Wyches reborn: ideas and suggestions on making Wyches and Bloodbrides good.

So. Wyches. I have 40. I want to use them. But our current rules make them pretty poor at killing, poor at tar pitting, and at best a mediocre unit outclassed by Harlequins.then there are bloodbrides...

So, some ideas for easily making them better:
1. No escape deals D3 mortal wounds if the enemy loses the diceroll. It adds a discouraging factor that makes the foe less likely to try their luck.
2. -3 AP on a to wound roll of 6. Gives the Wyches some extra killing power. Should be on all Wych weapons and standard weapon.
3. Dodge works vs pistols.
4. Change razorflail and shardnet/impaler to be good. Maybe make razorflail grant the same fight twice rule that korne berserkers have, and make the shardnet give boosts to No Escape?
5. Make Darklight grenades negate overwatch.

Bloodbrides:
All of the above, + reroll wounds vs monsters and access to more special weapons.

Hey, random damn idea thread. Sounds like fun.
Currently, wyches can't kill anything, they can't tarpit elites, they can't tarpit hordes, and they certainly can't tarpit anything with a pistol - including basically every brand of Space Marine. I'm legit uncertain what their intended use case is.

1: For the love of all that is holy, make Dodge work against all attacks when charging and when within 1'' of an enemy unit.
2: Hey, bloodbrides, notice how the Trueborn get a bunch of special weapons lump-sum instead of getting a couple at 5 and a couple at 10? That. Do that.
3: This one might sound weird, but add to the "No escape" rule that any models removed by Wych and Bloodbride attacks in close combat count as two models lost for the purposes of morale tests.*
4: Shardnets give cumulative +1 to No Escape roll-offs.
5: I wouldn't be against a flat +1 attack across the board for all wyches, bloodbrides, and succubi. (Alternatively, replace the succubus' worthless ability with a +1 attack aura)
6: Archite Glaives do 2 damage.
7: Archite Glaives available for Sgt.models, making them our junior powerfists.
8: Restore Haywire Grenades, with both melee and ranged profiles. Haywire got nerfed all to hell, yeah, but maybe a ten-man wych squad rolling up with ten 4+ MW attacks against vehicles in close combat will actually do something worthwhile.
9: Oddball idea: Let wyches disembark and charge from a moving transport, but not move in the Movement phase after the disembark. Alternatively, just let them charge after advancing.

*Who cares about falling back when your average tactical marine squad will carve your wyches like a pumpkin once they get to fire their pistols anyway? This way No Escape actually does something, and wyches are a bit killier but there's mitigation mechanisms for it.

I used a unit of Bloodbrides today against a unit of Plaguemarines supported by their Death Guard special characters. They had no problems killing things just through sheer weight of dice. They might be bad but idk if I'd say they're *that* bad. Certainly not 7th edition bad.

Interesting. From the look of them they are literally exactly 7th edition bad, except that the points gap between them and Wyches has increased by 1.

I give them +1S drug, hydras, power sword, and reroll 1s from nearby succubus.

They are actually pretty sweet vs most infantry in the game, including small units of MEQ.

FuelDrop wrote:

Interesting. From the look of them they are literally exactly 7th edition bad, except that the points gap between them and Wyches has increased by 1.

They have a few advantages now compared to before:
They actually got a bit better because we can pick our drugs (making them thougher or stronger if we need them to be and they hit everything on a 2+ from turn 3+ (with rerolls from the succubus), ld is actually less of a problem for them now since one bad roll will not instantly kill the unit. Their special weapons now make them slightly better against people with a decent armour save.

Much like FuelDrop, I have 40 Wyches and would love to use them. Most of the ideas in this thread are reasonable and far from OP. The main problem that Wyches have is that they are simply poor at their job. They are close combat specialists that essentially suck at close combat. You would think that a unit that, with choice of drugs, the benefit of a Succubus aura and PfP, hits on a 2+ and rerolls 1's would be pretty effective in combat but the S3 and lack of AP absolutely kills their offence. With +1A or +1S (the best drug options), a Wych kills 1/3 of a Marine in combat! That's simply not good enough, especially when you factor in their general fragility, vulnerability to pistols etc. 30 points of Wyches plus the cost of the Succubus and having to wait a few turns for PfP to kick in, to kill 13 points of Marines is pathetic. And it doesn't improve significantly against weaker targets (13 points to kill a 3 point Conscript, again with all the relevant buffs).

