New White Dwarf and additional tidbits

+1 S for a Wych obsession sounds sweet. Let’s hope the “do you even lift” cult is the Cult of Strife - Lelith really wants that S4!

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

If warriors do get more special weapons, I am curious to see how that will work out. Maybe 2 specials at 10, 1 heavy weapon?

2 special weapons per 10 would be disappointing as hell.

Silverglade wrote:

Found another few tidbits.  
It refers to a "fleshcraft strategem" and says to put your Haemonculous near a Cronos and use this strategem so they can keep healing each other.     This makes me think that possibly the Haemonculous gets this as and ability, and the fleshcraft strategem allows a Cronos to heal coven units.

I have a bad feeling it'll be the other way around.

The Cronos already has a weaksauce heal, so it'll probably be the Haemonculus that gains a crappy, stratagem-dependant heal.

Silverglade wrote:

Oh.  Missed Shredder's question on the Soul Trap.

Looks like it is an artefact.   Though it is in a section that is discussing "strategems and artifacts" bringing back certain rules and items.   So it is possible that they made a strategem called "soul trap".

But my money would be on artifact.

I look forward to 9th, when the Archon is wading into battle stark-naked, because even his clothes are now artefacts and he chose to have a weapon instead (which are also all artefacts).

4 s4 attacks on wyches sounds pretty good.
I just hope we also get some good movement related stratagems (getting in or out of vehicles easier or  just a bonus move and still charge since we cannot do that with psychic powers (chaos/ harlequins), special character (nids) even if it is weak like the nids stratagem or IG order it would be nice to have something so our fast wyches are not being outrun by IG who recieved an order.

It will be a really hard choice though between the different wyches (+1 attack and +1 str is both fine with our drugs on top, the charge after advancing is really tempting to, it is something I really mis right now, but it will feel like I lose an attack in which case it becames a though choice)

Advance and charge seems much better on reavers than wyches. Guaranteed 24" move followed by a 2D6 charge. That's proper turn 1 threat. Even big guns at the back of the board won't be safe from tackling reavers.

Problem is: will they do something once they're there?

I don't like to pour cold water on all this joy but Wyches with 5 attacks, even with the +1 to hit from PfP and a nearby Succubus are hardly horde clearers. Even with all the above, they do 1.62 wounds against GEQ. That's absolute best case scenario. Prior to turn 3 and with no Succubus they're back down to 1.11. Against MEQ, they're still awful (0.54) and none of this takes into account their fragility prior to actually getting into combat.

More attacks was never the answer to Wyches problems. They need those attacks to actually do something!

AYe, the trouble has always been that Reavers don't hit hard enough when they atcually get into combat, and Wyches are so hard to actually get there becaude of their low toughness and save.

As we asked ESE, if there will be separate specialised detachments for reavers and for wyches, he confirmed it.
So I can assume that "run and charge" ability is already built in in wyches. So you will prefer to take wyches in detachment with +1A obsession and take Reavers in the detach with "advance and charge" obsession.
I would be sooooooo happy if it is real

I was thinking more about reavers tackling anti vehicle and heavy shooting units, to deny them shots next turn. If they get a points drop as we are hoping, charging units of 3 could mean the opponent faces two volleys from our army before they can try and shoot back with what's left. It's more about the shot denial than the reavers doing significant damage.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I don't like to pour cold water on all this joy but Wyches with 5 attacks, even with the +1 to hit from PfP and a nearby Succubus are hardly horde clearers. Even with all the above, they do 1.62 wounds against GEQ. That's absolute best case scenario. Prior to turn 3 and with no Succubus they're back down to 1.11. Against MEQ, they're still awful (0.54) and none of this takes into account their fragility prior to actually getting into combat.

More attacks was never the answer to Wyches problems.  They need those attacks to actually do something!

Hold on...a single Wych attacking Guardsmen with 5 attacks would kill 1 Guardsman.  So a unit of 10 would clear a unit of 10 Guardsmen.  Once you include the squad leader and two special weapons this is more like 14 killed.

That is if they hit on 3's.

If they hit on 2's they would clear 14 Guardsmen.

If they re-roll 1's to hit they clear 16 Guardsmen.

Now to me this is ok...if you are up against 90 Guardsmen and you need a way to bog them down and clear them off the field then units of Wyches will do that.

My math will be off because I have rushed this but depending on the turn and re-rolls you can expect a 5A unit of 10 to be killing somewhere between 11-18 Guardsmen...that's what I think.

Also on the discussion regarding Kabs and weapons options.

If they want to mix Kabs and Trueborn then it would make sense that every 10 men get two heavy and two special weapons because that is what we get in the Kabs box. That might mean you can choose two of any variation per 5 men perhaps.

Wyches will never becomes an hammer. We still have Reavers, Beasts, Sslyths, Wracks, Grots, Talos , Hellions for that.

They can't make Wyches good hitters as, say, Troupes. But for an annoying/tarpit/even horde (+S4 and +1A drug makes them Ork Boyz with 4++ and No Escape) they are already good with these rumors!

Wait, why can you assume that? It's certainly better on Reavers and a good reason to think about an all Reaver outrider but I'm not sure why we can assume it's on wyches as a baseline.

At least I hope it's not. There are many more things I'd rather see on wyches (some AP, a Tesla style rule, a hefty price cut...)

