Tactical Tidbits - Skaris Book of Wisdom

Out of interest, has anyone found a decent use for the Huskblade?

The Strange Dark One wrote:

May I ask what your tactical use for the Archon is? I'd love to field him, but really struggle to justify his presence.

Well, I'd been thinking of trying him in a Venom with 4 Medusae.

Then I remembered that they wouldn't benefit from being near him unless they disembark from their transport. Because, as usual, our rules were written by a dead badger.

The Shredder wrote:

Out of interest, has anyone found a decent use for the Huskblade?

The Strange Dark One wrote:

May I ask what your tactical use for the Archon is? I'd love to field him, but really struggle to justify his presence.

Well, I'd been thinking of trying him in a Venom with 4 Medusae.

Then I remembered that they wouldn't benefit from being near him unless they disembark from their transport. Because, as usual, our rules were written by a dead badger.

My thoughts exactly...

Not to mention that the Sslyth/Archon combination only works out on the field as well. Where I too don't find any use because the Succubus would be way superior in that regard in every way.

Given an Archon's number of attack, the Huskblade is kind of tempting against other HQs and monsters, but you will only ever get so far with S3...

The Strange Dark One wrote:

My thoughts exactly...

Not to mention that the Sslyth/Archon combination only works out on the field as well. Where I too don't find any use because the Succubus would be way superior in that regard in every way.

Yeah, I've just never been a fan of Succubi.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Given an Archon's number of attack, the Huskblade is kind of tempting against other HQs and monsters, but you will only ever get so far with S3...

Indeed. The thing is, I just dislike having to pass up a more interesting weapon - available only on the Archon - in favour of the basic weapon.

The Huskblade pulls ahead of the Agoniser in damage against multiple wound targets with toughness 5 or less, or against vehicles. It is still weak against those targets, just better than the Agoniser.

Best use of the Archon in my view is with a Court of Medusae on foot. Nothing else is points efficient and his buff is disappointing in the extreme.

Kantalla wrote:

The Huskblade pulls ahead of the Agoniser in damage against multiple wound targets with toughness 5 or less, or against vehicles. It is still weak against those targets, just better than the Agoniser.

Unfortunately, there aren't many of those that I'd actually want my Archon fighting.

Kantalla wrote:

Best use of the Archon in my view is with a Court of Medusae on foot. Nothing else is points efficient and his buff is disappointing in the extreme.

Do you think it's even worth starting them in a transport?

Ikol wrote:

a theoretically nice Succubus Warlord trait that she CAN’T USE WITH HER STANDARD LOADOUT UNTIL TURN THREE! (Might still be bitter about that one)

Why turn 3?

FenWulf wrote:

Ikol wrote:

a theoretically nice Succubus Warlord trait that she CAN’T USE WITH HER STANDARD LOADOUT UNTIL TURN THREE! (Might still be bitter about that one)

Why turn 3?

Her warlord trait triggers on a 6+ to hit (after modifiers). However, since her default weapon (the Glaive) gives her -1 to hit, she can't actually get a 6. The most she can get is a 5.

From turn 3 onwards, Power from Pain gives her +1 to hit in combat, which negates the Glaive's penalty and allows her to reach the 6 to-hit required to activate her warlord trait.

or if you use another weapon, by T3 she will be triggering it on a 5+ to hit.

The Shredder - I agree generally speaking multiple wound targets aren't things I'm wanting my Archon fighting, and why I normally go for the Agoniser. However, if you found yourself playing against Primaris Marines, or a bike based or Terminator based army, it would be worth switching the weapon over.

I wouldn't give the Court a transport. Without a transport, they can rely on being characters making it difficult to target them, but that changes if they are mounted in a transport. When someone shoots down a transport of mine, generally I look at all the 1s rolled, shrug my shoulders and mention something about expendable minions, and that wouldn't be the case if it was losing a Medusa instead. Plus if they stay in the transport the buff doesn't work and the damage output is reduced.

wormfromhell - while that's true, I feel sad enough about not using the iconic Archon weapon on my Archon to do the same to my Succubus.

Kantalla wrote:

wormfromhell - while that's true, I feel sad enough about not using the iconic Archon weapon on my Archon to do the same to my Succubus.

It is bit of a shame that our unique weapons are the same or worse than our standard weapons.

Kantalla wrote:

The Shredder - I agree generally speaking multiple wound targets aren't things I'm wanting my Archon fighting, and why I normally go for the Agoniser. However, if you found yourself playing against Primaris Marines, or a bike based or Terminator based army, it would be worth switching the weapon over.

That's a fair point.

