Biggest Losers

Logan Frost wrote:

sekac wrote:

I've gotta say voidraven. I've always been a voidraven apologist but it now represents the only way to get darklight guns that only do D3 damage. Yay!

2d3 d3D dark sythes shots do statistically more damage than 2 d6D dark lances shots, more than 2 d6D void lances shots against up to T7, and 0.444 less than void lances against T8, getting the upper hand again against T10 or better.

That is true, but for simlar money you can get a Ravager with 3 Dark Lances.

In any case, I always saw the Voidraven as the supreme tool against heavy infantry. 4 index Blaster shots and a killer against a squad of invul or high-save models due to the Voidmine.

I used to think of the Voidraven as a better version of Blaster Scourges, but that is not the case anymore. And at least against +2Sv units you can spam Disintegrators for a very affordable price for a much better performance.

Not to mention that the Voidmine is very situational and often leaves you exposed or in disadvantageous positions. It's nowhere near as bad as in 7th edition, but I think every job it could do could be done by something differently much better.

Ravager is a different bag of chips, not having the hit modifier.

I don’t really see why it’s so maligned. With the disintegrators hysteria cooling off, and people starting to put lances back on their Razorwings, these two units are pretty comparable.

You’re paying 20 points for +2 wounds and +1S on each void lance/D scythes.

Vs. T8, that’s a significant bonus. The D scythes are better against all targets based on the numbers, as mentioned above.

So you’re basically trading the twin splinter rifles for the once per game void mine. And yeah, the razorwings missiles have an additional anti-infantry component which can be very nice. I think if the void mine was not once per game or the D scythes got a damage increase, it would very much overshadow the Razorwing, and we’d be debating the opposite.

As it is, I don’t think you’re ruining your list running a bomber over another razorwing.

I don't think the bomber is bad by any means, the void mine can do some absolutely brutal things. I've only got the one razorwing model but have proxied the voidraven for all of the index. It's good against toughness 8, but the poison of necrotoxin solves half of T8 problem, and haywire scourges solve the other half.

The voidraven is only a "loser" within the context of there being a LOT of winners in the codex. I used to be firmly in the "bomber is better" camp, and now "I'm razorwing first".

Well, I think that Hellions are still a codex corpse, not bad but reavers are better imo,
scourges with haywire blasters are a blast! I only dislike that I can't field 4 units of them anymore...
Also beasts lost their edge as wyches got so strong in comparison.

And I agree that Drazhar is somewhat uninteresting, his Aura is good for the klaivex though,
and I don't know why the incubbi stratagem is not compatible with it. I'd prefer mandrakes over incubbi
so they are a kind of losers, for the are not the winners.
and if I want to field 2 battalions of kabals Drazhar is the only option.
The Cronos is kind of expensive and situative, but no loser.
So far

Chronos getting bs3+ doescseem like a decent bonus to it's shooting profile, as now the spirit vortex should be hitting.
I don't get why it's guns are only AP -2. They're supposed to attack the soul and not interact with armor at all. While I normally don't encourage basing rules power off fluff, the gun is also pretty weak.
If it was ap-4, they would at least be interesting guns.

Dr.Morbid wrote:

And I agree that Drazhar is somewhat uninteresting, his Aura is good for the klaivex though,
and I don't know why the incubbi stratagem is not compatible with it. I'd prefer mandrakes over incubbi
so they are a kind of losers, for the are not the winners.
and if I want to field 2 battalions of kabals Drazhar is the only option.
The Cronos is kind of expensive and situative, but no loser.
So far

Drazhar aura does NOTHING for the Klaivex. Nothing at all.

withershadow wrote:

Drazhar aura does NOTHING for the Klaivex. Nothing at all.

Or perhaps even more scandalously, nothing at all for Drazhar.

A +1 to wound aura instead and their Stratagem working on 6+ instead of natural 6 would at least give some interesting synergy.

Doubling attacks on a 5+ and wounding T5-7 on 4+ would be pretty sweet. I would enjoy dropping my two full squads of Incubi on the enemy then. I had high hopes for the Webway gate making them more useful, but those were swiftly dashed.

With d2 the incubi might need to go up in points, but that would be okay. Somewhat expensive elite killers, with 3+ armor and the ability to become a fragile murderball with their unique hq is something the faction doesn't have.
Medium expensive troops that are good in melee against space Marines isn't something the army is missing.

You'd also have the three options of a) just incubi for a small investment for an elite killer unit. B) just drahar for a solo murder ball (his damage profile is somewhat comparable to a bloodglaive succubus, but you don't need to commit to any cult units). Or c) getting both for an expensive fragile but super deadly payload.

It might be more cute than good, but it would at least be interesting. It's why I'm kinda pushing it.

hexxenwyrd wrote:

With d2 the incubi might need to go up in points, but that would be okay. Somewhat expensive elite killers, with 3+ armor and the ability to become a fragile murderball with their unique hq is something the faction doesn't have.
Medium expensive troops that are good in melee against space Marines isn't something the army is missing.

