Lhameans, are they decent now?

Hey Dark City,

So with the release of the codex, we're all discussing new tactics and ideas; seeing lots of good stuff! But for some reason, something caught my eye: Lhameans.

Now bear with me. We all know the wording on Poison (2+) has changed to be "add +2 to the wound roll", and the Mortal Wounds caused by the Shaimeshi Blade are caused on the roll of 6. Notice there's something missing there - the word "unmodified". So the Lhameans are causing MWs on the roll of a 4 now. That's pretty good if you ask me. For 60pts for four of these toxic ladies!

Now I'm no math hammer person, and I'm only speaking from experience here, but in my testing with a Court of 4 Lhameans, I'm delivering 3-4 MWs each time in addition to the 8 attacks they've gotta save. Kabal of Flayed Skull with a choppy Archon, nearby. Probably better with Black Heart or Poisoned Tongue, but I wanted to share my experience. Whaddya think? Shall we shove 8 of them in a Raider? The SSLYTH PARTY BUS is sooooo last week :p

TLDR; I think Lhameans are quite good now, thoughts on a postcard.

What I ment was roll a 4 (+2 = 6) would do one. Roll a 5 (+2=7) would not do a mortal wound. Same for a natural roll of a 6 (+2 = 8 ). But the codex states 6+ and not 6 so natural rolls of 5 and 6 still do mortal wounds.

Ah see, there's a catch there. You're adding +2 to the roll itself, right? Plus, if you look at the Incubi's Onslaught stratagem, that specifies that the roll be "unmodified", thus the opposite is true here.

This is the exact same as Necron Tesla weapons exploding on 5+s with "My Will Be Done".

And I typed that AS you replied XD

If this is true, I didn’t pick up on it at first, then now I am going to consider them for certain.

Yeah, I haven't really seen it spoken about yet. If nothing else, they'll be superb character and GEQ killers.

Do you mean TEQ? They are mortal wound dealers, why not use them on the expensive enemies?

PartZebra wrote:

Yeah, I haven't really seen it spoken about yet. If nothing else, they'll be superb character and GEQ killers.

Being able to throw out mortal wounds so easily makes them more suited to MEQ or even TEQ hunting, I would have thought.

I will say this for Lhamaeans - being able to only take four in a single detachment is a pretty big drawback. 3-4 mortal wounds a turn in close combat for 60 points also isn't that great, especially considering how fragile they are.

Given the fact they have BS3 and with an archon on their side, letting them reroll all failed hits, they should still produce 5-6 normal wounds in addition to the 3-4 mortal wounds though.

**edit**

And you also could put them into a poisoned toung kabal to reroll failed wound rolls of 1 if you go poison anyway (or want to use insidious misdirection strategem which sounds pretty cool).

RedRegicide wrote:

Do you mean TEQ? They are mortal wound dealers, why not use them on the expensive enemies?

Burnage wrote:

Being able to throw out mortal wounds so easily makes them more suited to MEQ or even TEQ hunting, I would have thought.

Yep, my finger slipped and hit "G" not "T". I haven't even got fat fingers, I just type like a caveman.

Burnage wrote:

I will say this for Lhamaeans - being able to only take four in a single detachment is a pretty big drawback. 3-4 mortal wounds a turn in close combat for 60 points also isn't that great, especially considering how fragile they are.

Well, fragile might as well be a keyword for our army Plus when you consider that our other MW outlets come in the form of Reavers & Hellions (by way of stratagems), Mandrakes (16pts each), and HWB Scourges (only on vehicles ofc), I don't think 15pts a pop is much to sneeze at.

They're also 3 wounds each, 5++ and 6+++ (standard for our infantry), have be attacked individually, and will have their choppy Archon buddy with them who will draw some attention, cos let's face it - you're not doing this unless you want your Archon to get his hands dirty. So really, at worst they're not squishier than anything else we have for similar cost, and at best they're actually a bit more durable than we might expect.

I don't know how long they can expect to survive, but it could be useful to just throw them at something tough (along with an Archon).

Poison Tongue might be the best Kabal for them, as they'll get to reroll failed wounds (another chance at a Mortal Wound).

It occurs to me that you could potentially have quite a bit of fun with an assassin-themed Poison Tongue army.

the detachments shouldnt be much of a problem, one patrol with archon min 5 Kabs and whatever you want plus one heavy detachment with archon and some ravagers (or 2 patrols )

Only issue is they are not characters anymore, so as soon as their transport goes down your opponent can pick off lhameans real easy. I'll probably continue using one just because I like the model, but that will likely be it.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

Only issue is they are not characters anymore, so as soon as their transport goes down your opponent can pick off lhameans real easy. I'll probably continue using one just because I like the model, but that will likely be it.

Better than him being able to pick out your Archon from among them, though.

That is a fair point, wouldn't want that at all.

Watch out what you throw them against. I found that against a lot of their favored targets (In my case a lot bigger tiranids), they die very fast because those enemies often deal multiple wounds and lahmians are easily to interrupt because of single model units.
And yes they need a transport, more for protection than for speed.

With posion tongue you are looking at 5-6 wounds vs TEQ with 4 Lhameans. That's nice for 60 points! 3 dead TEQ is their point back in one combat phase, it's also 50% of a Hive Tyrant or a dead Custodes character. Against GEQ its 9-10 kills which is 3/4 of their points. Not a terrible target.

I'd wait until the Codex's first errata is out in about a month before buying more Lhamean models. I wouldn't be surprised if they change it to trigger in unmodified 6's.

But if it isn't changed, it is good offence. The main downside is that with squishy 1-model units without the character keyword you're giving kill points to your opponent like candy.

Stark Raving Sane wrote:

I'd wait until the Codex's first errata is out in about a month before buying more Lhamean models. I wouldn't be surprised if they change it to trigger in unmodified 6's.

But in that case, what would even be the point to them?

With just 2 attacks and no AP they'd be abysmal.

Dunno the codex states 6+ so it kinda looks like intentional. If it should only trigger in a 1/6 chance they only needed to write 6 instead of 6+

Does a court made up of different models not count as one unit?

And here I thought this was already dicussed to death.

The problem is they are very fragile individual models that are basically VP farming for your opponent. They are quite neat though.

I don’t expect this to be FAQd, it doesn’t seem that crazy at all.

Dark Elf Dave wrote:

Does a court made up of different models not count as one unit?

I was under the impression that they were all individual models, regardless of whether you choose multiples of the same one or not.

How about if you field them as a second rank support unit.

So you pin a nasty unit with wyches or wracks and move that unit into base to base.
Then charge with the wyches and halt 1 inch out, effectively forming a 2nd rank, along with the archon.

The extra distance should limit the amount of enemies who can attack the Lymeans back.

I'm not saying this is going to make them amazing, but should help them to survive a bit longer and deal with a nasty enemy unit - something with nasty saves or high toughness.

You really have to keep them away from exploding vehicles and all "mortal wound per unit" stuff like Typhus' or Mortarions aura.