Codex: Drukhari Preview: Haemonculus Covens

SushiBoy013 wrote:

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 agree.

IMO, Wyches have been hot garbage since 3rd/4th ed. They had situational use as suicide anti-tank troops (???) in the first of the newer codices, but haven't even had that use since then.

They are one of the units in WH40K whose performance least matches the fluff (and simultaneously least matches their historical usefulness in game).

Their current rules are one of my leading exhibits when I question whether or not the designers even play the game.

One thing that occurred to me, I've used wyches with some success as tarpits but I can't see doing that anymore considering wracks will be able to do that so much better with +4 invul all the time and better toughness, and hopefully a pts reduction. Hopefully wyches in turn switch over to geq killers.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

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

The trouble with the Shredder is that it's a solution looking for a problem.

Even with d6 shots, it's still not enough to make a dent in a horde. I think on average it kills about 1.5 guardsmen. And against anything heavier you're basically always better off using a Blaster (which has the additional benefit of being effective against targets that their standard weapons can barely scratch).

If the Shredder was D6 auto hits would make it a nice overwatch weapon though. On its own it won't be a decent horde weapon I agree.

I can't even see Flayed Skulls taking reduced points Splinter Cannons simply to take advantage of the re-roll...Blaster is still so much better.

Mppqlmd wrote:

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)

Interesting.

Just one thing though - are you sure a Flayed Skull Raider would confer the rerolls to Poison Tongue passengers?

I'm 90% sure you need flayed skull passengers to get the reroll.

I mean maybe if the shredder is say assault 3, in a squad of say trueborn with 4 shredders it might be decent? I do see the struggle though to make it worthwhile using, and it's tough considering how good blasters are.

Splinter cannons at least I see more potential in. If there pts cost was cut in half, down to say 8, that would be probably be solid. Mainly I'm just hoping for the cannon or shredder to be better so the go to option for special weapons isn't blasters/dark lances every single time.

Throwing in my 2 cents from what I saw today as a long time lover of grots and talos.

Prophets of Flesh
4++? Amazing! Not much more to say here. Covens need to be tough if they want to be useful.
The stratagem I find to be really good! It's another way to launch a unit of wracks downfield T1. I would be happier if I can take them in larger units though. Soothsayer is amazing, love it and want it.

Dark Creed
Ld stacking is cute. I have a feeling like previous editions its an all or nothing sort of gamble that won't pay off given other armies abilities to negate this. But if you can force someone to pop 2 cp to save a unit I'd call that win. I think the most fun part of this obsession is the Esoteric Kill strat...definitely abusable with FW but I expect that to change in the future. Still useful at popping those low to mid wound characters that are key to an opponents synergies.

Coven of Twelve
I love this trait! On grotesques, thats 5 S5 Ap-2 attacks per dude (assuming index stats on grots and monstrous cleaver! Flesh gauntlet also gets a little boost if you use this weapon instead. I think grots are going to be really good at striding through GEQ, especially if you equip with liquifier guns. On wracks it is slightly less exciting I feel, but still better than nothing. Useful to harrass your opponents light troops and tag vehicles at least.

The stratagem is very interesting and strange. I've been in situations with my marines at least where a unit gets surrounded and stuck...sometimes you just need to sacrifice a unit so that you can shoot he problem (thinking nid horde surrounding some poor unit). Ride up with liquifiers and say screw it. I think this may be more useful than some think when facing assault horde that bogs your stuff down.

Overall I like the prophets and coven of 12 the most as they seem to be the most useful in a varied army build.

The Shredder wrote:

Mppqlmd wrote:

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)

Interesting.

Just one thing though - are you sure a Flayed Skull Raider would confer the rerolls to Poison Tongue passengers?

We discussed this a bit in the last thread and the consensus seemed to be that RAW mean that you need the Flayed Skull Obsession on a model to gain the benefit from it.  So a Flayed Skull Kabalite would get the benifit in a Poison Tongue Raider, the opposite of Mppqlmd's interpretation.

I expect an FAQ about it.

My only thought is that locking the sniper stratagem to the least shooty part of the army is an odd choice. I mean, most of the Covens units come with no ranged weapons at all stock.

It's a very strange decision is all.