Kantalla wrote:

I wouldn't give the Court a transport. Without a transport, they can rely on being characters making it difficult to target them, but that changes if they are mounted in a transport. When someone shoots down a transport of mine, generally I look at all the 1s rolled, shrug my shoulders and mention something about expendable minions, and that wouldn't be the case if it was losing a Medusa instead. Plus if they stay in the transport the buff doesn't work and the damage output is reduced.

I was thinking more of using the transport to get them into position, but otherwise that's a fair assessment.

It does make me question (and not for the first time) the idea that DE are one of the fastest armies.

wormfromhell wrote:

or if you use another weapon, by T3 she will be triggering it on a 5+ to hit.

But the Glaive is the weapon the Succubus comes with - it's her only unique weapon. For it to have anti-synergy with her own warlord trait is inexcusably bad design.

What's more, she can't even swap out that weapon - but must instead swap out her functional pistol if she wants a different weapon.

And since we're on the subject, why the bloody hell does the Glaive have a -1 penalty in the first place?
- A SM Power Fist is Sx2 AP-3 Dd3 (-1 to hit)
- A SM Thunder Hammer is Sx2 AP-3 D3 (-1 to hit)
- An Inquisitor Thunder Hammer is Sx2 AP-3 D3 (-1 to hit)
- An Inquisitor Nemesis Daemon Hammer is Sx2 AP-3 D3 (-1 to hit)
- An IG Power Fist is Sx2 AP-3 Dd3 (-1 to hit)
- An Eldar Star Glaive is Sx2 AP-3 Dd3 (-1 to hit)
- An Eldar Scorpion Claw is Sx2 AP-3 Dd3 (-1 to hit)

A Dark Eldar Archite Glaive is S5 AP-3 D1 (-1 to hit)

Why does every other weapon with a -1 to hit do at least d3 damage, whilst ours only does 1? Why does every other weapon with a -1 to hit double the user's strength, whilst ours only adds 2?

It's hard not to get the impression that GW thinks DE should be objectively worse than other races.

I'm 100% sure GW wanted DE to be worst than other races.

amishprn86 wrote:

I'm 100% sure GW wanted DE to be worst than other races.

At the very least, I'd say they have some odd ideas about what it means to be heroic.

Most people would probably say something about triumphing against bad or seemingly impossible odds.

GW, though, appears to think that heroics means 'being the best ever and crushing every adversary 'neath your mighty tread'.

Imagine if Lord of the Rings had the Orks with no armour or weapons, holding signs reading 'will sell organs for food'. And then the heroes are all piloting mechwarriors and effortlessly gun them down on their way to Mt. Doom, whilst the Dark Lord Sauron ineffectually glares at them.

The Shredder wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

I'm 100% sure GW wanted DE to be worst than other races.

At the very least, I'd say they have some odd ideas about what it means to be heroic.

Most people would probably say something about triumphing against bad or seemingly impossible odds.

GW, though, appears to think that heroics means 'being the best ever and crushing every adversary 'neath your mighty tread'.

Imagine if Lord of the Rings had the Orks with no armour or weapons, holding signs reading 'will sell organs for food'. And then the heroes are all piloting mechwarriors and effortlessly gun them down on their way to Mt. Doom, whilst the Dark Lord Sauron ineffectually glares at them.

Sounds more like a parody.

GW has stated in the past for Bloodbowl that they like some races to be harder to play than others, why would this not be true for other games they have?

The thing is even the "hard to play" races in blood bowl are incredibly rewarding for learning how to play them ... We can all agree that DE are hard to play ... However what is the pay off for knowing how to play the army? I think even the best players here on the forum wouldn't take DE to an tournament like the LVO and expect to make it to the top tables ... Or even come close ... I am probably being naive but that seems to be the general attitude here

The Shredder wrote:

It does make me question (and not for the first time) the idea that DE are one of the fastest armies.

Does GW still claim Drukhari are fast?

I came back to the game in 7th after playing in 3rd edition, and we had got much slower (6" movement for Raiders if you wanted effective shooting or to disembark), and everyone else had got faster (adding run moves to everything else in game). Reavers were the welcome exception where we still had speed to burn. 8th at least has most of our army a little quicker than most of our opponents.

That is made up for by being a lot more resilient than back in the day (50% crash rate on a glancing hit), and means the game is more balanced, but also more samey in terms of playstyle.

I get the impression most armies in 8th will be dropping a horde of models against each others front lines via deep strike and dropping bucketloads of dice down. That will likely mean mobility will matter less because everyone will be on top of each other right from the start.

As for the Glaive having an unjust -1 penalty, Reece from FLG basically said as much. Hopefully it either gets a buff or removes the penalty in the Codex.

