A returning players opinions on our units; Court of the Archon

Every archon needs a group of flunkies to do his bidding that goes without saying the court of the archon is at least in the fluff a bodyguard unit that you can almost trust!. Lets look at the 4 components that make up the court.

So the court is probably one of the most unique units in 40k made of 4 different species of aliens you are limited to 4 of each type with a max size of 16. so lets look.

SSlyth
To me the serpentine sslyth are the backbone of the unit, they are good all round fighters with a mix of different weapons from the excellent shard carbine too their battle blade which is almost a power weapon!. With 3 wounds and a 5+fnp the are reasonably tough vs small arms and honestly if I could get more than 4 of these guys in a unit I would, the only thing keeping them down as a stand alone unit that can preform well in all phases is the unit size, after 4 you have to take other stuff. The best thing about them though is that they will keep your Archons safe from ranged attacks (which means you hang onto the shadow field longer) they are just all around great.

Ur-ghul
Ghuls are pure melee 6 str 4 attacks on the charge -1 save, 4 models put out allot of attacks and support the sslyth well, all that said id rather have more sslyth . They are another 3 wound 5+fnp model as well which gives the unit a really big wound pool which can make a large and expensive court a hard unit to kill for a secondary. All in all a good addition but in an army of melee monster like DE they just don't bring anything new to the table and at LD4 they need baby sitting.

Medusae
The weakest model in the court, at least in melee. They more than make up for that with their ap-2 flammer pistol. Not really allot to say, lots of free hits having a simple 4 man unit in a venom that runs around spraying targets only costs 153pts, theoretically you could put 2 squads of 4 in a raider for the lols, Torturous efficiency helps them out as the 6's to wound become ap-3. All in all flamers are solid in everyones hands and while we have better ones at the moment the Medusae are by no means bad. (3 wounds again btw, the unit just keeps getting more and more chunky)

Lhamaean
Kind of a dud when it comes to their rules, they would of made an excellent solo for the book but their potential is waisted in the court. Archons rarely have solid shooting and to get any use of it your trueborn have to sat next to the court. Trueborn are going to want to sit in their wrack boat for 2 shots at long range and they are going to want to be 10 man squads to make the most of their finite number. So to make the buff work you need 2 raiders or to have both units in the webway. Having her as a character that could sit in their raider and buff them on turns when they get out would have been so much more useful, also the capacity to buff any splitter weapon would of been nice, but hey ho. She's another 3 wound model and can hand out a few mortal wounds in melee, she's just mediocre really.

Courts are deceptively chunky! Next time Wracks!

Would a Lhamaean be worthwhile taking to make up an Archon court with 4xSslyth to join an Archon in a Venom?As well as doing what you've said,she can make up the numbers in the Venom since you can only take a maximum of 4 Sslyth, she can possibly buff the Archon, add MW's, take hits for the archon and is fairly cheap?

I just can't justify running court for any reason other than fun, you're dumping almost 100 pts for a min-sized unit, that... exists? Their damage output isn't bad per se, but it's definitely not good. The lhamaean especially got hit the hardest in the transfer to 9th.

I find it so much better that if my archon is foot-slogging; put it with my haemonculus and get look out sir from the wracks and/or talos.

@Sarcron I think you’re totally missing the point of court. A unit of 4 sslyth and 4 ur-ghuls is 136 points and has 24 wounds, meaning you’re paying less than 6 points per wound which is basically the best cost to wound ratio in the codex. Plus they get a 5+ FNP so they’re really quite a durable and cheap obsec unit, which is something Drukhari really lack

I have liked the idea of a court since I started, but by now I have about every model in our range, except for beastmasters and court models. That should say something I guess. It's just too much points and too much money for basically giving an Archon extra wounds. And to make it worse, the Archon is the least interesting HQ option to me that we have at the moment, because I feel he's supposed to be our (only) ranged HQ, but lost all ranged weapons other than pistols. :/

The Court of the Archon feels like if a squad of Devastators was 'Up to one model may exchange his bolter for a lascannon, up to one model may exchange his bolter for a heavy flamer, up to one model may exchange his bolter for a power sword...'

Yes, I know we can take them in multiples, but they're still stuck together as one unit. And there's almost no synergy between them so you've just got this jumbled mishmash of units that want to do different things at different ranges.

Sslyth want to accompany an Archon as bodyguards. Okay, makes sense.
Ur-Ghuls are technically melee but have no connection to the Archon and probably instead want to either be going after objectives or else acting as airbags for Grotesques in Raiders.
Lhamaeans, on the other hand, are one-off units that apparently want to be accompanying disembarked units of Trueborn.
Finally, we have Medusae, which want to be nowhere near melee and instead want to be performing drive-by shootings.

