went 5 jet pack Balestrikes with Dark Lances, I could actually jump them in the spare Raider on turn one and swap the Trueborn's dedicated Venom to a dedicated Raider instead. Certainly worth considering.

Would you mind citing where it says transports can hold jetpack infantry? I'm confident you won't find one even though I think that would make sense. Besides, if a raider is going to be involved don't give them dark lances and jetpacks give them splinter cannons, take a couple more bodies and give the raider splinter racks and maybe chainsnares/aethersails. 200pts to put out 20/30 36" twinlinked splinter shots per turn. let your dark lances run free. Chill at 40" move up 6" and kill something, thrust move back, lather rinse repeat. If something has the range to hit them out that far you shouldn't let that thing have line of sight and if it doesn't need line of sight it's probably your primary threat.

Kantalla wrote:

Titan Breakers was also giving the Prince a bit more kick if he goes after vehicles with the Shard of Anaris.

Ah very valid I hadn't even considered that possibility. couldn't quite solo a stompah but will really hit hard vs basically anything lighter.

Kantalla wrote:

Depending on whether I am WWP striking in the Court, the Prince might start with the Reavers, and the other factor was reducing the risk of the Court losing some Sslyth and becoming majority toughness 3. The final little bonus was being more likely to be OK in a challenge with T4.

Ah that's fair.

On the Jet Pack transport thing, I can't see anything that specifically prevents it from happening, so just like any other infantry unit they could be transported. They count as Bulky due to the Jet Pack, which implies transporting is a possibility. I could be wrong on that though if there is a limitation on Jet Pack units.

With Relentless, from having a Jet Pack, the Splinter option would be 30 twin-linked splinter shots, which would be somewhat intriguing.

EDIT: There is a restriction of non-Jump or Jet Pack units embarking, unless they have a special allowance to do so, so scratch that idea.

amorrowlyday wrote:

The prince is fearless so is only impacted by 1 on the perils table. Per the final FAQ a unit consists of every faction that makes it up, therefore any unit that the Void Dreamer joins IS a corsair unit.

Nice selective reading, that FAQ ruling is about preferred enemy an hatred - not a blanket ruling on mixed faction units.

In actual fact, the IC rules would make the void dreamer a DE faction while joined to a DE unit

I thought they became BOTH factions when joined?

Yeah the FAQ only mentions for Preferred Enemy, rather than for psychic powers. Need to FAQ the FAQ!

A Collector Prince with Mask of Secrets (Fearless) would negate a decent amount of the Corsair Perils table, meaning perils are only a crippling problem on a 1 (unless I'm reading that wrong).

Ya, but he isnt going freakshow, so the -LD would be wasted. Also, the Shard is awesome.

False that interpretation would absolutely not be "consider[ing] the IC as part of the unit for ALL rules purposes". You're interpretation ignores rules that would effect the character but not the unit at large which is the same as not considering the IC. The only way that clause can be upheld is if this scenario applies in all cases, and the FAQ supports that.

Ynneadwraith - Mask of Secrets is somewhat appealing too. I had gone Shard of Anaris to be better against vehicles and in challenges, but Mask of Secrets and Void Sabre is another option, which would do well against units of Marines. That would also give me -4 Leadership from Armour of Misery on the Archon and Mask of Secrets. Certainly something to consider.

Either way, I feel I need fearless on the Void Dreamer's unit until it is in position, which is the idea of Shard, and could be similarly achieved with Mask of Secrets.

I'm not too sure on the correct ruling on a character joining a unit providing its faction to the unit or if it only goes the other way. However, Warp Blink (no faction requirement) and Warp Tunnel (Void Dreamer's unit or Corsair unit) are both fine regardless. It would only matter if I wanted to use Webway Breach, which is a Corsairs units only power.

The rules quote for Independent Characters is:
"While an Independent Character is part of a unit, he counts as part of the unit for all rules purposes, though he still follows the rules for characters."

I don't think that clearly states either way. It could be interpreted as either:
1) Void Dreamer counts as part of the unit for all rules purposes, but not the other way around, and the FAQ entry is just to provide a special case for Preferred Enemy.
2) Faction is part of the rules purposes, and the example of Preferred Enemy in the FAQ spells out that the unit counts as a Dark Eldar and as a Corsairs unit.

I'm leaning slightly to interpretation 2, but don't see it as clear cut.

That was very evenhandedly evaluated.

I can also offer 2 more supporting rules, that is non-usr's, that could not be executed properly were factions to not work that way; but I absolutely concede that nowhere is this specific problem addressed, and for that I owe aurynn another apology.

I would also point out that "impassable terrain" is not actually defined anywere, nor is whether vertical distances matter. If they did then GW's answer that the skimmers mishap as normal would be tempered by the fact that in almost all cases a skimmer will be more than 1" away from a models base and thus not even causing a mishap and therefore not even invoking the final paragraph in the first place.

Interpretation 1 would also necessitate that ICs attached to units, be them battlebrothers in actuality or not, would have to be able to be able to tag along in a units dedicated transport.

Except we are given an FAQ which prohibits BB allies embarking at deployment - a broad strokes ruling that applies as its specific in application.

You cant use an FAQ response on a specific question unrelated to the topic at hand to justify your position. The FAQ is specifically about preferred enemy and hatred and that's it.

While I agree it sets a precedent, its not black and white yes no.

Back on topic regardless...

FWIW - we discussed these rules on our local discussion page, and the ruling in my area was that Corsairs character plus non-Corsair unit counts as both factions, and therefore are viable targets for powers that require a Corsairs unit. That makes the list viable in terms of rules - time to find a way to get it on the field.

I actually played my first game with this list today, and it went spectacularly well.

I made a couple of minor tweaks to the list, so it was:

PURGE COTERIE
Archon
Court of the Archon (Sslyth / Lhamaeans)
Trueborn
3 Venom transports
Reavers
Raider

CORSAIR RAIDING FLEET
Void Dreamer with Shimmershield
Prince
Scatter Laser Cloud Dancers
Hornet
Hornet
Warp Hunter

CRAFTWORLD ELDAR ALLIED
Farseer
Scatter Laser Windriders

The adjustments gave me some extra psychic dice, which might help get spells over the line.

Faced up to a Khorne Berserker army. We rolled end zone deployments and I managed to seize the initiative. That is never a good combo for a heavy assault based army. The short version was the Berserkers didn't get to me, and by turn 4 I had tabled them without losing a model.

Preferred enemy from the Purge Coterie did a bit, but largely deployment zones and getting first turn made it a surprisingly easy victory.

Blimey! That couldn't have gone much better for you. An assault army having to cover a minimum of 24" of no mans land to get into range is going to have a tough time against most lists.

I was a little worried about the potential of a 42" first turn charge (2D6" move before first turn plus 15" movement with Daemon Weapon and 2D6+3" charge). The fast units needed two turns to get to me and died turn one and two. The slow ones three turns and were downed turn three and mopped up turn four.

It was a somewhat satisfying game - don't often have zero losses at 1850 - but was strategically fairly empty, as I pretty much sat on my table edge and targeted the fastest units first.