Fielding your HQ

I am relatively new to playing Drukhari and I find that fielding HQ's isn 't as simple as in a SM army for example. So i would love to hear how you guys play your HQ's. Anything from gear load out to which transport etc.
Thanks in advance

My playstyle primarily involves highly mobile ranged attackers.

Our HQs don't fit into that playstyle at all, so I've resorted to keeping my Archons as cheap as possible (Splinter Pistol, Venom Blade, maybe a PGL) and either dumping them on an objective for the whole game or getting them to tag along behind a Ravager for the reroll aura.

Sometimes I'll straight up use them as a distraction tactic by just sticking one in a vulnerable position. I've found that a lot of opponents will sacrifice their own positioning to take out a character, even when it's nowhere near the biggest threat to them.

You can stick them into raiders with blasters, where they help the unit’s damage output (basically function as the heavy weapon gunner they replace). Then you have the option of disembarking for all the rerolls in shooting (and assault).

For the Archon, walking is often the best option. He's usually going to get more value giving Ravagers etc the re-roll than he is in combat. This is especially true for Black Heart Archons with their special trait and relic, as they really want to be on the battlefield from the get go. If you're going for Djinn Blade, I'd run him in a Raider with some kind of bodyguard - Wyches are the most cost effective, but Incubi and Court are not terrible options. Also, always give him a Blaster using the index wargear options, it'll make its points.

For Succubi, either throw them in a Raider with some Wyches or give her Hypex and run up the field if you'd rather your Wyches get access to 3 Wych Weapons/you have no Wyches. Either is fine. For their equipment, run them with Splinter or Blast Pistol as your offhand. The Agoniser is only worth it if you give her the Triptych Whip relic.

Your Haemonculus definitely wants to be on the ground with your coven units for the +1 toughness bubble. Can't go wrong there. He's best with an Electrocorrosive Whip, it's a great weapon I wish the other two HQs got access to.

In my pure Kabal list I've found that 2 blaster + agoniser Archons with 3 Sslyth in a Venom makes a decent toolbox unit while my writ Archon stands with the Ravagers as they do.

In my Kabal/Coven list I put the blaster Archons in a Raider with a 5-man Kabalite Warrior squad instead. Urien and my standard Haemonculus are usually in the center of a big blob of Wracks, Grotesques and Talos.

Always give your first Succubus a relic weapon, the jump in damage output is massive. Blood Glaive is best if you have a Red Grief succubus, Triptych Whip otherwise.

Succubi beyond the first are mostly just distraction and lock-down units, lacking much stopping power. Remember they can take wych weapons: a Shardnet+Impaler means she can lock an infantry unit in combat forever just by herself... at least until they beat her to death. T3 with 5 wounds only goes so far.

This is probably mentioned somewhere already,. but just for clarification, can I use Index units for matched play along side Codex units?
Also when you guys field your archon in the back with a ravager or 2 what do you protect them with?

And thanks for the answers

You technically CAN field blasters on your Archons through some flow chart that exists somewhere that GW made.

I'm not into it though. I've got no judgement for those that do, but I don't want to remodel/repaint my archons to have them in the first place, and I certainly don't want to break them up if (when) GW changes their mind on that.

The big reason I have a slight preference for fielding Grotesques as four-man units stuffed into a Raider is that it makes a decent place to stick our goddamn Archons. The alternative is to stick them in a venom with a Lhamaean airbag. Or throw your hands up and take the heel-toe express.

1 Archon at foot with 3 Ravagers.
Other Archons/Succubus/Haemonculi on foot with Talos, Grots, 20 Wyches etc.

Otherwise, I switch a Venom with a Raider sticking them with a 5-7 men size unit.

Dropping one guy from your Kabalite squad to fit an Archon in there is not that catastrophic. Yeah you lose the splinter cannon, but it doesn’t benefit from the racks anyway.

withershadow wrote:

Dropping one guy from your Kabalite squad to fit an Archon in there is not that catastrophic. Yeah you lose the splinter cannon, but it doesn’t benefit from the racks anyway.

If I was doing this, I'd prefer to just put him with a 5-man squad (rather than a 9-man squad).

I've found I try and fit in a combat escort for my archon in pretty much all my lists now. I'd like to use incubi since they don't suffer from being a 7-8 man unit which leaves room for characters, but wyches are so much cheaper so I've so far been using an 8 man wych unit with a succubus and an archon. Since my archon is a real melee monster with the djinn blade it's good from him to have that escort.

Other way I run characters is dirt cheap just as buffers, since it's a bit much to find 3-4 spots for characters in raiders. One just chills on foot backfield with a venom blade by my ravagers.

withershadow wrote:

Dropping one guy from your Kabalite squad to fit an Archon in there is not that catastrophic. Yeah you lose the splinter cannon, but it doesn’t benefit from the racks anyway.

You also lose out on the option for a 2nd blaster, right?

You do, that's a deal breaker for me, I want the full amount of special weapons for all kabalites. Sure you could make up the firepower by taking a blaster archon, but I've cleanly moved on from the index and no longer use any of those options.

in my last game, I ran two archons with blasters in a 7 man unit with a blaster (no particular reason for 7, just what the points worked out for) one with a husk blade. I feel really weird about D.E. Characters right now, they are very fragile, since you can't reroll that shadowfield (which I think is kinda stupid lol, you can reroll 2+ armor saves, and 3+ invul saves) But they can do a lot of damage...and if your rolls are lucky, you can take a lot... my first game today I lost my warlords shadowfield to overwatch, then got punched to death by guardsmen...but on the other hand, my archons in the last game probably made about 14 shadowfield saves together...

I think wracks, grotesques, and Incubi all make good units with which hide characters. It's not really important for any of them to be taken in units of multiples of 5 so stuffing a character in the raider with them works.

I still want to try using Mandrakes as an escort for my Archon.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I still want to try using Mandrakes as an escort for my Archon.

I am curious how this will work too, Mandrakes in Raiders seems really good.

withershadow wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

I still want to try using Mandrakes as an escort for my Archon.

I am curious how this will work too, Mandrakes in Raiders seems really good.

They also have the same range as an Archon with a Blaster or the Soul Seeker.

I kinda wish you could take them in units of 4, though. That way I could put them in a Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons and everything would have an 18" range.

I think blasters are almost always a good purchase on an Archon if you intend them to do more than babysit Ravagers. With a 2+ to hit (re-rolling 1s on foot), they make their points back pretty reliably.

I'm curious about mandrakes as a character escort in a raider, but hesitant to do that given it's a bummer to give up free deep strike.

I play smaller games as Flayed Skull so I footslog or deep strike my Archon and use him as a character assassin,

Give him a blast pistol, huskblade and obsidian veil and he can take on most Warlords in 1 to 1 cqc. As he's my only character as well, I give him famed savagery for that extra damage

withershadow wrote:

I think blasters are almost always a good purchase on an Archon if you intend them to do more than babysit Ravagers.  With a 2+ to hit (re-rolling 1s on foot), they make their points back pretty reliably.

I just wish they'd been kept as codex options.

I try to avoid using index-only stuff where possible.

In my 2k point army my warlord archon stays at the back line to prevent the enemy from killing it. Also the re-roll aura is nice.

The other archon, succubus and haemi walk up the board behind my talos unit. Once they make it into CC they are not that bad. And if they die, I don't care, because they are not crucial to my strategy.

And such an accumulation of HQs nearly guarantees the enemies attention. Sometimes they are too greedy and make errors you can exploit. And with this amount of invuls our HQs are a little tankier than they look.