Not to get stuck on weapon/unit profiles, but I'm also concerned about our current lack of access to mortal wounds. I'm hoping we see mortal wound generation implanted within our weaponry somewhere.

I don't think every other necessarily needs mortal wound generation. In fact I can think of some armies that don't really have mortal wound weapons at all. Granted that also have access to smite, and we don't, so a little more mortal wound generation might be nice. I don't see where we'd get it though outside of the weapons that already have that ability. It's not like we are going to get a sniper unit with access to hexrifles from out of nowhere, may have to make do with what we have, which I'd say is mainly mandrakes. I'd also be very happy to see the haywire blaster improve, that's mortal wounds vs vehicles, but then again we hardly need that considering how potent blaster spam is going to be now.

Contributing to the Freakshow list. There is a strange rules interaction with Irillyth and a Shadow Spectres exarch. They have almost the same rule: “roll an extra dice, and discard the lowest dice rolled”, but they are different rules, with different names, and different clauses for activation. I think it’s oretty dodgy. But you may be able to get them to take a 3D6 Ld check and only discarding 1 dice!

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

I don't think every other necessarily needs mortal wound generation. In fact I can think of some armies that don't really have mortal wound weapons at all. Granted that also have access to smite, and we don't, so a little more mortal wound generation might be nice. I don't see where we'd get it though outside of the weapons that already have that ability. It's not like we are going to get a sniper unit with access to hexrifles from out of nowhere, may have to make do with what we have, which I'd say is mainly mandrakes. I'd also be very happy to see the haywire blaster improve, that's mortal wounds vs vehicles, but then again we hardly need that considering how potent blaster spam is going to be now.

We not only are excluded from the psyker phase (certainly OK..) but we are also going to be limited to the weaponry that we currently have represented in a plastic format. We don't have the luxury of having 50 weapons to vary the usage of like other armies that have seen a larger range of units created for them.

To my mind, we either become greatly limited by this in the weapons category...or (in the same manner that our lore is used to explain away our inability to use psyker powers...) GW plays to our lore and makes our weaponry just a little more formidable.

Exarch rule: “Shadow of Death”: if within 6” of the exarch, units must roll an extra dice when making a Morale tests. Discard the lowest dice rolled.

Irillyth Rule: “The Spectre of Death”: if within 18” of Irillyth or a unit of Shadow Spectres, all enemy units must roll an additional dice when making morale tests and discard the lowest dice rolled.

Seems wonky but RAW they would both add an additional dice, but only 1 gets removed!

Fair but is our weaponry really not that potent? Because blasters seem really sweet now, and dark lance isn't going anywhere. Yes we can debate for days about changes to poisoned weapons, but I don't see that happening, and from what we've seen so far just the ability to get rerolls/more shots for splinter weapons makes them at least better enough for me. Yeah, a lot of our special weapons need pts decreases but considering just how easy it is for us to spam blasters, I'm really doubting we need mortal wound weapons. Even now I've had very few games where I've felt like my dark lances/blasters can't get through any heavy targets, and it's only going to get better with d6 damage blasters.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Fair but is our weaponry really not that potent? Because blasters seem really sweet now, and dark lance isn't going anywhere. Yes we can debate for days about changes to poisoned weapons, but I don't see that happening, and from what we've seen so far just the ability to get rerolls/more shots for splinter weapons makes them at least better enough for me. Yeah, a lot of our special weapons need pts decreases but considering just how easy it is for us to spam blasters, I'm really doubting we need mortal wound weapons. Even now I've had very few games where I've felt like my dark lances/blasters can't get through any heavy targets, and it's only going to get better with d6 damage blasters.

I think from what we've heard things look like they're going in the right direction; please feel free to disagree...but I am still concerned about horde control. The great bit with mortal wounds is that they provide splash dmg to the next model over. I'm not necessarily stuck on it, but without seeing our weapons profiles or unit profiles...I'm not confident we are a true glass cannon just yet.

Blaster profile is stellar...I agree completely. Yes we can debate the merits of poison (I definitely fall on the side of pessimist with this, until proven incorrect). Our weapons have just been very sub-par, and in an edition that promotes hordes as much as 8th does, I'm not sure I feel confident we're yet in a place to handle that.

....this is also due to a hefty dose of doubt around Wyches which haven't been good in, well...forever. I hope I'm proven wrong there too.