An ability to wound easier or ignore armour in some situations would benefit them greatly, as would giving them their Dodge save against all wound when they are within 1" of an enemy unit. The Shardnet ability to improve the No Escape rule really should be a no brainer.

FuelDrop wrote:

Interesting. From the look of them they are literally exactly 7th edition bad, except that the points gap between them and Wyches has increased by 1.

Chosing drugs. Better PFP. More movement. Vehicles to tank overwatch. Hydra gauntlets costing close to nothing. They are also cheaper.
And a new special rule, that is gadget, but still there.

I don't know if they are good, but they certainly are better.

The way I see it is that a specialist unit should reliably beat a generalist unit of equal cost in their specialty. by a solid margin.

The thing is that if I throw Bloodbrides against Tactical Marines, I am not feeling confident of winning that fight. I don't mean I'm not confident that I'll win decisively, I mean that an equal points squad of elite specialists vs generalist troops, in the wyches specialty field, does not feel like a sure bet to me.

Ditto throwing a squad of wyches into their points in guardsmen. The numbers advantage for the guardsmen is very real, and their overwatch is nasty! Once in combat with Guardsmen I am less worried than against the marines because the guardsmen don't have pistols, but for equal points I don't feel confident in my specialists ability to reliably take on generalists.

FuelDrop wrote:

The way I see it is that a specialist unit should reliably beat a generalist unit of equal cost in their specialty. by a solid margin.

I agree but we do not

FuelDrop wrote:

Ditto throwing a squad of wyches into their points in guardsmen. The numbers advantage for the guardsmen is very real, and their overwatch is nasty! Once in combat with Guardsmen I am less worried than against the marines because the guardsmen don't have pistols, but for equal points I don't feel confident in my specialists ability to reliably take on generalists.

Not really sure about that. Those guardsmen have 2.5 times the numbers, die twice as fast and have the same number of attacks (because of numbers)
And while those pistols are nasty a marine kills more in melee then with his pistol (0.44 vs 0.37) and get's to fight twice in melee for each pistol shot. But jeah marines eat equal points of wyches for breakfast, even if they do not have the option to shoot the unit first.

So I say overhaul those girls. Make our troops not rely on a specialist function.
So throw away the no escape rule as standard.
Instead make the wyches start to deal slightly more damage in cc with one of the following
A) an additional attack
B) an ap-1
C) a +1 to wound rolls

Make the bloodbrides have more wych weapons as well as the extra attack.

Shardnet & impaler: roll a d6 for each sharnet in cc range, on a 5+ the unit cannot fall back and suffers a mortal wound.
hydragauntlet: reroll to wound and -1 ap and +1 attack is fine as it is. (possibly -2 ap if the whole units gets -1 ap)
Razorflails: +3 attacks (and -1 ap if the whole unit gets it)

|Meavar wrote:

So I say overhaul those girls. Make our troops not rely on a specialist function.
So throw away the no escape rule as standard.
Instead make the wyches start to deal slightly more damage in cc with one of the following
A) an additional attack
B) an ap-1
C) a +1 to wound rolls

Make the bloodbrides have more wych weapons as well as the extra attack.

Shardnet & impaler: roll a d6 for each sharnet in cc range, on a 5+ the unit cannot fall back and suffers a mortal wound.
hydragauntlet: reroll to wound and -1 ap and +1 attack is fine as it is. (possibly -2 ap if the whole units gets -1 ap)
Razorflails: +3 attacks (and -1 ap if the whole unit gets it)

I think that a lot of your suggestions are good, but I think that the No Escape rule needs to be overhauled rather than replaced. It is their best defense against getting shot to pieces, especially given the new Ultramarine chapter tactics. It needs to be something they can rely on, or at least stack in their favor. Otherwise, they will get one turn in combat before the enemy pulls back and they are shot to pieces either by nearby squads or else the squad that they were trying to fight in melee.
It's not so big a deal for assault marines with Toughness 4 and 3+ armour, but for our T 3 6+ gals, even one squad opening up with boltguns is a case of critical existence failure.

I think giving them AP-1 on every weapon, and giving a +1 to No Escape from the Shardnet would already make them pretty good.

