10th ed data sheets

I'm noticing that so many of our abilities, strategems, and enhancements were written without consideration of how our army would actually play on the battlefield.

Here's my list so far of the egregious ones:

-Prey on the weak: the strategem requires a Kabal unit to be targeted. This cannot be used on transports or flyers as they lack the specified keyword, limiting this Strategem's use to just the Ravager and footslogging infantry. Why is this locked to Kabal? On that note, why is charge+advance locked to only Wych cults?

-Crucible of Malediction cannot be used while embarked. This is the one that I can sorta understand, but still sucks.

-Labyrinthine Cunning cannot be used while the Archon is embarked. Embarked units cannot generally be targeted by/effected by strategems, and the transport is not considered part of the Archon's unit.

-The Art of Pain requires that the bearing model not be embarked.

-All of the Archon's abilities require him to footslog.

-Court of the Archon, likewise, is completely unusable while embarked.

Which means that the optimal play for the Archon is footslogging across the board. Again. Except now he needs an accompanying tax of schmucks to walk alongside him or he gets vaporized immediately.

This would be so easy to fix too. Just change every variation of "this unit" to "this unit, and any transport this unit is embarked within," and "while this unit is on the battlefield" to "while this unit is on the battlefield or embarked within a transport" and you've taken care of most of the issues right there. Then just drop the Kabal/Cult/Coven restrictions on most things and we can actually use what paltry scraps we've been given without needing to play our army as antithetically as possible.

Well these points costs are just plain awful. A Rush job from GW here.

So an Archon is 85pts while a SM Captain with a Power Fist is 80.

We're really off to a flying start this edition.

Wrack_Enthusiast wrote:

I'm genuinely surprised they managed to make 10th edition somehow much simpler and much less interesting than 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th or even 9th. Removing wargear and dumbing down PPM in to fixed squad-sizes - something taken directly from Age of Sigmar by the way - just makes it even worse. Acothysts lost all their melee weapon options too. This might be a "focus on your WHFB army" edition, especially since we most likely won't be getting any model releases for a long time.
Maybe the codex will fix it, but I doubt it. They simplified everything they weren't supposed to simplify.

Yeah, there were some rumours a while back that Dark Elves would be making a comeback in AoS. Really hoping they drop soon.

For all it's many, many faults, AoS now has significantly more options than 40k. Somehow.

Otherwise, I'll stick to playing Necrons as they seem to have been written and costed by people who hadn't first swapped their brains with their scrotums.

More things I'm noticing...

The Talos comes equipped with 2 macro-scalpels, but can only use one at a time. No twin-linked for having two or anything. So the base loadout of the thing is not really even functional.

That whole "strategems can only target units that are on the battlefield, and being embarked means you're not on the battlefield" is going to bite us so hard. Example: Alliance of Agony only works if you can target an Archon, Succubus, and Haemonculus individually. So you only get to use it if all three of your units are out of their transports!

Every single ability, stratgem, and enhancement the Archon has access to requires him to be on the battlefield. The most that he can do when in a transport is provide one (1) pistol shot. It doesn't even get BS 2+ because of how Firing Deck works...

TheBaconPope wrote:

That whole "strategems can only target units that are on the battlefield, and being embarked means you're not on the battlefield" is going to bite us so hard. Example: Alliance of Agony only works if you can target an Archon, Succubus, and Haemonculus individually. So you only get to use it if all three of your units are out of their transports!

Every single ability, stratgem, and enhancement the Archon has access to requires him to be on the battlefield. The most that he can do when in a transport is provide one (1) pistol shot. It doesn't even get BS 2+ because of how Firing Deck works...

Even if it worked from a transport, the fact that the Archon has all of 2 abilities and one of those is once-per-battle is beyond depressing.

Also, I love how SMs are allowed to have different stats for the exact same items but DE pistols must always be every bit as crap on HQs as they are on the regular grunts.


Speaking of depressing, can we start a petition that if HQs are only going to be allowed 2 abilities, one of them can't be a -1Ld aura. Effective or not, it's dull as anything, especially when combined with FNP (another completely passive buff). Would letting the Haemonculus heal himself, his unit or a nearby non-vehicle model for d3 wounds each turn have broken anything? It seems strange that Spiritseers can casually resurrect Wraithlords each turn, but bringing back a Wrack or two or healing a T3-4 character is just impossible.

Similarly, I honestly don't get why the Haemonculus is limited to Wracks only. I highly doubt letting him join Grotesques would be a problem.

But no, my prediction came exactly true - here is your Archon with no options and the 2 units he's permitted to join. Here is your Succubus with no options, she must join this one unit. Here is your Haemonculus with no options, he must join this specific unit.

Do I even need to be involved in the list-building process anymore?

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Similarly, I honestly don't get why the Haemonculus is limited to Wracks only. I highly doubt letting him join Grotesques would be a problem.

Do I even need to be involved in the list-building process anymore?

Looks like you have to run Urien (or counts-as Urien) to get the unit healing abilities.
Similarly, Lelith gets the good leadership abilities for wyches.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Do I even need to be involved in the list-building process anymore?