Colonel Cabbage wrote:

Exarch rule: “Shadow of Death”:  if within 6” of the exarch, units must roll an extra dice when making a Morale tests. Discard the lowest dice rolled.

Irillyth Rule: “The Spectre of Death”: if within 18” of Irillyth or a unit of Shadow Spectres, all enemy units must roll an additional   dice when making morale tests and discard the lowest dice rolled.

Seems wonky but RAW they would both add an additional dice, but only 1 gets removed!

Maybe RAW, but personally I think that's stretching it a bit far if only because it's become more and more evident that forgeworld is showing little to no effort to even care about 40k right now. Honestly I just assumed that Irrillyth's rule was supposed to extend the range of the Shadow Spectre's rule, not double it. And yes...it doesn't read that way, but forgeworld also forgot to errata the corsair bikes for the exact same things they errata'd on the two infantry units...and have not gone back and fixed it since... >_>

Oh yeah, it’s MASSIVELY cheesy, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable pulling it off, but it’s there. They didn’t even write the Exarch rule to explicitly stop it stacking either...

Pray they do not take you alive...

This is the most thematic codex yet and I'm LOVING IT.

I'm still looking at running mono Kabal, but depending on points changes maybe my Coven will finally lurch from their hovels to slash and burn.

My dream was to have a coven that does drugs, heamonculi on drugs!!! But i am happy with what we got. Grostesque gonna love that -1 AP. That stratagem to shoot caracther can be solid with a webway portal.

If i played the leadership coven, i would joint them with the Kabal that gets +1 on power from pain turn, so at turn 4 they help that gimmick.

Problem is by turn 4 the game is often already decided, holding off that long just for the little extra pip of -1 more ld when you can already stack a lot (3 units, stratagem to kill warlord, pgl), it's really not that effective, especially when compared with other kabal traits.

SushiBoy013 wrote:

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Fair but is our weaponry really not that potent? Because blasters seem really sweet now, and dark lance isn't going anywhere. Yes we can debate for days about changes to poisoned weapons, but I don't see that happening, and from what we've seen so far just the ability to get rerolls/more shots for splinter weapons makes them at least better enough for me. Yeah, a lot of our special weapons need pts decreases but considering just how easy it is for us to spam blasters, I'm really doubting we need mortal wound weapons. Even now I've had very few games where I've felt like my dark lances/blasters can't get through any heavy targets, and it's only going to get better with d6 damage blasters.

I think from what we've heard things look like they're going in the right direction; please feel free to disagree...but I am still concerned about horde control. The great bit with mortal wounds is that they provide splash dmg to the next model over. I'm not necessarily stuck on it, but without seeing our weapons profiles or unit profiles...I'm not confident we are a true glass cannon just yet.

Blaster profile is stellar...I agree completely. Yes we can debate the merits of poison (I definitely fall on the side of pessimist with this, until proven incorrect). Our weapons have just been very sub-par, and in an edition that promotes hordes as much as 8th does, I'm not sure I feel confident we're yet in a place to handle that.

....this is also due to a hefty dose of doubt around Wyches which haven't been good in, well...forever. I hope I'm proven wrong there too.

I 100% agree we need better anti-horde, it's still the target I struggle most against. Granted I haven't faced that many big hordes recently, but I've had a game against guard where it's been a real issue. Mortal wounds isn't a bad way to deal with hordes like that, but I just don't see us getting access to them in the quantities needed to deal with hordes. Really only mandrakes have that, and I don't see them changing a whole lot. My hope is that the splinter cannon gets nice and cheap where I'll actually start thinking about putting it on warrior squads again, but I'm skeptical, we'll see if that happens. Best hope I think we have for anti-horde is if this talk of wych improvement is true. Up to 5 attacks is some nice anti-horde, and yeah delivery still isn't great but with the pts cost they are now and the buff, it's the start of a solution. I suspect we'll need to have the codex in hand though to really see how we can handle hordes better.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Problem is by turn 4 the game is often already decided, holding off that long just for the little extra pip of -1 more ld when you can already stack a lot (3 units, stratagem to kill warlord, pgl), it's really not that effective, especially when compared with other kabal traits.

