Apocalypse Winners + Detachment Building

Howdy Fellow Archons! Its been quite some time from my last post, just wanted to kick off some discussion of detachment building for the new Apocalypse rules, and my personal opinions on which units came out nicely with the new rules. Apologies in advance for any typos or incorrect info, I'm attempting to finish this at 2-3am my time.

To start with: Our Mighty Sslyth
I think, despite the less than stellar offensive power of this chap, coming out at about 36.67% chance to wound personnel while near an archon, his real power shines with the ability to absorb wounds from your Archon. D3 blast markers seems really powerful, especially considering that our Archons only have 1 wound to begin with and an 8+ (3+ shadowfield) save. Krayd, in one of his posts mentioned that Auras can still work with a character being inside a vehicle. So if you choose to not bring a venom (6PL investment) then bring a ssylth to accompany your Ravager boosting Archon (Aim order giving +1 to hit and reroll 1's is going to be amazing), or to keep him save, should you choose to go gun boat Kabal.

Secondly, The Wych Cult Rides Again!!! Reavers + Hellions
Both got some really really nice boosts with these rule sets. Reavers being able to move a total of 40" with an assault order seems crazy awesome, assuming the rest of your detachment can keep up. Hellions get a 14" base move, but with their "Hit and Run" special rule, being able to get out of an engagement and then back in with a double move seems incredibly good too. Both units also boast some pretty scary ranged fire power for anti personnel. They do suffer from bad save values, but thats just classic Dark Eldar Glass Cannon. I love it. I forget if a standard order allows a unit to both shoot and CC attack...but I think that might only be for super heavies...someone will have to correct me.

Next up is Coven: Urien Rakarth, Talos, Grotesques

-Urien. WHERE DO I START. I'm talking same price of a normal Haemonculus, I'm talking 4 special abilities, I'm talking 6+ Save with a 6+ Feel no Pain. AND THIS DUDE DROPS HALF OF THE BLAST MARKERS PUT ON HIM. Literally frowns at death and the Yncarne backs off. Shrugs off small arms fire like it's his breakfast. He makes Wracks almost usable, but where he really shows his stuff is with his Pain Engines and Grotesques.

-Grotesques. I'm gonna keep it real, i need more time to digest what im reading on this datacard, but I like what i'm seeing. I cant tell if the meatclever is supposed to be x2 attacks or if it's actually just a flat "2" for the entire squad. Ignoring that, Taking that 10th model in the unit looks incredibly juicy, needing to take 4 wounds before getting critically damaged. Only Problem I have, is that they have an 8+ save, made into a 7+ with Urien around. They've probably worked their extra survivability into their wounds. 2 wounds on 3 models is crazy good, that's like Custodes level good. The Grotesques have a 7" movement, made into 14" with an advance order, they might not make it across the board on the first turn, but if your opponent wants to critically wound a full squad of them, they're gonna have to get around 8 blast markers on them to actually do so. That's a lot of fire power needed for just 20 PL's worth.

-Talos. Back with the 'ol 3 Taloi for 1 detachment slot, our chittering pain engines are back for keeps. Although they too have lost their Feel No Pain special rule, they more than make up for it, by acting as individual units with 2 wounds and a 5+ save(4+ with Urien around). Not only does this mean they shrug off 9/12 small blasts, but they're tanking 3/6 of their large blasts as well. That's A LOT of DAMAGE. Really nice selection of options, you can mix and match your talos as you see fit. Whether that's anti armor or anti person, is up to you. Just know that the Chronos got almost shafted yet again, as the reroll 1's to wound aura it gives is even less effective now that the rules use D12 to wound. It's aura is half as effective as it used to be...

Flyers Razorwing Jetfighter, Voidraven Bomber

Flyers. Enough said.

Jokes aside. A pretty hefty investment of ~10 PL into a 2 wound 7+ save flyer. I still have to look up what the supersonic rule does, I'm hoping its at least a -1 to hit. Big points for Big Guns. These bad boys are locked and loaded to the brim. I'm personally a bigger fan of the Voidraven Bomber, but all you get for going bomber instead of fighter is the bombs, and a greater guarantee of damage with the Dark Scythes and Void Lances. Just my preference I guess. Nothing about dual pilots. of course not.

