Took Dark Eldar to an 80 person Grand Tournament.

Went to the "Barnyard Brawl" 80 man GT in South Carolina. For the first time since 6th Edition, I went with a 100% pure Dark Eldar force.

Ended up in 5th place points wise, but they used brackets, so it shows it as 10th place overall.

So fifth out of 80- not too shabby. As I predicted, DE will be able to hang at the top tables.

My List:
Flayed Skull
Arcon/Blaster x 2
5 warriors/blaster x 4
4 Raiders

Prophets of Flesh
5 wracks x3
10 Grotesques

Kabal of the Black Heart
Arcon (warlord of course)
Dissie Ravagers x 3
Reaper

Now, before I go into the battles, I want to say I learned a LOT from these games. What works, what doesn't, what seems to be good, but is actually a detriment, and what is, without a doubt, the best relic we have. A lot of you will disagree with me on some of these, because I think it is so ingrained into our heads as what is a "must take" or "this unit is good", we refuse to listen to anything else.
So that being said, what I am telling you is for TOURNAMENT play. Not fun games, nor beerhammer. This is for when you want to beat your opponent so bad he goes and cries in the parking lot.  And, as always, feel free to disagree, this is just my experience.

Rule 1- Leave the wyches at home.  Yes, yes, they are viable now. Yes, they are able to first turn charge, fly over and hurt people, etc...
In reality, the reavers are still not worth the points, the fly over stratagem is gimmicky and only pulls you out of your plan because you want to use it so badly, you will do whatever you can to get it off, even sacrificing the unit to do it. Wyches are fun, fluffy, and even decent.
For fun games.

Rule 2- Every list needs to have Prophets of Flesh Grotesques. No Exception.

Rule #3- and this is the one people are going to toss their cookies over....
Leave the Writ of Living Muse at home, or, at the very least, spend a command point to buy another relic.  I can hear people scoffing at their screens already, but think about it. What does the writ REALLY do? Let you reroll 1's to wound? Is that what you think? It really doesn't. What Living Muse REALLY does is it slows down the fastest army in the game to the walking speed of an Arcon. It forces you to castle or "turtle" up in a corner with your three best offensive weapons.  It makes it EASY for an opponent to counter deploy against your dissie ravagers.  That is what Living Muse really does.  Since when do Dark Eldar hide in a corner with three tanks, not really moving, just shooting every turn? They don't! You want to play that way, take up guard! :-)
And besides, it pales in comparison to the best relic we have:

Rule #4- ALWAYS take the Vexator mask!  No, seriously, never leave home without it! The "no overwatch" rule is like a nice topping to the delicious pie that is "Make an opponent go LAST in the fight phase.  Make them go LAST. Period! Dead freaking LAST.
What does that mean for you? It means you march your Grotesques up the filed, followed closely by a haemi with this, and the grots will always strike first. Charged by some ungodly unit or beatstick demon prince? Who the heck cares? He goes last, which against grots means, he is dead.

Anyway, If you read the battle reports, you will see what I mean. I will post up game 1 later.

Game 1- Against Dark Eldar (mirror match was intentional)
2- Dark Eldar (Luck of the draw)
3- Demons
4- Adaptes Astares
5- Aeldari

1 and 3 totally match my experiences. I haven't played around with Covens at all, so I'm curious about what exactly makes Grotesques so good currently (although I'm guessing it's something like "they're a dirt cheap damage sponge that can absolutely murder things").

Game 1- Drukari


Dan had:
2 Arcons
Urien
Haemi
6 Grotesques
6 Grotesques
5 Grotesques
3 Talos
2 Voidraven Bombers
3 dissie ravagers
(Black Heart spearhead, prophets of flesh vanguard? whatever the elite one is)
5 CP for him, 14 for me

Deployment: Dawn of War

First turn- I did not get first turn the ENTIRE tournament, even having +1 on 3 of the 5 games. Ugh

Dan moved his meat shield wall up on my right (with Urien), his talos wall on my left (with haemi). Bomber #1 flew up a bit to challenge my raider with 2 warrior squads in it. Bomber #2 flew over my grots, killing 1 and wounding another twice. (I made 2 6++ saves). No real damage.

My turn 1-
I noticed his flyer that bombed the grots was on the edge of my deployment. He could turn 90 degrees, and fly off the table to my right, so he HAD to go left. I dropped my three wrack units out of the raiders, and blocked off the table edge. That plane was as good as dead.

