Quad Deep Strike

So in the Ynnari thread, there was some discussion of using Ynnari and other Eldar detachments to deep strike a total of 4 of the same unit. (Full Wych bands were the ones proposed, for a total of 80 wyches across 4 units)

Is that the only viable unit for use with this strategy? I remember using old Webway Portals to drop in an Archon with a full band of twenty Kabalites. Could 80 kabalite warriors (with full complements of either blasters or shredders) be an option?

Scourges and Hellions have also jumped out at me as possible choices.

Wyches are the interesting choice since they're troops and can effectively ignore morale. Hellions might also be able to do this too. 80 kabalites is tempting but I'd have to take something for them to ignore morale.

One restriction I'll point out is the rule of 3, so anything non troops you can only take 3 of, even if 2 are ynnari.

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Good point.

Sean Nayden was talking about doing this in between trying to steal Nick Brown's thunder and simultaneously screwing over the entire ETC roster. We'll see how that plays out for him I guess.

Well, snark aside, it seems like it might have some viability.

I'm seriously considering running 60 Hellions this way across two detachments (cult/ynnari). They'd have charge rerolls by turn 2, and if you can kill something on the drop, you can pop the Yncarne over, who would buff up the Ynnari squads with Fearless and potentially a 5++ save as well.

+1 S would not go amiss on them with the Combat Drugs, either. Add the Cursed Blade obsession to the cult detachment and you're looking at hitting with S6 in melee on the cult hellions.

I wouldn't use the +1S on them personally. I'd mix the +2 movement and the +1T. +2 movement on 2 units, to try the fly-by stratagem and boost resistance on the others. Tactical use of the double-dose stratagem to soak more hit, if needed.

Ooh, snap. That IS brutal.

I want Hellions to actually have a place in competitive play as much as the next guys but to be fair, since you deep strike in, you can't really use that mortal wound strat on the turn you show up.

And being that they're either T3 or T4 with a 5+/5++ even lasguns will melt them. I don't think you can double dose a unit that isn't on the board, right? So if you go first, you can't double dose them before your opponent hoses them, though you can bring them in if you go second, and then double dose at the start of the next battle round.

If you can pull off some hostage taking shenanigans, that extends their lifespan, of course, but getting the 9+ charge to do that is tough, even with a re-roll for your charges.



I also feel that putting so many models in deepstrike is risky because some armies, especially armies that go, might just blow you off the board in two turns since you have far fewer units to begin with, or do enough damage to you in one go that your reserves aren't enough to turn the tide.

Screening melee deep strikers is usually quite straight forward as well. I think a blocks of 20 Wyches potentially in deepstrike is fine - it doesn't chew through lots of points or CP - but 80 is just asking for trouble haha.

If I've got them coming in on Turn 2, I think I can keep the rest of my army alive until then. Shouldn't be too difficult.

I realize that the hellions are a little butt-in-the-breeze, but that's the risk with pretty much everything. That's the whole reason to drop in MORE than 1 unit. 20 might get blown away for sure, but 60? They're going to come in with 120 shots, and if they're between 9-10" of an enemy unit, they're looking at roughly 48% chance (each) of making a successful charge. Across three units, you're probably going to tie a few up in melee, and then you're hitting like a dump truck.

I really want hellions to work, I have tried multiple times to get them to do well, but it just hasn't really worked out for me a single time. Their pts cost for t3 +5 save is just too rough, I very rarely ever have them reach melee. Sure you could try the deep strike idea and just take 60 so you can't have them all blown off the board in one turn, but that's a lot of pts, you're list is probably going to suffer in other places if you dumb that many pts into hellions, and as others have mentioned deep strike charges just aren't reliable. Sure, maybe one unit will make their charge but the other two are kinda wasted if they don't make it. When it comes down to it, I'd be much more ok with dumping that many pts into deep striking wyches.

Yeah, fundamentally the issue with Hellions is that they're not worth 14 points a model with their current rules. Particularly if you're deep striking them, basic Wyches are going to do similar or more damage against most targets at a literal fraction of the cost.

Lord Asvaldir wrote:

I really want hellions to work, I have tried multiple times to get them to do well, but it just hasn't really worked out for me a single time. Their pts cost for t3 +5 save is just too rough, I very rarely ever have them reach melee. Sure you could try the deep strike idea and just take 60 so you can't have them all blown off the board in one turn, but that's a lot of pts, you're list is probably going to suffer in other places if you dumb that many pts into hellions, and as others have mentioned deep strike charges just aren't reliable. Sure, maybe one unit will make their charge but the other two are kinda wasted if they don't make it. When it comes down to it, I'd be much more ok with dumping that many pts into deep striking wyches.

I've had similar problems with them in the past, but I've never tried them with the Yncarne/Yvraine giving them an invulnerable save before. I also think they have a huge advantage over the wyches in that the shooting they produce on the drop is considerably better than what the wyches can produce.