Beasts

Khymerae and Razorwing Flocks didn't stand out to me all that much, nor did the 2PL, 1 wound, 5 leadership beastmaster. What did stand out was these stats: Clawed Fiends Rocking some seriously solid SAP and a boat load of attacks, if I had the money, I'd be running a whole bunch of discount Grotesques like these. Their special ability to ignore being critically wounded is just icing on the cake. Bring Em Big.

Transports
Our Venom gets to feel real special with being the only vehicle we have with a 6+ save. I can see many characters being put into their own personal Venoms to keep them save while also increasing the range of their aura. The real show stopper, might very well be our own very own tried and true Raider. It's cost and weaponry leave much to be desired compared to the 7PL Ravager with triple the fire power. But if I'm correct, and destroyed transports are only removed at the end of a round, we might be looking at some sweet sweet Wych Slingshots. Although our Wyches boast a speedy 9" movement, they still lack the proper survivability to get across the board. This means that putting them into a Raider transport will allow them to survive the first round of shooting, and potentially get them 28" closer from an assault action. again, a reference to Krayd, but he mentioned in another post that disembarking allows only normal movement out of vehicles when disembarking. Make sure to activate detachments accordingly.

Honorable Mentions
I'm dozing off and might have to wake up in 5 hours, so forgive me. I also forgot to upload some of these image for linking in the post, so i'll just mention these here:
-Incubi, Triple Attacks are delicious
-Ravager, our best source of SAT
-Scourges, so many options, i still have to run the math on them. Not sure if 10 PL for 10 deepstriking with Shardcarbines is worth it. 9PL for 4 Haywire shots prbobaly isnt worth it on a 1 wound platform...

thanks for the write up, i'll have to read it later tho sadly.

Some notes re: Barrywise's commentary + a few other notes:

I said that command auras don't require that a warlord be in a vehicle. I'm not sure about other auras. I haven't completely read the rules yet. However, seeing as how command auras work from vehicles, and you still draw command assets for warlords embarked on vehicles as if they are on the board, then it seems possible that standard auras work too.

One thing to note is that if your detachments are composed of 100% Drukhari and meet the other detachment requirements (air wings and patrols have to have at least 3 units, etc), you get Power from Pain, with is a 6+ FNP on all units. So, there are actually a lot more units with access to 6+ FNP than what it appears on the datasheets. It's just that wracks and such get 6+ FNP regardless of the composition of the detachment that they're in.

I mentioned this elsewhere, but disembarking allows no further movement, but it has a 6" range, and you can disembark directly into BtB with enemy units and fight them, assuming you issued an advance or assault order (well, if you issued aimed fire, you wouldn't be able to disembark at all).

Another thing re: covens: there is a Prophets of Flesh command asset that allows you to give a coven unit (or could be detachment - can't remember offhand - don't have the cards with me at the moment) 5+ FNP for one damage phase.

Only superheavies get to fight AND shoot in one turn. The rest have to choose between one or the other, depending on order.

The Agents of Vect command asset is in the 100 card bonus deck that you have to buy separate from the base set. It does what you would expect it to (cancel out another command asset).

Re: The Grotesque profile. So, the cleaver is a straight 2 attacks.. but *every* model in the unit gets one. So, for example, a unit of 6 grotesques, when fighting would get 12 cleaver attacks and 4 gauntlet attacks. When shooting, they would have 6 liquifier attacks.

Supersonic = -1 to hit, and fight actions fail against it, unless the attacking unit has FLY. Another thing to note about flyers is that you no longer have to worry about turning arcs and such, but you still have to make the minimum move distance or the unit is destroyed.

This is making apocalypse more and more appealing to play, I do hope some of these rules trickle down into regular 40k

Addendum: standard auras do NOT work while embarked - just command auras.

It's been a long time, but I'm actually quite excited to play some Apoc.

I'm actually a huge fan of the Archons in general because of their auras.. which is actually quite rare to find in other armies.  The solid 8" move also makes sure they can distribute their auras to a lot of different sources, considering how Aimed Fire gives you +1 to hit so your vehicles can get 2s to hit with re-roll 1s at 36".  This is huge!