My grots moved up to challenge his, and waited for his charge. I killed one ravager

turn 2- His one plane crashed, the other flew off to take out my reaper (which it did). He did something I countered, which he then countered... it was funny. His talos went after a raider I threw to them as a sacrifice. His shooting dropped a ravager of mine.
He charged 1 grot unit into my grot unit. Using the Vexator mask, I made him go last. I soundly beat him, but he still had two models left of the six.

My turn 2-
Backed the grots out of combat, used the recharge stratagem, and shot his last two grots from unit 1 to death. I flew around getting objectives. I was able to drop a talos to 2 wounds, then used a CP for torment grenade from an arcon, rolled 1 shot, rolled a "1", rerolled because it was an arcon, hit, rolled a "6", he failed the wound, and I rolled a "10" for LD, killing the Talos.

Confuscious says wrote:

During all my games, the torment grenade stratagem killed:
A talos, 2 Grots, a wraithknight, a wraithlord, a demon prince, and TWO custodies bikers. ALWAYS take PGL's on your arcons and raiders. Just an fyi.

I charged another grot unit, and we smacked each other doing superficial damage.

Turn 3- Time was running out.
He went to get some objectives and we still battled in the middle. I made his grots fight last.

My turn- got a few more objectives and we had to call it. The grot fight would have lasted forever.

In the end, I won on objectives, and the ATC champions mission secondaries.
First game with the new Dark Eldar- a solid victory.

Best of the battle- Vexator Mask and dissie ravagers
Worst of the battle: Reaper. died turn 2 and missed its ONE shot on turn 1. (rolled a 2).

Next- Against Drukari. Again. Are you kidding me? At least this one was built different!

What do you think of small wracks units with liquifier? Perhaps even two in the 5 men squad in a venom?

Sent from Topic'it App

CptMetal wrote:

What do you think of small wracks units with liquifier?p

I think the liquifier is nice, but just not worth the points. If you are close enough to shoot em with a liquifier, you are close enough to wade in and smack the crap out of them in close combat, and the wracks are pretty resilient. I just think the points are better spent elsewhere.


Game 2- Against Drukari

Well, swiss pairings placed me against another drukari player, though his list was not like mine.
He had:
3 arcons
1 hamei
2 trueborn units in venoms with 4 blasters
scourges with 4 blasters
2 venoms with 5 man warriors
1 raider with 10 man warriors/ splinter racks
3 dark lance ravagers (yes, really)
6 grots
1 5man wrack unit in a venom

So at the start of the game, I knew to ignore his venoms. they really could not hurt my vehicles, and the grots were tough enough to absorb a lot of their shooting. His triple lance ravagers had to die, as did his trueborn and scourges.

He went first, deepstruck his grots and scourges, and stayed back with everything else to shoot.
I saved my reaper with "lightning fast reflexes", making him miss on three "3's!" points well spent! He did take out a raider that had two wrack units in it.

My turn saw a ravager dissapear, and one of the venoms holding his trueborn, and his trueborn were wiped by a charge from the grots.

His turn saw his scourges and grots drop in behind my lines, but the scourges whiffed. He dropped another raider and a ravager, but that was it.

My turn saw the loss of most of his vehicles (except venoms, still did not care about them). one of his arcons lost a shadowfield to a phantasm grenade launcher (and took 3 mortal wounds.. rolled a 6 to wound! bonus!) And the reaper decided to come out and play dropping 6 shots on his ravager, taking it out of the game. It then charged a 5 man warrior squad. Killed enough to make the unit dissapear from morale.

Confucious says wrote:

If you want a pleasant surprise, look up the hand to hand stats on a reaper!

My grots started to run rampant, wiping everything they touched. It was pretty much mop up at this point.

Win for the good guys- close to max points.
Best of the battle: reaper/Grots
Worst of the battle: Nothing. everything performed to expectations. Maybe wracks, because they did nothing, but it wasnt their fault.


Next game- Demons!

How will the DE fare against 30+ bloodletters, 30+ plaguebearers, 40+ cultists?

Against Demons:

His army (to the best of my recolection)
Scorpius tank
10 cultists
10 cultists
40 cultists (alpha legion)
30 plaguebearers
30 bloodletters/banner
3 obliterators
3-4 demon princes (1 khorne str 16 or something like that...)
3 units of nurgle swarms... nurglings? Whatever they are called

Dawn of war deployment
He infiltrated his swarms on objectives, his bloodletters were deep striking and the 40 cultist blob he dropped in close to some of my raiders, then moved them even closer.

