How to make the other covens decent

So, currently Dark Creed and Coven of Twelve suck. At least compared to Prophets of the Flesh.

And so I was bored on the train and was brainstorming how to 'fix' them.

Currently my ideas are along the lines of;


Coven of twelve:

The obsession for this feels like one of the custom traits. Good, but needs something else. At first I was thinking increase it to ap-2 buff, but that would be too strong. Instead, perhaps add that, wound rolls of 6 whilst within 1" of the enemy unit being targeted increase the damage of the attack by 1. This would both serve as a buff to general damage, but also encourage choosing buffs to wound rolls on weapons.
In addition, make it so that this applies to artefacts of cruelty. Because the CoT relic should be ap-3.
Another option was to instead make the ap buff apply to all weapons of Cot, which also serve to make it a viable option. Even then, this may still be under-powered compared to PoF.

I wasn't really sure what to do with the strat, that can be discussed.

For the warlord trait, I was tossing up whether or not to remove the minimum. One one hand, it was a fairly meh trait, but this might be too good.


Dark Creed:

This was fairly easy for me, remove the maximum debuff of leadership, this would not only make the coven serve its purpose far better, but also weigh in so that it's actually worth choosing over the 4+ save. Even then, this might not be enough.

For the warlord trait, I felt the possibility of 1 mw wasn't that great, so instead simply make the units affected take mortal wounds equal to the difference between the 2d6 and their leadership. This would tie in well with the rest of the buffs, and also make it a very nice warlord trait, just like diabolical soothsayer.

Finally, I felt that the DC relic should be buffed to 2 damage, it's a very alluring weapon, until you realise that it does a max of 3 damage. This would buff the staying power of the chosen haemonculus, whilst also pairing it nicely with the Dark Creed stratagem.

Oh, I love theory crafting. It's difficult to buff the other Covens when PoF is this good. Their board presence with 4++ and respawning Wracks is amazing. But I'm sure we can come up with cool things.

Dark Creed souns neat in theory: You want to kill an enemy Sergeant and capitalize on failing troops in the moral phase. Too bad that the moral phase is utterly useless and unreliable (Orks, Nids etc.). If we want a faction that focuses on leadership shenanigans we need to build up these mechanics from the ground up.

Here's what I say:
Obsession: -1 to leadership. add +1 to the current rounds when determining Power from Pain (instead of feeding from pain, they feed off the instilled terror within the enemy).
Warlord Trait: For each enemy model that has fled in the moral phase, roll a die. On a 5+, you gain back a Command Point (as a reward if you can pull of losses in the moral phase).
Stratagem: For this round, the leadership characteristic of a unit cannot exceed 8 (necessary against the Mob Rule and useful against other high-moral factions).
Relic: Spirit Sting with 18" range and a new rule: If an enemy unit was wounded by this weapon it must take a leadership test. If it fails, it cannot perform overwatch and has -1BS up until the next Shooting Phase.

The real stars is the Warlord Trait and the relic. The obsession got buffed because they need something that is not just moral so they can realistically compete with PoF.


As for CoT: You want to deal damage and you want to deal it fast since you don't have a PoF endurance to eat one Lascannon after another. I also agree that their "AP-1" feels like "just one" of the custom obsessions.

I suggest for CoT:
Obsession: Add +1 to armor penetration and add +2" to the movement to <Coven of Twelve> units (maybe vehicles should be excluded).
Relic: Shard of Flensing: All <Coven of Twelve> units within 6" add +1 to their wound rolls (a buff aura is much more interesting than a better Electrocorrosive Whip as relic).

Suddenly, you have even scarier balls of Taloi or Grotesques when buffed with a Haemy. They are not just distraction carnifexes but genuinely killy. They won't absorb as much damage as PoF, but their speed makes them extra scary and reliable.

As for the Talos, you potentially deal a MW on a 3+, along with D3 MWs on a 5+. What more would you want?

That all seems good, I think I would only argue with two of them.

First, is the dark creed strat. That would probably be worse than the current one. Apart from very specific circumstances, most stuff would be 8 or below when they are near dark creed stuff. I would say keep it as the snipe characters, mostly because it serves to combo nicely with the relic, and for units of 3 talos to be used to snipe characters, especially if facing nids. In addition it fits the fluff, as the dark creed is known for their specialised assassinations, just like the hex.

The other thing was spirit sting. Denying overwatch is the PoF's thing, and using the relic for this just seems like copying them. It fits thematically, but not well with the rules. Instead, perhaps change it so that if the unit fails the 2d6 leadership test, they, and every enemy unit within 6" of the target, takes a mortal wound.