No can't you see how great this is? Now everyone can throw together an army without thinking.

Because thinking is hard and stops you from buying more models

So i come back to this forum to read what ppls thoughts are about the new stuff and its just whining crying and babying like every time. You guys are sth else. Yes im sad about many things aswell, but we also good good things. Which apparently no one wants to see.

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

And thats just whats on a first glance.
Ofc it sucks that wyches, succubus, hellions, incubi and draz are bad. I dislike that aswell.

But the typical ppl here just whine. And thats happening here every time.

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

And thats just whats on a first glance.
Ofc it sucks that wyches, succubus, hellions, incubi and draz are bad. I dislike that aswell.

But the typical ppl here just whine. And thats happening here every time.

I'm sorry to be so blunt but you have no frame of refrence.

3 Ravagers cost almost the same as 3 fire prisms and are indefinitely worse
the jetbikes look good but are expensive and fragile
Talos gained one toughness so we are back at our deserved 7th ed statline in an edition where the basic space marine dread has T9 and a 2+
Scourges are glascannons that is true, but they won't carry the army tbf
Cronos finally buffs units that is nice, still not really tanky
Deep strike on all vehicles so they can be closer to the enemy doing nothing

Our rerolls are 6 per game (+shennigans) and only hit rerolls
Marines get to delete one unit per turn
eldar get guaranteed mortals and hits

I seriously don't understand how you can look at this huge turd and say "Yeah well but the lttle corn kernels still look tasty"

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

Why would I care that some our units are efficient if the army as a whole is not fun for me?

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

Why would I care that some our units are efficient if the army as a whole is not fun for me?

Have you ever written anything positive about Drukahri in the last 5 years on this board?
Do as you said and change army.

AzraeI wrote:

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

And thats just whats on a first glance.
Ofc it sucks that wyches, succubus, hellions, incubi and draz are bad. I dislike that aswell.

But the typical ppl here just whine. And thats happening here every time.

I'm sorry to be so blunt but you have no frame of refrence.

3 Ravagers cost almost the same as 3 fire prisms and are indefinitely worse
the jetbikes look good but are expensive and fragile
Talos gained one toughness so we are back at our deserved 7th ed statline in an edition where the basic space marine dread has T9 and a 2+
Scourges are glascannons that is true, but they won't carry the army tbf
Cronos finally buffs units that is nice, still not really tanky
Deep strike on all vehicles so they can be closer to the enemy doing nothing

Our rerolls are 6 per game (+shennigans) and only hit rerolls
Marines get to delete one unit per turn
eldar get guaranteed mortals and hits

I seriously don't understand how you can look at this huge turd and say "Yeah well but the lttle corn kernels still look tasty"

I seriously don´t understand how you can call this a huge turd.
If u rly think we only have "6" rerolls per game then u already showed how clueless u are.

But as always it doesnt matter here lmao.
Only belitteling and whining.
Why are u all even here? Why still play Drukhari if everything is always so bad?
How can u have no motivation to play "your" army at all?
Move on then.

Swordxart wrote:

AzraeI wrote:

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

And thats just whats on a first glance.
Ofc it sucks that wyches, succubus, hellions, incubi and draz are bad. I dislike that aswell.

But the typical ppl here just whine. And thats happening here every time.

I'm sorry to be so blunt but you have no frame of refrence.

3 Ravagers cost almost the same as 3 fire prisms and are indefinitely worse
the jetbikes look good but are expensive and fragile
Talos gained one toughness so we are back at our deserved 7th ed statline in an edition where the basic space marine dread has T9 and a 2+
Scourges are glascannons that is true, but they won't carry the army tbf
Cronos finally buffs units that is nice, still not really tanky
Deep strike on all vehicles so they can be closer to the enemy doing nothing

Our rerolls are 6 per game (+shennigans) and only hit rerolls
Marines get to delete one unit per turn
eldar get guaranteed mortals and hits

I seriously don't understand how you can look at this huge turd and say "Yeah well but the lttle corn kernels still look tasty"

I seriously don´t understand how you can call this a huge turd.
If u rly think we only have "6" rerolls per game then u already showed how clueless u are.

But as always it doesnt matter here lmao.
Only belitteling and whining.
Why are u all even here? Why still play Drukhari if everything is always so bad?
How can u have no motivation to play "your" army at all?
Move on then.

I said +shenanigans
You start with 3 and have to take all 3 HQs (sad thing to type really, ALL 3) to get, and then some for abilites. Or our glorious startagem that let's you use 3 for 1, unless one HQ is still in a transport.

Why are we here? Because maybe we love this army. And maybe we want it to be good without getting split into 3 factions or being good without making it insanely unfun to play against.
But that is somehow such an impossible task that GW hasn't figured it out in 10+ years.

How can we have no motivation? Because it takes time and effort to set up and play a game of 40k, and you can just do something else instead of sucking for 4h.

We don't want to move on we want the company we paid money to give as an apporpriate service.

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

And thats just whats on a first glance.
Ofc it sucks that wyches, succubus, hellions, incubi and draz are bad. I dislike that aswell.

But the typical ppl here just whine. And thats happening here every time.

