Codex: Drukhari Preview: Haemonculus Covens

Quote :

You're putting a lot of faith in making a 9" charge. If you're doing this on the first turn, then you won't even be able to reroll charges with PfP. So all you'll have to help you make those charges is a single reroll of a single dice. Neutral

You're basically spending 2 CPs to, in all likelihood, teleport near the enemy, fail to charge and then have to suffer through their turn in optimum range of their weapons.

Plus, that Strat heals your unit. Why not endure a turn or two of fire and use that Strat to teleport your full squad into range, rerolling charges and hitting on 2's?

The enemy wastes bullets they could've used to plug something more important, and you get the exact same effect, a massive squad charging into their back lines. Not to mention that the Kab Alpha strike will mean you're wiping damaged units, not charging suicidally into a vanguard

The Shredder wrote:

You call that 'fast'. I call that 'suicidal'.

Oh, never underestimate the panic you cause in your opponents game plan by having 3-4 units in his deployment zone or in his lines at the end of turn 1.

People panic, and when people panic, they make mistakes. When they make mistakes, you win games.

So your "suicidal" is my "calculated risk".

Even if they are not in combat, they will have to be dealt with, you cannot just leave a unit like that hanging out on your front porch.

Skulnbonz wrote:

The Shredder wrote:

You call that 'fast'. I call that 'suicidal'.

Oh, never underestimate the panic you cause in your opponents game plan by having 3-4 units in his deployment zone or in his lines at the end of turn 1.

People panic, and when people panic, they make mistakes. When they make mistakes, you win games.

So your "suicidal" is my "calculated risk".

Even if they are not in combat, they will have to be dealt with, you cannot just leave a unit like that hanging out on your front porch.

I can't think of a time I'd ever want to leave the haemonculus aura. I'm thinking covens on the field, kabals in the skies. Between an advance roll and 7" movement, you can find yourself pretty close to the enemy in no time flat. Turn 2 maybe do the wrack redeployment. Gotta keep that reroll to charge.

The Shredder wrote:

Skulnbonz wrote:

So... for fun's sake, lets assume the following:

Say wracks are allowed to go into blocks of 20. Heck, even 15 would be ok.

Now say you take a detachment of coven units that have the 4++, 15- 20 wracks, and also some cult and kabal choices, the kabal OF COURSE are using the screaming jets, because, well, duh...

So say you set up your wracks on foot during deployment, and drop in some screaming jet raiders.

then, why not spend 2 command points, remove your wracks, redeposit them 9" away from the enemy, and charge in 20 4++ 6+++ poison wielding wracks to tie up and distract the enemy?

First turn charge with wracks, and raiders/venoms all in their face.
Turn 1.

No wonder they said DE are fast!

You're putting a lot of faith in making a 9" charge. If you're doing this on the first turn, then you won't even be able to reroll charges with PfP. So all you'll have to help you make those charges is a single reroll of a single dice.

You're basically spending 2 CPs to, in all likelihood, teleport near the enemy, fail to charge and then have to suffer through their turn in optimum range of their weapons.

You call that 'fast'. I call that 'suicidal'.

Suicidal... Wracks are rather tough, with the PoF trait... If he spend all his shots to kill them, instead of other units, I'm fine with it. Especially if he fail to kill them all and I can Re-deploy them again.

The Shredder wrote:

You're putting a lot of faith in making a 9" charge. If you're doing this on the first turn, then you won't even be able to reroll charges with PfP. So all you'll have to help you make those charges is a single reroll of a single dice.

Odds of getting a 9+ total on 2d6 with one die re-roll is about 52%.

Not quite suicidal, but definitely a gamble.

Saldiven wrote:

Odds of getting a 9+ total on 2d6 with one die re-roll is about 52%.

I don't like those odds.

Skulnbonz wrote:

Oh, never underestimate the panic you cause in your opponents game plan by having 3-4 units in his deployment zone or in his lines at the end of turn 1.