My vehicles were spread out, and my grots were dead center, heading for his scorpius and home objective. (they never made it there)

His turn 1- His 40 squad shot down my raider that had two wrack units in it. The scorpius shot the grots, doing nothing. The oblits came in and shot at a ravager, dropping it to 5 wounds.

My turn 1-
Using the flayed skull 17" move, i shot my raiders over to within 3" of the two middle objectives, and shot the nurglings off of them. I now controlled them. My ravagers and reaper took out his oblits (with the help of a torment grenade), and the rest whittled down his 40 man squad a bit, but nothing to write home about.

His turn 2-
Before he did anything, knowing that the bloodletters will drop in and munch something, I played the stratagem to count PFP 1 turn higher for my grots, meaning they will be hitting on 2's.
He moved the plaguebearers up close to the grots, and dropped in the letters. He also moved 2 of his demon princes up. My grots were going to be in a big scrum!
He then tried "tide of traitors" and i stopped it with agents of vect, which was a mistake. A stupid stupid mistake. I had not hurt them enough to be worried about it, but I know that TOT is a stratagem that you want to stop 99% of the time.
He then used a stratagem to change one of his psychic powers to "death hex", and TOOK AWAY MY GROTS 4+ invul save!
Ugh! I couldn't stop it!
His shooting was just the cultists and scorpius dropping a raider.

then combat started. He charged the letters, princes and plaguebearers into my hapless grotesques.
so... what could I possibly do here?
I started by counter charging his beatstick prince with urien. He still had his 4++, and halved all damage, my haemonculus counter charged (heroic intervention, sorry...) the plaguebearers. I then declared his bloodletters will be fighting last with the vexator mask.
He took the bait, and his prince swung at Urien, causing 3 total wounds after all was said and done. His other prince murdered two grotesques. The plaguebearers did not even kill one.
My grots got to swing back, and hitting on twos, wounding on twos really smacked the crap out of them! He had maybe ten left after it was over to swing back, and they ganked one or two.
After leadership, my grots were down to 4.
Let that sink in for a bit. Because of the vexator mask, my 6+, 6++ save grots lived through 30 letters, 2 princes and 30 plaguebearer attacks.

My turn saw the grots leave combat, and my gunships wiping the letters off the field. One of the princes that attacked was his warlord, and I was able to fly 17" and make him the closest target to a raider, filled with 2 warrior squads which took him to 1 wound, and the ol torment grenade finished him off.

The game only made three turns, and his obsec troops made winning difficult.
At the end, he had the cultists (all 3 squads) the scorpius, the plague bearers and two demon princes, one on 1 wound left.
I had 4 grots, all my characters, 2 raiders, all my ravagers, my reaper and a smattering of warriors.
When the points were totaled up, I lost by 3.
Sucks to lose, but I still made enough points from this game to stay in contention, and play in the top 10.

next game:
Adeptus Astares, or whatever the hell those super powered mega jetbike armies are called!

For #3 you mention turtling (paraphrased). With an 8" move and ability to reroll runs, an Archon is pretty quick. How static do people use them? I've kept that part of my fire base together, but they are always moving.

The Vexator does sound cool.

I'm really interested in hearing if there is pushback against your comments on Writ of the Living Muse.

It struck me that way (too static and all in one spot) reading the rule at first, but it is a fairly powerful boost, and without doing that I struggle to see the Archon(s) as much other than a tax. I haven't had much game time post Codex, so curious to know if anyone vehemently disagrees.

I really like your thinking. I'm gonna have to try the vexator again with more grotesques as you suggest. On paper it looks very good as a core against many armies.

I agree the muse is a more situational pick. As the person above me points out the archons are fast. For me however it's more about not putting all your ranged fire in one basket. If I'm against a fast cc deepstriking enemy I don't always take the muse so I can spread my ravagers across the field.

Sent from Topic'it App

Myrvn wrote:

With an 8" move and ability to reroll runs, an Archon is pretty quick. How static do people use them?

I agree the archon can move around, but the real detriment, in my opinion, is that for the writ to be used to full efficiency, you have to keep all your ravagers/reapers etc within 6" of a single model. Even if that "ball of death" can move 14" a turn, it is still a giant clump that your opponent WILL be focusing on, rather than 3 units spread across the board, weakening his counter fire abilities.

Pretty much an "all your eggs in one basket" scenario. Too easy to multi charge, too easy to avoid, too easy to counter deploy against.

That being said, I still would spend a CP to get it if I had extra, even if it is helping a single ravager.
With the mobility of the ravagers, you can start spread out, then as the game progresses, move together for a finishing blow.