IOW, we have two units that wants to be with an Archon and two that don't. We have one unit that wants to be in melee and another that wants to be nowhere near it. And while you can just spam one unit and ignore the rest, it means that you'll only ever see the best one of the lot because taking any one unit pretty much stuffs the rest (with the exception of the Lhamaean - which also stuffs itself if taken in multiples). Short of just spamming Sslyth, it feels a very awkward unit to get much out of. Especially since the individual members have very little going for them beyond favourable points-to-wounds ratios (and I think you'll find people would far rather take Incubi over Ur-Ghuls, because offence tends to be more useful than defence).

I have considered the idea of a PT Archon with Soul Seeker (because it's literally the only ranged weapon that still exists for HQs in our codex) and 4 Sslyth as a mixed shooting and melee unit. However, as Gelmir said above, the Archon just isn't an interesting HQ. And I'm not convinced I want to bother spending a lot of points on Sslyth when a Djin Blade Archon with Incubi would probably be far, far more productive.

I'm also disappointed that Lhamaeans, the poison-mastery assassin units, now have zero synergy with Poison Tongue. If anything, they actually have anti-synergy because their ability makes the improved to-wound roll of PT less impactful.

Still, at least my Archon can now potentially score an auto-wound with his AP0 D1 Splinter Pistol. Wooo!


Aside: It also really, really bothers me that a Court almost always leaves you with an awkward number of points (and since all wargear now costs multiples of 5pts, I can't just take a PGL or Grisly Trophies to round it off).

I still think everyone is missing the point of court. They are cheap, reasonably durable obsec, and can pack a decent punch in combat. They are one of the cheapest points to wound ratio we have in the codex. They’re found in many a GT winning competitive list, so they clearly are useful

duckduckgoose wrote:

I still think everyone is missing the point of court. They are cheap, reasonably durable obsec, and can pack a decent punch in combat. They are one of the cheapest points to wound ratio we have in the codex. They’re found in many a GT winning competitive list, so they clearly are useful

This was my line of thinking, ok Incubi can trade off at a higher rate in combat....but you've got to get there first for them to gain any repayment on their cost and if lost you can't return fire or score any damage.4xSlyth with carbines are adding to a Venoms firepower and protecting your Archon.I thought adding Lhamaean makes up numbers cheaply,adds another 3 wounds to save your Archon while meanwhile adding up to 2 MW to any combat with a possible -1AP...it's not the greatest output,but they will last longer than Incubi on an objective or even assist/support an Incubi/Wrack/Wych assault.

Or just wracks, which also get subfaction and obsec, how does court get obsec?

You'll get more wounds from a court of slyth, yeah, but I prefer wracks, which are filling the same role while getting more output in cc.

136 pts is a lot to dump for making your archon survive longer, that's almost another two archons.

Court are infantry, thus they get obsec. If you’re using them to keep your archon alive you’re using them wrong. Move them to an objective, get them in combat and laugh as it takes your opponent 2-3 turns to remove them.
Meanwhile your incubi/hellions/grots move in and kill whatever is around that objective

Court also get obsession bonus, I.e in black heart they can advance and charge, and have 8” movement base. It really seems like no one in this thread has actually used court, but is just theory crafting about them.

Try them out, they are very useful. Also you don’t have to take a full 4 sslyth/4 ur-ghul for them to be effective. 2/2 can be a nice backfield objective holder

And yes, wracks are also good and fulfill a similar role, but you get more wounds for court for the same points, and court still has a 5+++. I use a unit of each in my RR lists and they are consistently my MVP units in terms of contesting/holding objectives. Also courts melee output is just better. Sslyth are 3 S5, AP-2, D1 and ur-ghuls get 4/(6 on charge) S4, AP-1 D1 attacks

duckduckgoose wrote:

Court are infantry, thus they get obsec.

Only our troops get obsec, and court aren't troops

Ah my bad, you’re right. I was confusing ObSec with infantry being able to take actions. Well nonetheless I still find court to be quite valuable

If the meta had stayed kabal/wych spam, the court would've stayed an amazing option for exactly the reasons duckduck mentioned. Smite/bullet sponge that's hard to shake off once it's in your lines filled a valuable niche that incubi and wyches couldn't.

Naturally, the post-nerf pts cost means most high tier lists lean more heavily on wracks, talos and grots. These units do much the same thing that the court does, but even better.

Currently they have the most value in lower point games, or team games, where you might not have the points to max out on coven synergy. Units like incubi and the court can have a lot of success here due to their points efficiency and ability to punch up.

Actually, the Court is in like the 95% of the Thick City lists.

And Wracks and Court run two different roles in game. While (footslogging) Wracks run and go for advanced objectives, the Court keeps the ones in the back. Wracks are durable since the beginning and works pretty well with NeverStationary+Ossefactor capping middle objectives in T1 already.
Courts sitting on back objectives in safe, and go for the mid only from turn 3, when they get 5++ inv (from BH of course). That allows you to push with every single Coven unit, keeping your back protected from any DS/Flanking unit (the Court is huge, it can cover a large size of the backfield if needed), without dying from indirect fire.

That's why you see the Court on almost every Thick City list.