People panic, and when people panic, they make mistakes. When they make mistakes, you win games.

Eh. I'm not a fan of making dubious plays on the basis that my opponent will panic and make mistakes.

Not saying it can't happen, just not a gamble I'm comfortable building a strategy around.

I think that will be my strategy in this edition with this codex.

Deepstrike your entire army onto his face, kill some key units, and watch him panic.

That's how I picture a raid.

The fact that today's preview isn't getting as much chatter as yesterday's tells me that Coven's are not overwhelming nor underwhelming. With what we have right now Covens look to have fun rules, can be competitive, and offer some interesting combos. I cannot wait to see more, but I will say that Covens appear.... SOLID... for lack of a non-ESE word choice.

Red Corsair wrote:

BTW guys am I the only one that overlooked that in yesterdays preview screaming jets can only be used in your army if you don't use WWP? Something to consider. As written now, it's either or not both.

That was expected though. It's identical to the Craftworld webway/cloudstrike stratagems.

Sarkesian wrote:

The fact that today's preview isn't getting as much chatter as yesterday's tells me that Coven's are not overwhelming nor underwhelming. With what we have right now Covens look to have fun rules, can be competitive, and offer some interesting combos. I cannot wait to see more, but I will say that Covens appear.... SOLID... for lack of a non-ESE word choice.

I think point changes are just more relevant to Coven unit viability than the Obsessions previewed today, if Haemonculi and Wracks drop down in points I'll be the happiest little girl scout in the world.

A 4++ by itself isn't quite enough to get my panties in a knot.

The fact that today's preview isn't getting as much chatter as yesterday's tells me that it's pretty clear consensus that we can't judge Covens without knowing if they've done something to fix the units themselves.

Mppqlmd wrote:

I think that will be my strategy in this edition with this codex.

Deepstrike your entire army onto his face, kill some key units, and watch him panic.

That's how I picture a raid.

Can I ask what you plan to use in your army for that strategy?

Saldiven wrote:

The Shredder wrote:

You're putting a lot of faith in making a 9" charge. If you're doing this on the first turn, then you won't even be able to reroll charges with PfP. So all you'll have to help you make those charges is a single reroll of a single dice.

Odds of getting a 9+ total on 2d6 with one die re-roll is about 52%.

Not quite suicidal, but definitely a gamble.

Yeah but a normal 9+ on 2d6 is 27% (well 27.77%), so i wouldnt even care to try even with re-roll

Quote :

I think point changes are just more relevant to Coven unit viability than the Obsessions previewed today, if Haemonculi and Wracks drop down in points I'll be the happiest little girl scout in the world.

A 4++ by itself isn't quite enough to get my panties in a knot.

This is the big thing. Kabals are our only subfaction that seems to be decently in order (save for Archon's, of course.) There's a lot more to be excited about, bexcuse we can identify a lot of potential in our currently viable units.

Covens need a rework. Their HQ and Troops are decent, but their staples, Pain Engines and Grots, are some of the worst in the book, maybe even the game. I don't care if my Talos spooks guardsmen until I know if he can cut through flak armor.

It's a mix bagged with covens atm, we just don't know yet, the rules look good but we need talos, grotesques and cronos reworked, wracks are fine as is but any changes would be great.
If our taloi was less dependent on ravagers and had a -3 or 4ap in melee, cronos had strength 4 on shooting weapons instead of 3 and the grotesques regain a rampage type rule then all this would be fantastic. Though i'm hoping we get this plus a little extra

The Shredder wrote:

Saldiven wrote:

Odds of getting a 9+ total on 2d6 with one die re-roll is about 52%.

I don't like those odds.  

Skulnbonz wrote:

Oh, never underestimate the panic you cause in your opponents game plan by having 3-4 units in his deployment zone or in his lines at the end of turn 1.

People panic, and when people panic, they make mistakes. When they make mistakes, you win games.

Eh. I'm not a fan of making dubious plays on the basis that my opponent will panic and make mistakes.