The Haemonculi units look great for CC, but I'm not a fan of the Wyches in Apoc.  Lelith, the Succubus and Wyches in general look pretty subpar, especially when compared to the more meaty boys or the ridiculous Harlequins.  Honestly, I would look at Harlequins first thing because 12x Troupe for 18 PL buys you arguably the most powerful CC unit I've seen in the game so far.  No, seriously; they have a -1 to hit base, 6s to save always on any blast marker, 24 attacks that hit on 3s with 6+ for both the SAP and SAT roll.  Plus, they can ignore terrain using their flip belt and assault 18".  I don't know about you guys, but this is what Harlequins should be like in the regular game, and I can see them as our go-to allies in no question if you want some melee.  They're actually insane.  Their characters also get -2 to hit from shooting because they're infantry + Domino Fields, so they can actually make it in CC.  The most powerful thing about Harelquins is that their assault threatens everything in the game.  For perspective, if SAP/SAT 7+ is the baseline, they statisically wound everything in the game better than average than anything else in the game.  For more perspective, the 4 shot Suncannon is also SAP/SAT 6+.  You would be crazy to take Wyches over them IMO, other than for point reasons.

When discussing the Raider vs. the Venom (lol, I feel we do this a lot), I think both have their uses.  For one, SAP and SAT is pretty polarizing in Apoc, meaning that Dark Lances and Dissies are specialist weapons.  If you want infantry dead, Dissies are the way to go and GL wounding anything with just Dissies in the army.  This automatically shoots the value of the Raider higher, other than the fact they have room to carry 10x Kabalites if you want it to, and as others mentioned before, you need 10 to carry a heavy weapon now. There are no more special weapons for smaller squads, so taking them is pretty useless unless you want to put some in a unit.  Btw, I do recommend doing that, simply because 5 Kabalites are 2 points, dirt ass cheap, are troops at the end of the day and so are objsec, and Splinter Rifles are actually really good vs. infantry.  As another poster mentioned, 5+ SAP is a GREAT statistic, especially with Rapid Fire.

With that said, I would always bring Warriors, always in transports, because Open-top and calculating damage after everything is done means they're always safe from getting knocked out of the transport, shot at and killed.  In a way, they're always kind of protected, assuming things don't blow up.  I would just use Venoms as mobile SAP platforms, and Raiders as generalist.  Run 10 Warriors with a Dark Lance in there with a Dark Lance, and all of a sudden you have a 2x 5+ SAT shots at 36" or a 2 5+ SAP shots with Rapid Fire.  Raiders truly do become jack of all trades, which makes them strongly considered compared to the more common Venoms in regular games.  Make sense?

As for fliers, man, I'm excited.  I'm excited because Razorwings are good at 10 PL and you can take them however which way.  Razorwing Missiles are 7+ vs. everything so pretty generic, but Supersonic is a great trait to have and you can't go wrong with either variant because now, Dissies are no longer the jack of all trades.  You have to make trade-offs and once you design the rest of your forces, you should have a good idea of what you want for Razorwing loadout.  The Voidraven is also more defined, and actually has a god damn goal in life now.  First, it has Pulsar level value with SAT 4+ which is really important, or Dark Sycthes are effectively better Dissies.  The Voidraven missiles are the same as Razorwing missiles, but the big kicker for me here is the free Void Mine.  Once per battle, you make a move and an enemy unit you passed within 1" during that move takes 2 dice rolls on a D6, on a 2+ you place a blast marker there.  That means on a good bombing run with 3, you effectively put 2.5 large blast markers on something for free, while you can still shoot things well.  With fliers in general, now that everyone has Wings of Khaine effectively, you can just fly around the backline, hopping from Archon bubble to Archon bubble getting in Pulsar shots.  That's very, very good.