You'd also have the three options of a) just incubi for a small investment for an elite killer unit. B) just drahar for a solo murder ball (his damage profile is somewhat comparable to a bloodglaive succubus, but you don't need to commit to any cult units). Or c) getting both for an expensive fragile but super deadly payload.

It might be more cute than good, but it would at least be interesting. It's why I'm kinda pushing it.

I concur. I'd love sending Incubi against combat monster which deal D2 themselves and have it wasted on our Incubi. It would really give an incentive to field Incubi.

hexxenwyrd wrote:

With d2 the incubi might need to go up in points, but that would be okay. Somewhat expensive elite killers, with 3+ armor and the ability to become a fragile murderball with their unique hq is something the faction doesn't have.
Medium expensive troops that are good in melee against space Marines isn't something the army is missing.

You'd also have the three options of a) just incubi for a small investment for an elite killer unit. B) just drahar for a solo murder ball (his damage profile is somewhat comparable to a bloodglaive succubus, but you don't need to commit to any cult units). Or c) getting both for an expensive fragile but super deadly payload.

It might be more cute than good, but it would at least be interesting. It's why I'm kinda pushing it.

I actually kinda feel like the incubi really fill the point of armour killers.
We do have a lot of stuff that has ap-1 in melee, but ap-3 is very rare. We have just the succubus glaive, and talos gauntlet, both which reduce to hit by 1 as well as the power sword which is only fieldable on unit champions. We do have some good ap -2 weapons (agonizers, whip, huskblade macroscapel, and cleaver), but those are also either for unit champions or coven only. Which for me makes the incubi have a job. The issue being that we have no other units with low t and high armour which means that the price increase for their 3+ save is not worth that much to us. We pretty much care about offensive potential and because their defense is much better than most of our units, we prefer the more offensive units (wyches) or those whose defenses are similar to our vehicles (above average t and multiple wounds).
Although I must also mention that walking incubi acros the board with their 2+ save (in cover can even become a 1+ with a stratagem) makes them much more survivable than opponents give them credit for.

The other big losers are the hellions, I like them but they cost a lot because of the multiple wounds they can deal, but without ap or defensive abilities they usually can neither get there and nor kill them reliably.

Looks like Incubi are winning in the 'Biggest Losers' thread, can't say I disagree. I've played incubi in most of my games. They are somewhat small points games (1250) and I opt for 5 of them on a venom. Even when I could get them in on targets that the -3AP was being efficient (power armour, terminators), most games they did ok but I consistantly felt underwhelmed by their performance. So I have decided to cut them and spend the points elsewhere. I'm not sure why GW didn't make them more expensive but much better at what they are supposed to be used for.

Maybe they work better in larger games and having a 10 man unit but as of right now I'm in no rush to test this.

I will note that in one game their venom got destroyed early and they had to foot slog is across the board. They were shot at by a fair amount of light arms fire but their armour save (sometimes in cover) meant they just wouldnt die. I still dont think this redeems them.

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The Cronos is a terrible unit in the new codex, not sure why anyone would ever take one when they can get another Talos! Oh it heals? Big woop, you can do that now more reliably in your movement phase with the 1CP Fleshcraft stratagem.

|Meavar wrote:

hexxenwyrd wrote:

...

I actually kinda feel like the incubi really fill the point of armour killers.
We do have a lot of stuff that has ap-1 in melee, but ap-3 is very rare. We have just the succubus glaive, and talos gauntlet, both which reduce to hit by 1 as well as the power sword which is only fieldable on unit champions. We do have some good ap -2 weapons (agonizers, whip, huskblade macroscapel, and cleaver), but those are also either for unit champions or coven only. Which for me makes the incubi have a job. The issue being that we have no other units with low t and high armour which means that the price increase for their 3+ save is not worth that much to us. We pretty much care about offensive potential and because their defense is much better than most of our units, we prefer the more offensive units (wyches) or those whose defenses are similar to our vehicles (above average t and multiple wounds).
Although I must also mention that walking incubi acros the board with their 2+ save (in cover can even become a 1+ with a stratagem) makes them much more survivable than opponents give them credit for.

[...]

The problem is that AP just isn't the new hotness anymore. With many units having multiple wounds and/or invulnerable saves high AP is easily invalidated.

What's worse, Wyches simply outperform Incubi in all thinkable ways. Even against their ideal targets, Incubi are still inferior to Wyches. Don't forget: A Wych costs half of an Incubus, got a 4++, No Escape, Obsessions, Combat Drugs, Wych Weapons and being Troops.

Suddenly, a Wych can have 4 S4 attacks with re-rolling wounds and good chances of locking an enemy into combat. With that, you easily match the power of Incubi against ideal targets while vastly outperform them against GEQ or Daemons.

Incubi are most effective at killing shooty units, but so do all melee units. We have tools for dealing Mortal Wounds, but what we lack is a mobile melee unit which kills multi-wound units reliably.

Also, in my meta most D2 melee units are multi wounded themselves. Having a unit which invalidates enemy D2 and has it themselves would be extremely valuable.