Mppqlmd wrote:

I think giving them AP-1 on every weapon, and giving a +1 to No Escape from the Shardnet would already make them pretty good.

I think an extra attack on top of that would be needed to make them good. So bump their base attacks to 2 (with corresponding increase for Hekatrix, Bloodbrides and Syrens), change Hekatarii Blades to AP-1 and make Shardnets give +1 (cumulative?) on the No Escape roll.

Against MEQ, that gives each Wych 0.65 kills (inlcuding +1A drug, Succubus aura and PfP)
Against GEQ, it goes up to 1.62, which starts to make them worth taking against hordes.

All of this is perfectly fluffy too, which is just the cherry on top. GW, take note!!

We need to find out where on their Facebook people can submit ideas ... That way stuff like this can be posted and taken into for at least some consideration or at least a possible explanation from GW as to why that idea won't work.

Quote :

or at least a possible explanation from GW as to why that idea won't work.

Something something, obligatory "Spees Mahrines" bias comment.

Well, while the codex is not out yet from the leaks and the current book it would appear that a ten man squad of Korne Berserkers, armed with Chainswords (16 points per model), are putting out a net of 82 S5 attacks on the charge due to the World Eaters +1 attack on the charge and their ability to fight twice per fight phase.

Bloodbrides are significantly frailer and only 3 points per model cheaper, while filling the same slot on the roster, so logically their offensive capacity should be within the same ballpark. (Note that even with ALL the combat drugs we are putting out barely half of that while still being less survivable)

Today I used 8 Bloodbrides to fight a Wraithseer. The Bloodbrides won. That 4++ save just tanked wound after wound and it couldn't escape. The blast pistol and agonizer really did the majority of the work but the other girls were useful for soaking wounds and dealing a few back themselves.

TeenageAngst wrote:

Today I used 8 Bloodbrides to fight a Wraithseer. The Bloodbrides won. That 4++ save just tanked wound after wound and it couldn't escape. The blast pistol and agonizer really did the majority of the work but the other girls were useful for soaking wounds and dealing a few back themselves.

While I am glad of your success, I cannot say that 8 elite CC specialists defeating a lone psyker in an assault is really indicative of the squad's close combat abilities.

They are not elite CC specialists. They are CC oriented troops. They are 9points.
The lore wants them to be elite CC specialist, but you can't give that denomination to a 9points troop.
Incubi are elite CC specialists. They cost double the price.

Mppqlmd wrote:

They are not elite CC specialists. They are CC oriented troops. They are 9points.
The lore wants them to be elite CC specialist, but you can't give that denomination to a 9points troop.
Incubi are elite CC specialists. They cost double the price.

So what are Bloodbrides then?

True, i misread T. A. and thought he used wyches.
Bloodbrides qualify for Elite CC specialists, apologies

Mppqlmd wrote:

True, i misread T. A. and thought he used wyches.
Bloodbrides qualify for Elite CC specialists, apologies

Apology accepted

FuelDrop wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

Today I used 8 Bloodbrides to fight a Wraithseer. The Bloodbrides won. That 4++ save just tanked wound after wound and it couldn't escape. The blast pistol and agonizer really did the majority of the work but the other girls were useful for soaking wounds and dealing a few back themselves.

While I am glad of your success, I cannot say that 8 elite CC specialists defeating a lone psyker in an assault is really indicative of the squad's close combat abilities.

Wraithseer.

A 12 wound monstrous creature that hits as hard as the Yncarne was felled by some Bloodbrides. They earned their points.

You missed the rest of the replies, amigo. He apologized and corrected himself.

However, moving this to Rules Development because it seems to largely be rules spec.

TeenageAngst wrote:

FuelDrop wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

Today I used 8 Bloodbrides to fight a Wraithseer. The Bloodbrides won. That 4++ save just tanked wound after wound and it couldn't escape. The blast pistol and agonizer really did the majority of the work but the other girls were useful for soaking wounds and dealing a few back themselves.

While I am glad of your success, I cannot say that 8 elite CC specialists defeating a lone psyker in an assault is really indicative of the squad's close combat abilities.

Wraithseer.

A 12 wound monstrous creature that hits as hard as the Yncarne was felled by some Bloodbrides. They earned their points.

Sorry, my brain read it as "Spiritseer", so you can see why I was so dismissive. My bad.