Codex: Drukhari Preview: Haemonculus Covens

I like Prophets of Flesh a lot but I'm not in love with their stratagem. It seems difficult to justify taking a 20 man blob of Wracks for it. Maybe they'll see a points decrease or something.

The Dark Creed Stratagem seems hilarious, sniping enemy lords with a Talos? Prolly not very good but definitely chuckle worthy.

The Warlord trait makes me giddy.

My bad, saw that after I posted. But still having Dissie raiders and venoms isn’t bad to shoot into combat.

What do you all think of the validity of the French leaks mentioned a while ago? One of the Covens gets -1 AP, and the Haemy has a 4++, do you all think it's safe to call that accurate now?

amishprn86 wrote:

Reaper and Tantulas has <coven>   WHAHAHAHAHAHA

True I suppose, and yeah raiders/venoms can shoot into combat but several of the kabal traits are more useful for our vehicles. In fact the coven traits themselves don't see to benefit vehicles at all, while all the kabal traits do. I just don't see us getting much mileage out of the shoot into combat stratagem. Needed it to work for kabalite warriors to make it worth it.

Something that is disappointing - the article references that Prophets of Flesh will give you a 4+ invulnerable save, backed up by a 6+ FNP save.

I was rather hoping that there would be a way to get 5+ FNP save (at least for Covens), because 6+ is just crap.

Oh my god. We can use dark creeds "an esoteric kill delivered from afar" on the Tantalus to have 12 pulse disintegrator snipers.... that has to be an oversight right? That's like... kill Girlyman levels of sniper.

Seems less meaty.  I love my Coven, but this doesn't answer the problems with it.  Hopefully unit previews next week will help this.

I'm excited to try and do a leadership shenanigans list with Dark Creed.  With luck there is a relic and warlord trait to go along with it.

I think An Esoteric Kill, Delivered from Afar is a fantastic name, but 2 CP seems too much in Coven list, though I'll still probably use it to Lance those damn SM Lts.

The Red King wrote:

Oh my god. We can use dark creeds "an esoteric kill delivered from afar" on the Tantalus to have 12 pulse disintegrator snipers.... that has to be an oversight right? That's like... kill Girlyman levels of sniper.

The covens made him, they can break him!

Like the 4++ but shooting stratagems for covens just seems wrong

The Red King wrote:

Oh my god. We can use dark creeds "an esoteric kill delivered from afar" on the Tantalus to have 12 pulse disintegrator snipers.... that has to be an oversight right? That's like... kill Girlyman levels of sniper.

Nah, that's 2 guns so shoot 6 at one dude and 6 at another.

WOW

I'm not sure I even need Cults lol...while POF seems to be safe choice, the other two are so much fun. I mean I just love the idea of my army scaring the other army off the board! I just love that!

You see now we have so many options to build a list!

The combos seems great for a raiding force
so basically comes down to, do i want to cause loads of fear, be choppy choppy or hold the lines with better invulnerable saves to tarpit.
I'm looking forward to mixing it up on a raider force, there's lots of combos to try.
i'd love to see points changes and special rules for covens, but yeah the army wide rules are pretty top so far, can't complain, very fluffy.

Although leadership seems the worst out of the 3 i'm not so sure, we can stack -4ld atm in pure Drukhari, if there's more ways to stack this further this could be quite brutal, infact -4 could be brutal already, sure needs to be play tested.
Giving wracks a little gun support then charging them could be wiping squads quite handily with -4ld.

I really like this weeks preview. All three obsessions are nice, but the shooting stratagems seem misplaced. I will love announcing my use of them though. "I use An Esoteric Kill, Delivered From Afar to fire at your warlord with 6 splinter cannons." It's really too bad that scourges can't be Coven. I was hoping that statlines would be revealed, though. I don't think I can see myself using coven units without some massive improvements.

xzandrate wrote:

Seems less meaty.  I love my Coven, but this doesn't answer the problems with it.  Hopefully unit previews next week will help this.
 