But an Auto-take? No.

GreyArea wrote:

For me however it's more about not putting all your ranged fire in one basket. If I'm against a fast cc deepstriking enemy I don't always take the muse so I can spread my ravagers across the field.

Exactly!

Ok, game 4- Adeptes Custodes
I think... not sure.

So in the morning, when the pairings went up, some friends told me I was facing a very tough opponent with a small but brutal army. In fact, they were saying how his units were resilient, powerful and fast.

Oh, and every thing had a 2+ save, with either a 3+ or 4+ ward save on top of it.
oh, and they hit on 2's in both hth and shooting

Great...

So, my opponent shows up and  has (from memory)
2 bike captains- with 3++ saves, 6 attacks, and 12 shots at 12" 6 at 24".
3 units of 3 bikes
3 units of 3 guys on foot (1 had 4 men)
2 captains on foot.
Some guys on foot had spears, others had swords.. in talking with my opponent, I figured his real damage was in HTH, not shooting, though 36 shots from each bike squad was not a joke.

Standard deployment
He had two bike squads with 2 captains on my left, 2 warrior squads with 2 captains in the middle, and 1 bike and 1 foot squad on my right.

I deployed across my back edge, to use my greater range for a free round of shooting before he was on me.  My grots were in the middle, and placed up at 12" to try and tempt him into either charging at them or shooting them.

Of course, I did not go first.

he moved up, and unloaded on the grots with almost his entire army.

Hitting on 2's, wounding on 5's, 4++ save with a 6+++ FNP meant I lost 1 grot.
that was it.

My turn. I moved what i could to the left, ignored his foot troops and unloaded on his bike unit #1.
After my shooting, one bike unit on my left was dead, another lost 1 model, and the bike unit on the right lost 1 model as well.

My charges saw the grots finish off the bike unit on the left.

His turn 2, he shot and charged the grots with 2 captains. He killed 1 grot, i killed 1 captain.
His bike squad on my right charged my raider, and dropped it.
4 wracks and 5 warriors lived through the destruction of their ride.

My turn 2. I disengaged the grots to go help on the right side of the board, as his foot troops would charge next turn.  I shot the left side of my board clean.  It was looking very grim for my opponent.
More than half his army was destroyed, and I lost 2 grots, a raider and a single wrack.

His turn 3, he charged in to try and hurt the grots, but it was a losing battle. His bike squad wiped the wracks and warriors that fell out the turn before.

My turn 3, I shot everything off the board that was not in combat. At this point, he reached over, shook my hand and conceded.

Afterthoughts:
Well, that went better than expected.  Dark Eldar have always excelled against small, elite armies, and this edition seems to continue that trend. By staying back out of range the first turn, i was able to get a full turn of shooting without worrying about losing my gunboats.

So pretty much, against Custodes, just move and shoot. Engage with grots, fall back and shoot some more!  They can be nasty, but we have the tools to counter.

Best of the game: ravagers
Worst of the game: Wracks I guess?

Next game: Aeldari

Custodes?

This is a fun report to read. Thanks.

Sounds like an Adeptus Custodes Army.

Regarding Rule #1 - How can you be so sure, when your lists don't actually include them? Have you playtested them in other tourney environments to confirm this? I haven't really either, so I'm just asking how you can be so certain of this.

Otherwise, I agree about Prophets of Flesh Grots. I recently played my first game with the new codex, and used them to great effect.

krayd wrote:

Sounds like an Adeptus Custodes Army.

Regarding Rule #1 - How can you be so sure, when your lists don't actually include them? Have you playtested them in other tourney environments to confirm this? I haven't really either, so I'm just asking how you can be so certain of this..

Yes! that was it... Custodes. I will ammend the report. Thanks!

As for rule #1- I playtested them extensively.
I fought:
Nids
Ultramarines
Blood Angels
necrons
Guard
3 shadowsword Guard
Eldar
Yannari

all with wyches in the list. I tried 20 man blobs, I tried 5 man in venoms, 2 5 man in raiders, tried deepstriking, 20 man hellion blobs, etc...
I had a lot of fun with them, and they were situationally good, but in tournament play "Situational" is a non-starter. You need solid, dependable choices that are multi functional. Wyches just do not make the cut.

For wyches, in order of potential I have:
Hellions. Hands down, the best of the Wych units, EXCEPT for they do not have a reliable delivery system. they drop in, fail a charge and die. they move up the field, hugging cover, and they die. If they do make contact, they erase whatever they hit. I loved using them against flyers. But, sadly, getting them there alive is a crap shoot.