High volume of attacks sounds great but if there is a +1 str obsession, coupled with drugs we could be looking at Strength 5 wyches??

Wounding T8 enemies on 5+ is something. Add HG with re-roll to wound and -1AP. Looking forward making some Stormsurges nervous.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Hold on...a single Wych attacking Guardsmen with 5 attacks would kill 1 Guardsman.  So a unit of 10 would clear a unit of 10 Guardsmen.  Once you include the squad leader and two special weapons this is more like 14 killed.

That is if they hit on 3's.

If they hit on 2's they would clear 14 Guardsmen.

If they re-roll 1's to hit they clear 16 Guardsmen.

Now to me this is ok...if you are up against 90 Guardsmen and you need a way to bog them down and clear them off the field then units of Wyches will do that.

The thing is though, you first have to actually get up the field. This will usually mean parking a Raider in assault range (for next turn), which means leaving a very fragile vehicle in the enemy's optimum range and hoping nothing happens to it or to the T3 6+ bodies inside it. Let's assume that enough wyches survive that each wych squad can take out guardsmen squads. Well, you've used 100+pt squads (not including their transports) to kill squads that cost 40-60pts. And now your T3 6+ wyches won't even have the protection of transports.

I admit I could be wrong here, especially since there are still a lot of unknowns on the DE side, and a lot of variation in IG armies. However, when you consider the cost of wych squads and the cost of the transports needed to get them into position (you could footslog them, but to my mind that's a far worse prospect against IG), I don't think you'll have anywhere near enough bodies to seriously hurt/tarpit an IG horde. If anything, it seems more likely that your own wyches will be the ones bogged down with endless guardsmen.

Of course, I appreciate that we may still be left without a good solution for hordes, so we might well have to consider stuff like this, even if it's far from ideal.

Completely get what your saying, you have to get that squad into combat, but then you have to do that with every squad in the game.

Sometimes when doing the math it is safer to use as few assumptions as possible so that you can get a consistent method of comparison...that is my day job.

A 10 strong Wych unit that charges into an overwatching 30 man Guard blob will of course find there a less than 10 left

We all know by now that the Raider should make the charge and the unit inside should be making the charge 2nd to avoid the overwatch. How you do that while keeping all the parts intact is where the skill/luck will come in I guess.

To know the best bonus for wyches we need to know the weapons.

If Hydra gauntlet remain the golden weapon, we'll stack attacks.

If Razorflays add some attacks to the wielder, we might spam them on S5 wyches just for the kicks.

Otherwise, 4 S4 attacks on a WS 2+ unit sounds really good.

Count Adhemar wrote:

I don't like to pour cold water on all this joy but Wyches with 5 attacks, even with the +1 to hit from PfP and a nearby Succubus are hardly horde clearers. Even with all the above, they do 1.62 wounds against GEQ. That's absolute best case scenario. Prior to turn 3 and with no Succubus they're back down to 1.11. Against MEQ, they're still awful (0.54) and none of this takes into account their fragility prior to actually getting into combat.

More attacks was never the answer to Wyches problems.  They need those attacks to actually do something!

Count did you factor in special weapons as well? The damage has always come from special weapons - that's why it was statistically better to take +1A on a unit of 10 wyches as opposed to +1S.

Assuming our special weapons remain the same, you've got to factor in hydra gauntles/agonizer. That's where the hurt really comes from!

Mmm.....actually...I wanna try to play Wyches as Hormagaunts. If I mind to play Reavers with Run+Charge I will consider Wyches for tropps. Still move 8+D6, 3 attacks at S3+drugs, and if they died I don't pay any transport for them.

They are fast enough to be some "hormagant-ish" unit

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Completely get what your saying, you have to get that squad into combat, but then you have to do that with every squad in the game.

Not every squad is T3 with a 6+ save, though. Hormagaunts are, sure, but they're also nearly half the price of a Wych currently.

Burnage wrote:

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Completely get what your saying, you have to get that squad into combat, but then you have to do that with every squad in the game.

Not every squad is T3 with a 6+ save, though. Hormagaunts are, sure, but they're also nearly half the price of a Wych currently.

Well they even have half ot their rules

I think this will at least make wyches playable... I personally haven't had so much of a problem getting them into CC as other people, but I also only ever really bring 1 MAYBE 2 units of 10. They do well enough for me, but I'm convinced that's just because of my conversion and they reward me by rolling hot

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Completely get what your saying, you have to get that squad into combat, but then you have to do that with every squad in the game.

Sure, but wyches are one of the most fragile units in the game.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

A 10 strong Wych unit that charges into an overwatching 30 man Guard blob will of course find there a less than 10 left

Bit of an aside, but do you see many guardsmen blobs these days?

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

We all know by now that the Raider should make the charge and the unit inside should be making the charge 2nd to avoid the overwatch.  How you do that while keeping all the parts intact is where the skill/luck will come in I guess.

It's not just overwatch, though - it's the turn your raider has to spend parked in assault range before you're allowed to disembark, and then the turn after you charge when you'll be most exposed to enemy fie.

In any case, today's leaks may shed more light on things.

Will be interesting to see what they have done with the wych special weapons, bringing back the old shardnet that reduced attacks would be amazing.