SushiBoy013 wrote:

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Fair but is our weaponry really not that potent? Because blasters seem really sweet now, and dark lance isn't going anywhere. Yes we can debate for days about changes to poisoned weapons, but I don't see that happening, and from what we've seen so far just the ability to get rerolls/more shots for splinter weapons makes them at least better enough for me. Yeah, a lot of our special weapons need pts decreases but considering just how easy it is for us to spam blasters, I'm really doubting we need mortal wound weapons. Even now I've had very few games where I've felt like my dark lances/blasters can't get through any heavy targets, and it's only going to get better with d6 damage blasters.

I think from what we've heard things look like they're going in the right direction; please feel free to disagree...but I am still concerned about horde control. The great bit with mortal wounds is that they provide splash dmg to the next model over. I'm not necessarily stuck on it, but without seeing our weapons profiles or unit profiles...I'm not confident we are a true glass cannon just yet.

Blaster profile is stellar...I agree completely. Yes we can debate the merits of poison (I definitely fall on the side of pessimist with this, until proven incorrect). Our weapons have just been very sub-par, and in an edition that promotes hordes as much as 8th does, I'm not sure I feel confident we're yet in a place to handle that.

....this is also due to a hefty dose of doubt around Wyches which haven't been good in, well...forever. I hope I'm proven wrong there too.

I 100% agree we need better anti-horde, it's still the target I struggle most against. Granted I haven't faced that many big hordes recently, but I've had a game against guard where it's been a real issue. Mortal wounds isn't a bad way to deal with hordes like that, but I just don't see us getting access to them in the quantities needed to deal with hordes. Really only mandrakes have that, and I don't see them changing a whole lot. My hope is that the splinter cannon gets nice and cheap where I'll actually start thinking about putting it on warrior squads again, but I'm skeptical, we'll see if that happens. Best hope I think we have for anti-horde is if this talk of wych improvement is true. Up to 5 attacks is some nice anti-horde, and yeah delivery still isn't great but with the pts cost they are now and the buff, it's the start of a solution. I suspect we'll need to have the codex in hand though to really see how we can handle hordes better.  

I can get behind a stifling amount of poison 4+, but yeah...splinter cannons are going to have to get cheap.

If Wyches aren't provided a decent method of arriving to battle relatively intact, I'll consider Cults a complete failure. They elevate the word 'frail' to a new level entirely. But then we circle back around to needing unit profile insight. Time will tell!

We'll see about splinter cannons, fingers crossed they get that reduction.

Honestly while I'd love to see wyches improved, I can manage using cults as long as hellions/reavers are good. If that advance+charge trait is legit, and reavers get the very much needed pts cost that's just going to be a lot of fun to have them move 22" then assault something.

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.

The image of a large group of creepy cultists on a porch is as frighting as it is hilarious to me lol.

Colonel Cabbage wrote:

Oh yeah, it’s MASSIVELY cheesy, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable pulling it off, but it’s there. They didn’t even write the Exarch rule to explicitly stop it stacking either...

The general consensus from what I've seen is that you discard the two lowest dice. Not that it matters, Shadow Spectres got nerfed into the ground in Chapter Approved, they're not worth taking now.


As for the Covens, I like all three. I don't think the Dark Creed will really work out since there's too many ways to circumvent Moral and the only real way to deal damage is with a friendly Farseer dishing out Mindwar. If we had our old 7th ed Phantasm Grenade Launchers back where the target unit makes a Leadership check and takes a wound with no saves of any kind allowed (see, Mortal Wounds aren't an 8th ed invention) for each point they fail the test by, minus the "Space Marines always win" rule, and it could be incredibly potent. Otherwise, I'll pass.

Prophets of Flesh have obvious usability with army wide 4++ invuln, will defintiely make them a tough nut to crack. On the other hand, it's not resilianc ethat I've found lacking with Coven units.

The Twelve are the obviouse winners for me. Index Coven units hit like a wet blanket and this goes someway to letting them dish out a lot more hurt, which is what they need more than anything.

As others have mentioned though, without seeing profiles and points costs it doesn't matter, if there's no appreciable change to any of the coven units then they'll still be useless.

I'm also rather surprised we didn't get a trait for The Hex, you'd think the Coven that designed half the ranged weapons in the army would get a trait.