Wyches. they are a solid troop choice, but come with a transport or CP tax to try to keep them alive (see a trend yet?) With certain wych weapons they can be effective against some kind of troops, but not all.

Reavers. Any opponent that sets up critical units in charge range of these are not the norm. they are the exception. reavers fly out, and get ganked. If they do make combat, they are armed with Pool Noodles and whiffle ball bats. they still are not worth the points they cost, and are again, situational at best.

That being said, I will change my list in an instant if the new Webway Portal terrain Piece lets me move and assault out of it. If you deploy it centrally, 20 hellions, reavers or wyches will come out of it and mess up someones day! Until then, however, my wych units will stay on the sidelines.

Again, all posted above is my opinion, and your mileage may vary.

Game 5- Aeldari
So, I headed into the last game and fought an army I had not seen since 7th...
An Eldar Wraithlord / Wraithknight spam list.

He Had:
Farseer
Wraithknight with shield/ big gun and lots of little guns
Wraithknight with TWO big guns and lots of little guns
4 Wraithlords with Scatter lasers
2-3 units of wraithguard

Looking at his list, i was honestly wondering how he was doing so well. True, Knights were pretty brutal, especially when fortuned and guided, and lords were tough... But I did not know the true strength of the list until later.

Hammer and Anvil- he set up everything except 1 unit of wraithguard to webway in. I set up acros from him, and got ready to be shot at.

Of course, he went first.

He jumped out with both knights, kept a lord on an objective and pretty much had a wall of big, nasty death heading right for me.
Psychic saw me deny his fortune, causing a 3 wound perils which he failed one, wounding his farseer. That was huge.
He started to shoot, but I made the reaper -1 to hit, which saved it, but it did drop to 5 wounds. His other shots wounded a raider.

Mu turn 1-
I targeted the un-fortuned dual gun wielding wraithknight and wiped it from the board. The lances and blasters were huge in that, as if they wounded, he got no save, just took D6 damage.
My other shooting dropped a warithlord and 1 wraithguard.
I decided not to charge with the grots, but set up my characters that were screned by them (the grotesques encircled them to be honest) to be able to counter charge.

Turn 2- I popped a "+1 PFP" on my grots so they hit on 2's. I know what is coming!
he dropped his guard in behind me to shoot my reaper, his wraithknight moved up, and he started shooting. -1 to hit saved the reaper, making ALL but 1 wraithguard shots miss! (he rolled a 2, and 3 threes!). I 5++ the shot that did hit. His other shooting dropped a raider that had 2 wrack units in it. a wraithlord was close enough to charge them. (my plan all along actually)

So he charged a wraithlord at both units of wracks, the wraithknight at my grots, and a unit of wraithguard at them as well.

Here is where I learned how this army was beating peoples faces in.
He explained that his wraithknight (4 attacks) when it uses it's titanic feet attacks increases it to 12 attacks. Ok, i knew that. No biggie. I DID NOT know he had a relic which DOUBLES his attacks.
Ok, so 24 attacks! Wow! but wait... theres more....
he also was able to make it so every "6" he rolled to wound would generate 3 more attacks! on average, that would be like 32-36 attacks!

And he had 2 knights! Luckily, I killed one, but man, that was nasty!

So i politely informed him that due to the VEXATOR MASK (patent pending) his wraithknight would be swinging last.
My opponent was not happy, but his knight was as tough as nails with a 3+ save at toughness 8.

So his wraithguard went, and did nothing. His wraithlord never got past the 4++ my wracks had, and my wracks killed it in return. (22 attacks wounding on 4's will do that.)

I made it so my grots rerolled failed wounds, and beat his wraithknight down to 1 wound! I could not kill it!
He attacked back, but his to hit rolls were on 5's, and my 4++ saved most of the damage. i think he killed 1-2 grots.

My turn, i started shooting everything off the board. When i was done, he had 1 wraithlord and a 1 wound wraithknight left. He conceeded before the hand to hand phase.

Max Points, good guys!

Ok. I hope, if anything, i may have convinced one or two of you that the Vexator mask is a must-take if you are running grots. It is truly the most game changing item in our entire codex EXCEPT for Agents of vect, but it is darn close!

best of the game: need I say it?
Worst of the game: Not a single unit I had did not kill something, make its points back or impress me. If I am forced to pick one, it would be the Hamei with the electrocorosive whip, only because it was in combat with a wraithknight, so only wounded on 6's. But, he was wearing the mask, so.... no bad units!