Burnage wrote:

Yeah, fundamentally the issue with Hellions is that they're not worth 14 points a model with their current rules. Particularly if you're deep striking them, basic Wyches are going to do similar or more damage against most targets at a literal fraction of the cost.

For 6 less points, wyches get one more attack. Hellions get twice the shooting at half again the range. They also get access to the flyby attack strategy, attack at +1 S, and literally do double the damage.



Like, I see what you're both getting at, (and I've tried hellions several times in 8e with some pretty dramatic failures to show for it) but I think the Webway (and backing them up with psychic support) makes up for a bunch of their shortcomings, wouldn't it?

I mean, don't get me wrong, it's sinking a lot of points into three units (840). But it seems like it's a little left-field, which is a critical component of wrong-footing an opponent. Maybe a different unit might work better.

I mean, you can compare the expected damage against common targets.

Against GEQ, 20 Wyches with their base loadouts do 18 wounds, 20 Hellions do 21. Against MEQ, it's 7 for Wychs and 9 for Hellions. It's really only against multi-wound models like Primaris that you'll see a big difference - Hellions will do 13.5 compared to the Wyches still doing 7.

Add in that the 20 Hellions are 120 points more expensive than the Wyches, that the Wyches are more durable once they're in combat, and that the Wyches have the bonus utility of No Escape and it just seems to me like Wyches are the better candidate on paper here.

I'm not saying it couldn't work as a strat (and I'd love to be able to run Hellions effectively!), I just think they're not going to be as good at it as Wyches would be.

Coming fresh from a game where I just used the Yncarne Yvraine and Hellions I can safely say the 5++ isnt enough to make them good enough to take imo. My opponent managed to clear them off the board using tac marines and still have enough shooting to clear out a whole bunch of wyches (also benefiting from the 5++). Maybe en mass they could do some work but I got the feeling more wyches would be better with a big blob of Reavers to help with the lockdown (using Ynneads Net since your Cult detachment is cursed blade, affording you another way to advance and charge)

@burnage: Interesting. Is that comparing the shooting and melee both?

@Gizmaluke: Well, en masse is definitely the only way it'd work. One unit, or MSU, would just get shot to pieces. I was definitely thinking either go big or go home.

I still think it would be a struggle and with them being so high value your opponent would be mopping them up, I think as an army we are really quite tough to deal with for things like bolters and using hellions just seems like an Achilles Heel, they've finally got something to aim those vehicle storm bolters at rather than trying to plink wounds off vehicles.

By all means give it a go and report back! I think my next venture will be the Yncarne surrounded by Razorwing flocks, something like
Vanguard Ynnari
Yncarne
Beast Master
10 Incubi
10 Incubi
2×12 Razorwing Flocks

Jimsolo wrote:

@burnage: Interesting. Is that comparing the shooting and melee both?

Yep, that's shooting combined with melee.

When you "combine shooting and melee", just be aware that your shooting might very well make your already difficult charge even more difficult. You'd have to run into a very target rich environment to be in range to empty all 40 of their shots at one unit that poison actually makes sense against, and then charge another unit where no S4 or S5 with no AP actually makes sense against as well.

Orks come to mind, but we already have so many tools against Orks.

Interesting notes. I may have to give it a shot and see how it plays.

Other units that seem like they might have potential with this:

Guardians (Storm guardians?)
Windriders
Kabalite Warriors
Banshees
Scorpions

Regular Guardians are already very strong coming out of Deep Strike, especially Ulthwe Guardians, for their strat and being slightly more durable.

There may be some play in dropping 40 of them and 20 Obsidian Rose Kabalites in Deep Strike.

IIRC Scorpions have their own deep strike rules, so you can quad deep strike other squads as well as bringing them in.

Gizamaluke wrote:

I think my next venture will be the Yncarne surrounded by Razorwing flocks, something like
Vanguard Ynnari
Yncarne
Beast Master
10 Incubi
10 Incubi
2×12 Razorwing Flocks

Could you explain a bit more what's your plan ? Does the Yncarne give some interesting buff to the flocks ? (5+ invul ?)
Also, the incubi seems to be "allies" in a reborn detachment, so my understanding is that they don't benefit from Ynnary buffs unless you pay 2CP to give them the ability strike first or rerolls 1, which is a bit expensive ...

Axmar wrote:

Gizamaluke wrote:

I think my next venture will be the Yncarne surrounded by Razorwing flocks, something like
Vanguard Ynnari
Yncarne
Beast Master
10 Incubi
10 Incubi
2×12 Razorwing Flocks

Could you explain a bit more what's your plan ? Does the Yncarne give some interesting buff to the flocks ? (5+ invul ?)
Also, the incubi seems to be "allies" in a reborn detachment, so my understanding is that they don't benefit from Ynnary buffs unless you pay 2CP to give them the ability strike first or rerolls 1, which is a bit expensive ...

Flocks will get 5++/6+++ and ignore moral, vs Infantry they are good at killing too