I love me some fliers btw.  I have tons of them, and Asur ones are just as good.  The really funny one is that Crimson Hunter Exarchs are probably one of the most insane tank killers in the game.  A unit of 3 of them, 3x12 for 36 PL, shoots 12 SAT 5+ shots at BS2+, re-rolling 1s because Heavy doesn't mean crap anymore, re-rolling wounds on fliers.  They don't have their ridiculous -2 to hit nonsense anymore, in fact, they don't even have Supersonic, so they can still get shot under them, but they can move, out-range and kill most armor in the game without fail.  For perspective, twin Pulsars (like on the Rev Titan or Scorpion) have 8 shots at SAT4+ if you're shooting at armor, hits on 2s, but don't re-roll.  So yes, you statistically generate more damage vs. armor with a wing of these guys vs. a Titan.  Hemlocks are also pretty decent with 6+ FNP, 3+ SAP auto-hitting or 5+ vs. armor.

The funny part is, I think we might need a quick look at the Raven Strike.  For the Raven Strike, lol, I don't know how bad they messed up here, but if you look at the Dark Lance on this, it's SAT 4+ vs. the regular Dark Lances' 5+.  OK, I guess for the same points as the Voidraven or Razorwing, it's now on the table as a maybe.

Lastly, the Ravagers.  They're good, even better now that they have Archon + Aimed Shot as an order.  They can be repurposed to do whatever you want with their guns, so I would start army list building with 3 every time, and then changing up what you want them to do as you design your list further.  Since you can split fire, you might even think about mixing their armament, which is now a solid option because Dissies no longer do everything.

Barrywise wrote:

-Urien. WHERE DO I START. I'm talking same price of a normal Haemonculus, I'm talking 4 special abilities, I'm talking 6+ Save with a 6+ Feel no Pain. AND THIS DUDE DROPS HALF OF THE BLAST MARKERS PUT ON HIM.

Could you explain this to me because I looked at his datasheet and it just made me scratch my head.

Okay, he can drop half the blast markers on him. But it rounds down. So if he's only got 1 blast marker on him he just keeps it. And unless I'm mistaken, it only takes 1 blast marker to kill him anyway.

Am I missing something here?

HERO wrote:

Lastly, the Ravagers.  They're good, even better now that they have Archon + Aimed Shot as an order.  They can be repurposed to do whatever you want with their guns, so I would start army list building with 3 every time, and then changing up what you want them to do as you design your list further.  Since you can split fire, you might even think about mixing their armament, which is now a solid option because Dissies no longer do everything.

I'm inclined to take a massive ravager spearhead, split between DLs/Dissies (for example, 3 ravagers with DLs, and 3 with Dissies). Rule of 3 doesn't apply to Apoc, so you can take an entire fleet of them.

krayd wrote:

HERO wrote:

Lastly, the Ravagers.  They're good, even better now that they have Archon + Aimed Shot as an order.  They can be repurposed to do whatever you want with their guns, so I would start army list building with 3 every time, and then changing up what you want them to do as you design your list further.  Since you can split fire, you might even think about mixing their armament, which is now a solid option because Dissies no longer do everything.

I'm inclined to take a massive ravager spearhead, split between DLs/Dissies (for example, 3 ravagers with DLs, and 3 with Dissies). Rule of 3 doesn't apply to Apoc, so you can take an entire fleet of them.

Yeah, totally. But I'm trying hard not to be that d00d.

HERO wrote:

krayd wrote:

HERO wrote:

Lastly, the Ravagers.  They're good, even better now that they have Archon + Aimed Shot as an order.  They can be repurposed to do whatever you want with their guns, so I would start army list building with 3 every time, and then changing up what you want them to do as you design your list further.  Since you can split fire, you might even think about mixing their armament, which is now a solid option because Dissies no longer do everything.

I'm inclined to take a massive ravager spearhead, split between DLs/Dissies (for example, 3 ravagers with DLs, and 3 with Dissies). Rule of 3 doesn't apply to Apoc, so you can take an entire fleet of them.

Yeah, totally.  But I'm trying hard not to be that d00d.