There won't be two weeks of previews, next week will be for talking about whatever release will come right after our codex. Best we can hope for is some unit previews on Friday after wych cults get their day. Regardless of whether they preview some coven units or not, I hope they at least get some pts decreases because they still definetly need them even with solid traits.

I like the pray they don't take you alive strategem as well and that is a Drukhari strategem so we have access to that no matter who slays the warlord (as long as it is Drukhari).

-LD all stacks nicely...

The Dark Creed = -3
PGL = -1
Slay Warlord = -1

Thats a potential for -5 to LD

You could just target every unit that is impacted by the -LD and force morale tests by killing one model.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I like the pray they don't take you alive strategem as well and that is a Drukhari strategem so we have access to that no matter who slays the warlord (as long as it is Drukhari).

I missed this, so its actually -5 ld in pure drukhari list without knowing more.
It also says to max -3, -3 max, or from that skill only?
hope we can stack it past -3, atm we can from how i'm reading it.

The prophets of flesh stratagem says "your warlord can reroll..." If you use the stratagem for additional warlord traits does that mean the Archon gets the reroll, as he is the actual warlord?

Prey They Don't Take You Alive does seem oddly named, given that the effect is to reward you for killing an enemy, rather than capturing him.

I like the idea, though.

Do we need to reserve points for Black Cornucopians stratagem?

I know everyone is complaining that the shooting into combat is misplaced in covens. But it would be WAAAAAAAY overpowered in kabals. Imagine ravagers shooting into combat!

The reason it is only a 1CP stratagem, is the fact that it is in the Coven section. It is fluffy. And it isn't over powered where it is.

What we're not factoring it at this stage, is the more "standard" type strategems that will impact all factions and will benefit Covens that aren't in this release. For example, one that lets you fight again at the end of a fight phase. I think most armies have some form of this stratagem. Assuming we do too, then imagine that on a unit of Grots.

Remains to be seen if we do have such army wide strategems or not, but all other armies do, so I expect that we will as well.

So it is -1 per Dark Creed unit within 6 inches so you gotta do some work on that. Hit it with PGL for additional -1 if that's allowed to stack. Kill the warlord and use the strategem for -1 across whole army.

-5 LD maybe....

The Shredder wrote:

Prey They Don't Take You Alive does seem oddly named, given that the effect is to reward you for killing an enemy, rather than capturing him.

I like the idea, though.

Well, quite a few of our weapons keep our opponent alive. Especially for covens, it's not that unlikely that their guns are shooting some kind of disabling ammunition. Just realized it says in the fight phase. Even easier, in that case. You just have your minions punch some git in the stomach and then you pump him full of non-lethal poison.

Reroll is definetly just for the haemonculus not the archon.

Dizzie wrote:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

I like the pray they don't take you alive strategem as well and that is a Drukhari strategem so we have access to that no matter who slays the warlord (as long as it is Drukhari).

I missed this, so its actually -5 ld in pure drukhari list without knowing more.
It also says to max -3, -3 max, or from that skill only?
hope we can stack it past -3, atm we can from how i'm reading it.

It's the same deal as the Night Lords trait, maximum of stacking to -3, which really is fine when you consider PGLs is an easy -1 more than that fun slay the warlord stratagem for -5. Seems like a large enough debuff to me.

I'm stoked, really excited to see how they play, having a few pain engines come out of the webway to heat lance a HQ is brilliant. Blanket 4++ to an army is fantastic.
Leadership shenanigans do sound like they could be pretty good fun as well.
I'm sure they would have address some of the units issues, grots definitely need a points reduction.

Rhameil wrote:

The prophets of flesh stratagem says "your warlord can reroll..." If you use the stratagem for additional warlord traits does that mean the Archon gets the reroll, as he is the actual warlord?

They are all Warlords for the purposes of their traits. So the Haemy is the warlord for the purpose of his trait.