Archon Tactics

I am returning to 40k after a long absence and I am new to dark eldar. I know it is important to understand what each unit is meant to do to maximize its points cost in game.

My untested army is:
A black heart spearhead with ravagers and I plan to bring in venoms for my obsidian rose battalion kabalites to give the vehicles the 6+ inured to suffering.

An obsidian rose battalion with many 5 man units of kabalites with blasters.

I am leaning towards red grief as either a second battalion or an outrider detachment.



My black heart Archon will baby sit the ravagers to give them his aura buffs.

That leaves me with 2 obsidian rose Archons with reroll 1 auras that wont be affecting the kabalites inside the venoms.

With the index I can give them blasters and keep them out of close combat and with the rest of the gun line to a degree.

Should my kabalites be jumping in and out of the venoms to get the reroll 1 aura from my Archons who run after the venoms?
Even with the Blaster my Archons get melee weapons, should they shoot for a bit but eventually run in when my wyches have soaked up the over watch?

Looks like wyches are good for pinning enemies but not necessarily killing. The Archon could be a good finishing blow.

Your Kabals can jump out, but the re-rolls wont be doing much for them, you jump them out to have more units on the table,, screens, objectives, movement blocking, etc.. But if you dont need those then for sure keep them in the venoms.

Honestly, use the other 2 Archons as Tactical Knife, just run them up and fight small units, units with 5mans/1 attacks that wont break your Shadowfield and just harass units, my spare archons always get in the opponents ways and they are force to deal with them.

I also have a Lhamaean near, yeah its 15pts, but the idea of doing MW's and another character to Heroic, or charge to tie up, or just take wounds to keep you in battle is neat. IDK if its worth 15pts, but its really fun.

amishprn86 wrote:

I also have a Lhamaean near, yeah its 15pts, but the idea of doing MW's and another character to Heroic, or charge to tie up, or just take wounds to keep you in battle is neat. IDK if its worth 15pts, but its really fun.

Courtiers are no longer characters, so they don't have access to heroic intervention anymore. However that change allows them to shield the Archon from enemy fire.

Back on topic, I am also a Lhamaean lover, I have so much fun playing them too.
I have 5 of them. I enjoy fielding a big court of several Archons escorted by Lhamaeans. When buffed by both their proximity with an Archon and the Poisoned Tongue obsession, a group of Lhamaeans can deal an unholy amount of damage thanks to mortal wounds.
I had a game recently in which my friend's WarLord, a Terminator Chaos Lord (8 wounds), was killed in a single turn as he made the mistake of letting him be approached by my 5 poison ladies. I remember the look on my friend's face when I rolled the dice and said : "Ok, so that'll be 6 mortal wounds, and then 10 wounds for you to save"

Karr4x wrote:

amishprn86 wrote:

I also have a Lhamaean near, yeah its 15pts, but the idea of doing MW's and another character to Heroic, or charge to tie up, or just take wounds to keep you in battle is neat. IDK if its worth 15pts, but its really fun.

Courtiers are no longer characters, so they don't have access to heroic intervention anymore. However that change allows them to shield the Archon from enemy fire.

Back on topic, I am also a Lhamaean lover, I have so much fun playing them too.
I have 5 of them. I enjoy fielding a big court of several Archons escorted by Lhamaeans. When buffed by both their proximity with an Archon and the Poisoned Tongue obsession, a group of Lhamaeans can deal an unholy amount of damage thanks to mortal wounds.
I had a game recently in which my friend's WarLord, a Terminator Chaos Lord (8 wounds), was killed in a single turn as he made the mistake of letting him be approached by my 5 poison ladies. I remember the look on my friend's face when I rolled the dice and said : "Ok, so that'll be 6 mortal wounds, and then 10 wounds for you to save"

Yeah, always forget that no longer characters.

Never keep him sit for babysitting Ravagers. Even with that role, you can move him for fight.
His weight is gold if you keep moving him, making him a threat for is melee profile.

And a tip: Hatred Eternal is always better than Famed Savagery, and it's interesting to think about a BlastPistol with it (you get rerolls to wound even in shooting).
Of course if Index is accepted, PGL+Blaster is nearly mandatory with HE.

I be honest I haddn't really considered the court too much. When I had I was putting Sslyth in the role of the Lhamaean to soak up wounds.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the Lhamaeans. I turned one into my second obsidian rose archon so I could promote some gender and figure diversity for my archons. They also look to have more kill potential then the Sslyth.

I will defiantly take them if I go poisoned tongue.

Sounds like I should take some court so the Archon is not going in alone. Thanks for that tip.

Are the court units subject to the rule of 3?

SK-84 wrote:

I be honest I haddn't really considered the court too much. When I had I was putting Sslyth in the role of the Lhamaean to soak up wounds.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of the Lhamaeans. I turned one into my second obsidian rose archon so I could promote some gender and figure diversity for my archons. They also look to have more kill potential then the Sslyth.

I will defiantly take them if I go poisoned tongue.

Sounds like I should take some court so the Archon is not going in alone. Thanks for that tip.

Are the court units subject to the rule of 3?

Yes they are Ro3 even tho our codex says 4, but remember its per detachment, so you could take 4 in a 4k game (Ro3 is actually just limited to 3 in 2k, its Ro2 in 2k and Ro4 for 3k+)

But the Ro3 only applies to each datasheet for each court, so you can have 3 Lhamaeans and 1 Sslyth in the detachment, and up to 2 more Sslyths and other 2 in another detachment.

When I put an Archon in a venom, then a lhamean always goes in with him, if nothing else, to take the hit if the venom gets shot out from under them, and I roll a one in my passenger survival rolls.

I love the Djinn blade archon, especially with the hatred eternal trait and a blast pistol. Absolutely tears through anything that's not overly tough and a solid combatant compared to many mid-level characters. I usually run him in a raider with witches, nice to have them tie up whatever he's fighting with a shardnet&impaler. I know it's not optimal but I really want to replace the wytches with some incubi just because it would look awesome to have an archon wading into the middle of a melee escorted by some incubi.

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Archon escorted by incubi does paint a nice picture.

Especially if you have the 7th edition archon model with the incubi helmet.

Fits the fluff for incubi body guards as well.

Try not to put too much weight/expectation on your noble archon. Generally sitting around 80 pts, the archon is cheap enough to be ignored, but good enough to do damage. If the enemy chooses to target the archon, he/she is probably dead.

I like to run mine with just an agonizer, or if its a larger game, blast pistol and djin blade. One sits in a blob of venoms spinkled with ravager/raiders while the second goes with the blob of coven units monster-mashing up the middle of the board.

They can help add 3-4 wounds into a combat, or take out a shooty IC who is out in the wind (took out a tau Coldstar last weekend). But you always need a few units to hide behind. I like transports (filled with troops), or blobs of coven units.

My Overlord/Warlord has a designated role as a cheap buff aura and CP regenerator, but I use my Dracon as a swiss army knife and run him behind a screen of Razorwing Flocks or in between jets/vehicles with a Blaster and PGL. He is usually among the last to shoot so I can use Torment Grenade to knock off a straggler vehicle or tough unit if need be, and put the BS2+/Re-Roll 1s to Hit Blaster to fine use.

The Dracon deploys in a Raider with a 5 strong Kabalite squad and almost always hops out turn 1 to just float behind a screen and then threaten or harrow units if they're weak enough to be bullied by him. Since he's not in a rush to get anywhere this also makes him a good candidate for Helm of Spite. I've been trying a Huskblade, I can afford the extra 4pts over a Venom Blade, but usually the Dracon isn't getting into the thick of it.