Not saying it can't happen, just not a gamble I'm comfortable building a strategy around.

Yeah I have to agree, I wouldn't throw away a block of 20 wracks right in my enemy's face turn one when my average opponent is not likely to panic and you're unlikely to make the charge as well. You need to wait until at least turn two for the strategy when your wracks may have taken a few hits so you can heal them up and get your charge reroll. Plus if you really want to deep strike big units, why even bother with the 2cp prophets of flesh stratagem, you could just wwp in the unit for one cp and not have to be within 6" of a board edge. That's not to say the stratagem isn't good, I think it's very handy for big wrack units, but only if you use it to actually heal them as well, not just move them up the board.

And agreed about coven units needing an improvement. I really want covens to be better as it will open up more tactical possibilities for our army, but I'm not going to drop some cash on getting more coven units until I see for myself in the index that their pts have gone down/their abilities have improved.

Not bad, but without some points changes these would be still a little lackluster. Still, nice obsessions, and I especially like the stratagem names.

The Shredder wrote:

Can I ask what you plan to use in your army for that strategy?

Considering we have no profiles, and no point costs, it's a bit early to say that.

Probably not coven. Maybe a Kabal Battalion (or Briguade ? I can dream, Harold !). Maybe a Kabal/Cult mix (we'll see that tomorrow).

Some idea i've been toying with :

- 5 Kabalites with blaster and PGL, Flayed Skulls, Dedicated Transport : Raider
- 5 Kabalites with blaster and PGL, Flayed Skulls, Dedicated Transport : Raider

- 10 Kabalites with SPlinter cannon and Blaster, Poisoned Tongue.


Mix the 2 Flayed skulls in 1 raider, and the Poisoned Tongue in another Raider. The reason is simple : the third unit will be perfect : the Raider will give rerolls 1's to hit (+ignore cover and have +3mvt), and the Poisoned Tongue will give reroll 1's to wound.

The other raider will be a standard Flayed Skulls gunboat, but with 2 blasters.


On the other hand, I truly hope Hellions and Reavers will be playable. For me, Cult isn't really about wyches, it's about crazy dudes flying around on their private jet/bike.


So basically, if reavers are anything decent, my army : raiders full of poison and blasters (+scourges alondside) DSing while reavers and hellions zoom across the board (because you have to deploy something)

These previews are a great start, but like Mppqlmd stated earlier, it's going to come down to point adjustments, and the stat lines on our units and weapons. Need to still see some major improvements there.

Tomorrow's preview is Cult...I'm assuming we won't see anything there, similar to today and yesterday. I'm truly hoping Friday's preview leaves us with a taste of some changes to units, specifically Wyches. An upgrade to our Wyches immediately puts me in a great mood.

I'd certainly like to see wyches improved as they are the key troop unit for adding in wych patrol detachments to the raiding force, but as others have said what I really want to see is cheaper hellions/reavers, or at least see those units buffed in some way. Two of my favorite DE units, and with the right wych cult traits like advance and charge they could be super solid. At least we'll get a better idea tomorrow of what's in store for the cults, maybe not stat/wargear changes but at least seeing their traits will be nice.

I'm dying for some info about the HL...

Personally I'd rather see the splinter cannon improved. HL is a weapon that's pretty easy to just not use, especially considering we have so much good anti tank already, while the splinter cannon really needs to go down to 10pts I'd say and it's on so many of our units so we'll feel that effect. That being said, why not get both improved? I am definetly hoping that a few of our overpriced special weapons will be fixed.

Shredder ^^

Shredder is definetly at the top of that list, make it assault 3 or d6 at the very least. d3 anything is just meh.

I'd agree on the 10 Point Splinter Cannons...even though I still wouldn't use them on infantry. What we really need, I think, is to make it a reasonable upgrade for vehicles. Assuming it's the same strength (which may or may not be reasonable), I'd pay probably five points max for one on a venom.