Terror Tactics

At the moment it seems to me that our leadership shenanigans list is pretty dismal. Phantasm Grenade Launchers (which don't stack with themselves) and a turn 5+ aura (which also does not stack with itself) pretty much sums up our in house options.

So, my fellow Archons, do you think that this is an area we should be overhauled in for the new codex? How important is terror in our arsenal? Should it be a focus of our army, or something we ignore?

I think Coven might have a Doctrine aura to inflict fear, Nightlord's style.

I personally like this, a simple idea I had was let phantasm grenade launchers stack when multiple hit the same target, but that seems weak for a subfaction ability.

Letting those grenade launchers stack, is not really a weak ability, just situational so they might need something else as well. Also fear feels more like coven, while the grenade launchers are kabalite based.

It is quite easy to have around 5-10 is grenade launchers, on average that means more than that number of hits. Having a unit like terminators take a morale test at -10 while only losing 1 model is going to be a dead squad of terminators. Suddenly all those very hard infantry units that mormally do not care about morale (and rarely have morale immunity) suddenly suffer horrendous casulties because 1 guy died and a 30 point guns shot at them is going to be quite nice.

I mean, maybe give the PGL the ability to stack with itself on hits but give it a hard cap, say -5?

Quote :

Having a unit like terminators take a morale test at -10 while only losing 1 model is going to be a dead squad of terminators.

No, it's going to mean the SM player is going to spend 2 CP.
It's not like everyone has access to a hard-counter to moral built in the standard rules, right ?

Bring back the Freakshow!

I agree, leadership manipulation should be a unique strength of our army. But with all the leadership protection it wouldn't be worth to excel in this area as of now.

To make terror tactics work we'd need tools or stratagems that prevents an enemy from taking protective means to mitigate the effects of the morale phase (HQ abilities, re-rolls, whatever).

@The Strange Dark One : Agreeing with this.

And maybe add a couple of relics dedicated (or not) to reduce Ld, same as the old archon weird skin mask.

And why not some built in mechanic in units ?
I mean, Clawed Fiends, Mandrakes, Grotesques and so on looks kinda terrifying... Some units should have enemy debuff aura (let's say fear > -1Ld around 12", Terrify -1Ld around 12", -2 around 6") and make it all possible to stack, but with a hard stack of -5 as @FuelDrop suggested.


Why not add some "psychic powers" ; I mean evil sneakery without touching the warp ; but working as psychic powers...

Why not get back some old equipements like trophy racks on vehicules ?

Add the possibility to debuff our melee for creating victims/pain when killing an enemy model ? (-1Ld 12" aura for 1 turn, representing the desperate howling of our victims, -2 if killed by coven unit)

There are lots and lots of possibilities ^^'

I think the Dark Eldar are possibly the best candidates for having dedicated terror weapons on the battlefield, with the Night Lords being the only other army I imagine having our sheer dedication to psychological warfare.

masamune wrote:

@The Strange Dark One : Agreeing with this.

And maybe add a couple of relics dedicated (or not) to reduce Ld, same as the old archon weird skin mask.

And why not some built in mechanic in units ?
I mean, Clawed Fiends, Mandrakes, Grotesques and so on looks kinda terrifying... Some units should have enemy debuff aura (let's say fear > -1Ld around 12", Terrify -1Ld around 12", -2 around 6") and make it all possible to stack, but with a hard stack of -5 as @FuelDrop suggested.


Why not add some "psychic powers" ; I mean evil sneakery without touching the warp ; but working as psychic powers...

Why not get back some old equipements like trophy racks on vehicules ?

Add the possibility to debuff our melee for creating victims/pain when killing an enemy model ? (-1Ld 12" aura for 1 turn, representing the desperate howling of our victims, -2 if killed by coven unit)

There are lots and lots of possibilities ^^'

Agree with all of the above with the possible exception of 'psychic powers', which I would rather see as special abilities or weapons of some description.

Count Adhemar wrote:

Bring back the Freakshow!

For. Real.

I miss my Freakshow.

If the SM player is having to drop command points to keep a unit in the table instead of using other stratagems I'd call that a win.

The freakshow should definitely reappear

Quote :

If the SM player is having to drop command points to keep a unit in the table instead of using other stratagems I'd call that a win.

Of course it's a win.
But if you have to shoot at the same unit with 10 special weapons (even if they only cost 3pts, that's still 10 units shooting), and he can cancel the result with 2 CP, then that special weapon is far from being broken. Which is something you suggested, so i was just stating this : it's really hard (not impossible, but really hard) for LD shenanigans to be broken, because of the "2CP to cancel moral" alternative.

Well since the PGM can potentially generate multiple hits per shot it might be more effective than previously thought.

FuelDrop wrote:

Well since the PGM can potentially generate multiple hits per shot it might be more effective than previously thought.

Yep, i had thought of that. But if they make the PGL stackable, i'm sure they'll make sure every PGL can only proc once.

Mppqlmd wrote:

FuelDrop wrote:

Well since the PGM can potentially generate multiple hits per shot it might be more effective than previously thought.

Yep, i had thought of that. But if they make the PGL stackable, i'm sure they'll make sure every PGL can only proc once.

...why? have it cap its ability to stack with itself to -3 or -5, but don't limit its ability to stack with other sources of morale debuffs.

Also, give us terrorfex grenades back. d6 shot 24 inch range PGLs mounted on vehicles, limited to a common stack with PGLs.

If you limit the net stacking to, say, -3 from PGL and TGL that, -3 from 3 vehicles within 12 inches with Gristly trophies, -1 for being within 6 inches of a coven unit, and maybe some other tricks as well, we can have some serious leadership penalties going on without making it require spamming one unit or weapon exclusively.

Maybe differs the stacking depending on units.

Main problem for GW would be that we could destroy Elites units rather quickly..
Maybe -5Ld max for 1 HP miniatures units, and -3Ld for multi wounds ?

Would be more balanced for termies/bikers/monsters, etc.

I think IF we do see a terror tactics type idea in our codex, based on the newest set of books we can expect it as a faction rule.

We have just gotten a guard faction that ignores half casualties for morale/vehicles. As well as the Craftworld tease yesterday that did something similar. So if we extrapolate and invert that, we will get something like Coven of Thirteen Scars - All modifiers for morale are doubled, and all vehicles use half of their remaining wounds when determining it's profile.

As logical and simple as that sounds, god it looks good. A Coven list would actually have a decent way to handle vehicles because they wouldn't be so effective, so they could be ignored until more resources can be put onto them.

Given the love CWE have seen for LD shenanigans, I think the odds are looking MUCH better!

Yup, Ulthwe LD stuff looks good, maybe we'll use them in a Ynari army to let down those Ld's ^^'.

But as xzandrate stated, most armies are roughly resilient to morale tests right now..

Honestly I don't know what to think about all those annoucements for our future..