I disagree that mobility matters less in 8th, if anything I think positioning has become even more important because dangerous deep striking units can be blocked by chaff. Not only that but scary combat hordes or hordes with short ranged weapons can also be held up and delayed by chaff more easily because of how the 1" proximity rule works. That being said yes you could have a game against a fire backfield ranged army list of something like tau or guard where you're facing an unpleasant game of getting blasted off the field no matter how fast you move, but if you play with  sufficient line of sight blocking that's less of an issue.

As a whole yes I'd say dark eldar are not as fast as they should be, 14" movement for raiders really isn't a whole lot more than the 12" on a rhino, but I would argue our army is fairly mobile. It's easy to forget for our army how nice it is that literally every vehicle takes no penalty at all for making it's full move and blasting away full accuracy with dark lances/dissie cannons, as most armies suffer from taking a -1 penalty from moving their vehicles.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

As a whole yes I'd say dark eldar are not as fast as they should be, 14" movement for raiders really isn't a whole lot more than the 12" on a rhino, but I would argue our army is fairly mobile. It's easy to forget for our army how nice it is that literally every vehicle takes no penalty at all for making it's full move and blasting away full accuracy with dark lances/dissie cannons, as most armies suffer from taking a -1 penalty from moving their vehicles.

The thing is though, those vehicles are basically our only claim to being a fast army. Take them away and we're barely better than Necrons.

I mean, not counting transports, how many fast* troops do we have? None.

How many fast Elites do we have? None. Maybe one if you count Mandrakes (they're not really fast, but they can at least deep strike, which is something).

How many fast HQs do we have? None. And this is the biggest kick in the teeth, partially because their auras don't work in our vehicles, but mostly because there's rarely even space for them in our vehicles.

Even our Monsters are pathetically slow. An Imperial Knight is built like a house, but can still manage to move 12". A Leman Russ looks like something from WW1, but it still moves 10". Our floating Monsters - built by a race that's supposedly thousands of years ahead in technology... can move all of 8".  

*By 'fast' I mean being able to move at least 12" - not just an inch or so more than a footslogging Marine.

I mean how fast do you want our infantry to be? 7" seems okish, 8" would probably be reasonable which a couple of our units have seems fine, but at least turn 2 we get reroll advance rolls. Long as are vehicles are fast, which many are (though I'd like to see raiders go upto 16" and venoms 18"), I'm fine with 7" move infantry. Same with elite infantry really, 7-8" tops is fine since most of them chill in transports.

Can't disagree on our characters though, I don't think there's a single DE player who is not unhappy with the complete lack of skyboards/jetbikes/wing options for our characters. Maybe one day those will be back..or at least having their auras work in transports would be nice.

The Shredder wrote:

how many fast* troops do we have? None.

How many fast Elites do we have? None.
How many fast HQs do we have? None.

Even our Monsters are pathetically slow. Our floating Monsters - built by a race that's supposedly thousands of years ahead in technology... can move all of 8".  

There is so much truth in this.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

I mean how fast do you want our infantry to be? 7" seems okish, 8" would probably be reasonable which a couple of our units have seems fine, but at least turn 2 we get reroll advance rolls. Long as are vehicles are fast, which many are (though I'd like to see raiders go upto 16" and venoms 18"), I'm fine with 7" move infantry. Same with elite infantry really, 7-8" tops is fine since most of them chill in transports.

It's not necessarily about base movement - it's about having options other than vehicles. Could maybe one or our Elite or Troop units have the option to take a Jump Packs equivalent?

Or maybe Wyches/Bloodbrides/Succubi could have especially high base movement (around 10")?

Just something so that our options aren't limited to 'take a transport' or 'footslog barely faster than guardsmen'.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Can't disagree on our characters though, I don't think there's a single DE player who is not unhappy with the complete lack of skyboards/jetbikes/wing options for our characters. Maybe one day those will be back..or at least having their auras work in transports would be nice.

I saw someone suggest that GW could use our existing kits (Scourges, Reavers and Hellions) to give us Winged, Jetbike, and Skyboard HQs, respectively. Basically just advising for how to turn one of those models into an HQ.

I'm not optimistic but you never know.

Do you guys think we could return to tactic and concentrate the.... complaints on another thread that is correctly named?

Alright, I've got a tactics question - what do you think are the best uses for the Webway Stratagem?

I kinda want to use it so that my Archon can pretend he's a Mandrake, but I'm aware that this probably isn't the optimal use for it.

I am yet to find a great use for jt, but I think that a turn 2 Incubi charge is certainly one of our best options.