When all was said and done, I was fifth overall in points.
Drukari, Fifth out of 80 in an 80 player GT.

It's good to be back boys!


P.S.- I did make some changes to my list after this event. I found a few tweaks, and I think it made my list even stronger. I did drop the reaper simply because it is not mobile. Having a -1 to hit if I move seems so anti-Dark Eldar to me. Hope you guys learn from my stupid mistake (and agents of vect if they try to change psychic powers!) and can use this to flesh out your lists or whatever.
thanks!
-Lance

Nice. Congrats on your high placing and thanks for detailing these. Your list has a lot of similarities with the one I've been putting together so it's useful to know.

Would you say the small units of Wracks pulled their weight for the most part? I've been toying with the idea of having a few of them on foot with a Haemy nearby rather than in Raiders to fill out a Prophets battalion but I don't know how well they'd perform that way.

Skulnbonz wrote:

Here is where I learned how this army was beating peoples faces in.
He explained that his wraithknight (4 attacks) when it uses it's titanic feet attacks increases it to 12 attacks. Ok, i knew that. No biggie. I DID NOT know he had a relic which DOUBLES his attacks.
Ok, so 24 attacks! Wow!  but wait... theres more....
he also was able to make it so every "6" he rolled to wound would generate 3 more attacks! on average, that would be like 32-36 attacks!

I'm trying to figure out what was happening here. Titanic Feet triples the Wraithknight's attacks, the Psytronome relic doubles its attacks again - but what gave the exploding attacks on 6s?

Pretty nasty interaction, at least.

Burnage wrote:

I'm trying to figure out what was happening here. Titanic Feet triples the Wraithknight's attacks, the Psytronome relic doubles its attacks again - but what gave the exploding attacks on 6s?

I don't remember what he called it.. it allowed "another attack with the same weapon", and since the weapon was titanic feet which turned into 3 attacks, every 6 became 3 extra attacks.

Skulnbonz wrote:

Burnage wrote:

I'm trying to figure out what was happening here. Titanic Feet triples the Wraithknight's attacks, the Psytronome relic doubles its attacks again - but what gave the exploding attacks on 6s?

I don't remember what he called it.. it allowed "another attack with the same weapon", and since the weapon was titanic feet which turned into 3 attacks, every 6 became 3 extra attacks.

Ah, maybe the Supreme Disdain stratagem?

Myrvn wrote:

For #3 you mention turtling (paraphrased). With an 8" move and ability to reroll runs, an Archon is pretty quick. How static do people use them? I've kept that part of my fire base together, but they are always moving.
.

Also with the pgl on the archon you can use fire and fade for another 7" move. So 8+ d6 +7 gives you a lot of distance to keep mobile of needed

colinsherlow wrote:

Also with the pgl on the archon you can use fire and fade for another 7" move.  So 8+ d6 +7 gives you a lot of distance to keep mobile of needed

true, but spending a command point every turn to stay mobile is not the best use we can make of our stratagems.

That also depends on a unit being in range to shoot... Which could be a problem for a back field buff character.

I am planning on tinkering with other Obsessions, but keeping the Warlord in the back with one or two Ravagers could still be handy for the reroll to hit. In a Battalion you can have one in the front and one in the rear for a decent amount of board coverage. And depending on the opponent, you could split off either the Disintegrators or Dark Lance carrying Ravagers to play solo.

Skulnbonz wrote:

colinsherlow wrote:

Also with the pgl on the archon you can use fire and fade for another 7" move.  So 8+ d6 +7 gives you a lot of distance to keep mobile of needed

true, but spending a command point every turn to stay mobile is not the best use we can make of our stratagems.

I get that. You don't always want to spend the CP, but it is a good option when you need to rip across the board. That's all. Not arguing the the muse is a needed piece of wargear. It can make you more static for sure. I don't always feel the need to have all the ravagers or whatever in the bubble. But having it there even if it is just a few times a game can make a big difference.

And the mask is great for the right units for sure. It's so good.

colinsherlow wrote:

Myrvn wrote:

For #3 you mention turtling (paraphrased). With an 8" move and ability to reroll runs, an Archon is pretty quick. How static do people use them? I've kept that part of my fire base together, but they are always moving.
.

Also with the pgl on the archon you can use fire and fade for another 7" move.  So 8+ d6 +7 gives you a lot of distance to keep mobile of needed

Except an Archon can't actually take a PGL. Sybarites can, as can Hekatrixes, but not our HQs.