What? Its Apoc your supposed to be that dude, i'm taking my 6 Ravagers in 1 detachment for sure

I think talos are crazy survivable, 4+ save with haemonc and 6+++ so I would love to run a mostly talos army. They don't have as many attacks as grotesques, but seriously who does.. but they are very solid. I think the way of the game to play competitively (if there ever exists serious competitive apocalypse) is to build an army to deny your opponent's weapons. Since everything is either anti tank or anti personnel and most hybrids aren't as efficient it would be better to go all heavy army. Think of it in this regard, most squads to equip even 1 anti tank shot costs a PL. Talos can sit and shoot from obejctives, are tough as balls, your opponent will almsot always split weapons inefficiently to deal with them since they are all one model. Just bring venoms and haemoncs to spare. Hell, this kind of army could easily get 10 assets a turn and jeeeeeez that'd be brutal

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Barrywise wrote:

-Urien. WHERE DO I START. I'm talking same price of a normal Haemonculus, I'm talking 4 special abilities, I'm talking 6+ Save with a 6+ Feel no Pain. AND THIS DUDE DROPS HALF OF THE BLAST MARKERS PUT ON HIM.

Could you explain this to me because I looked at his datasheet and it just made me scratch my head.

Okay, he can drop half the blast markers on him. But it rounds down. So if he's only got 1 blast marker on him he just keeps it. And unless I'm mistaken, it only takes 1 blast marker to kill him anyway.

Am I missing something here?

Rounding down means if there's only one blast marker, he loses it. E.g. he has three, divided by 2 = 1.5, then you round down to 1.
The rounding down is very, very good. Add in the 6+++ save on a d12...

HERO wrote:

Yeah, totally.  But I'm trying hard not to be that d00d.

Ha. You won't feel like that d00d when your opponent has multiple knight detachments and a titan or two.

Sarcron wrote:

Rounding down means if there's only one blast marker, he loses it. E.g. he has three, divided by 2 = 1.5, then you round down to 1.

That's literally the opposite of what it says.

It's the number of blast markers you get to remove that's rounded down.

i.e. if there is 1 blast marker on him, you get to remove half of 1, rounded down. So you get to remove 0 blast markers. Meaning he keeps the one he has.

If he has 3 blast markers, then you get to remove 1.5, rounded down. So you remove 1 and he keeps the other two.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Sarcron wrote:

Rounding down means if there's only one blast marker, he loses it. E.g. he has three, divided by 2 = 1.5, then you round down to 1.

That's literally the opposite of what it says.

It's the number of blast markers you get to remove that's rounded down.

i.e. if there is 1 blast marker on him, you get to remove half of 1, rounded down. So you get to remove 0 blast markers. Meaning he keeps the one he has.

If he has 3 blast markers, then you get to remove 1.5, rounded down. So you remove 1 and he keeps the other two.

Ah, I see what you're saying. But from my point of view- because GW normally has things rounding up- I feel that it is rounding down the number left. But hey, I'm probably wrong, it's just one of those things to ask GW themselves.

Yeah, confirmed. Harlequins are f'n ridiculous. Two units of 12x Troupes killed Magnus and an Imperial Knight in one assault phase. Seemsgood.

Holy hell

Yeah i cant wait to play them in Apoc, i played some other armies, now going to play them next.

But i only have 220pts of them for Apoc. But i'm going to be doing a couple teaching games, so 200pts is just fine.

Has anyone had a chance to run Grotesques in Apoc? The wording as written looks amazing for the number of attacks they out out. I'm curious how well that translates on the battlefield.

One thing that I noticed while reading the rules is that a unit is critically damaged when it has a number of damage markers *over* half of its wound total. So, it seems that the "sweet spot" for unit wound totals is either 2 or 4 - the former will never reach critically damaged level, and the latter needs to take 3 wounds before being critically damaged. I think that higher wounds might grant diminishing returns - though there is still the greater number of attacks to consider.

The wording is weird. "equal to more than half".

It almost looks like a typo. Why wouldn't they just say "more than half"? I'm curious to see the FAQ as this has shown up both directions on quite a few sites.

Myrvn wrote:

The wording is weird. "equal to more than half".

Heh. Brits.

Pretty much. God damn drunk lol. It's clearly written as greater than half, or more than half, just with a few extra words because British.

Has anyone played smaller games of Apoc yet? I really think we're playtesting 9th Ed. with some of these rules. I especially like the initiative-based alternating player turns and damage calculation at the end.

FYI - Raven Strikes are actually very good, especially with Poisoned Tongue. The SAT 4+ Dark Lances and Splinterstorm does work.