It's unlikely current point costs will last long. I'm not quite sure how they made the decisions regarding points, but there are some crazy numbers floating around that are going to require plenty of adjustments to iron out. My complaints don't center around how 'powerful' DE are, but the core feel of the army. And the designers in this instance (and honestly every instance since 2010 to varying degrees) fundamentally did not consider what DE are and how they are supposed to play.

Do the rules sjown reflect DE's role as a glass cannon mechanized assault army with a focus on close range engagements and maneuverability? How? What synergies exist with the tools provided? What does the army do that no other can?

GW has fundamentally not considered what a transport based army should play like. Some of the mistakes present should not have made it past proofreading, let along playtesting. What we've been given is an awkward, confused army with a few competitively viable units (with basically no synergies available to them, might I add). I don't need DE to be tournament winners, I need them to be fun and unique to play.

And they're just not right now. And they haven't been for a long time. I'm happy you're finding some enjoyment out of the current rules, but I can't see it.

Hopefully, the point costs are the 'basic' point costs, and that there will be a more advanced version introduced later. I can't see the tournament scene finding this acceptable in the long term.

Frankly, 9th ed, with all of its flaws, by the time of the final balance pass and Arks of Omen, is probably the most balanced version of 40k that has ever existed. All that it needed was a few tweaks to make the game run a little faster. My suggestion would be to simply draw 8 stratagems of your choice from your deck, and that's what you use for the game.  Also, probably make the mission format more like the 10th ed missions. From what I've seen, the new mission formats seem better.

That said, I think that there is a lot to like about the core rule set for 10th. So, theoretically, it can potentially be pretty good with the right updates, which are possible due to the 'living document' nature of it all. However, I'm not sure I have a lot of faith in the current rules team.

But hey, at least we aren't AdMech or Deathguard. It looks like those guys got *really* screwed.

These points stink of a decision made over the designer's head very late into the process. The many units who's weapon options seem to have been designed with cost as a factor (most weapon options are still upgrades, rather than the more sidegrade stylex system of AOS), the fact some of the pointing decisions are especially egregious, even for GW, the requirement that everything be put into five point increments...

Conspiracy time, get me my tinfoil hat. I think that the developers of the new 40k app fell behind schedule. Unable to push things back due to the release date of 10th, GW leadership instead decided to shave off bits of the game to fit into the app rather than delay the launch of the app until it could actually manage the game. We'll see better upgrade systems when and only when the 40k app is able to handle it imo

Swordxart wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

Why would I care that some our units are efficient if the army as a whole is not fun for me?

Have you ever written anything positive about Drukahri in the last 5 years on this board?
Do as you said and change army.

Why would I praise GW for neglecting DE for over a decade, whilst stripping away more and more of what I loved about it in each successive edition since 5th?

Sorry if, unlike you, I'm not addicted to the taste of Citadel boot polish.

But if that's how you feel, so be it. I certainly have nothing positive to say about this iteration of DE, so until that changes I'll post here no longer.

TheBaconPope wrote:

Swordxart wrote:

Count Adhemar wrote:

If there's good stuff, tell us what your thinking is on it.

Wow

I haven´t played yet, but:
- 3 Ravager for 285 points is insane.
- Reaver jetbikes are rly good with heatlances
- Talos are actually cheaper than before and gained one toughness, fielding 2 is quite good imo with gauntlet and pain token reroll they hit much better than before
- Scourges with pain tokens and build in fire & fade is rly good too
- Cronos is great
- deep strike on all vehicles

And thats just whats on a first glance.
Ofc it sucks that wyches, succubus, hellions, incubi and draz are bad. I dislike that aswell.

But the typical ppl here just whine. And thats happening here every time.

It's unlikely current point costs will last long. I'm not quite sure how they made the decisions regarding points, but there are some crazy numbers floating around that are going to require plenty of adjustments to iron out. My complaints don't center around how 'powerful' DE are, but the core feel of the army. And the designers in this instance (and honestly every instance since 2010 to varying degrees) fundamentally did not consider what DE are and how they are supposed to play.

Do the rules sjown reflect DE's role as a glass cannon mechanized assault army with a focus on close range engagements and maneuverability? How? What synergies exist with the tools provided? What does the army do that no other can?

GW has fundamentally not considered what a transport based army should play like. Some of the mistakes present should not have made it past proofreading, let along playtesting. What we've been given is an awkward, confused army with a few competitively viable units (with basically no synergies available to them, might I add). I don't need DE to be tournament winners, I need them to be fun and unique to play.

And they're just not right now. And they haven't been for a long time. I'm happy you're finding some enjoyment out of the current rules, but I can't see it.

I dont know how true this statement is ... but I feel like the biggest issue GW has is they base their entire game design off of 1 army ... Space Marines ... so their rules writing is thought out in terms of how it would effect Space marines, how rules interactions work with space marine models ... and so on and honestly it feels like most GW employees, play testers, and rules designers play some flavor of space marine ( and why shouldn't they, add in chaos and roughly 50- 60% of the games armies are space marine ) and maybe a handful play other factions, their might be even be exactly 1 Druhkari player ... but our rules have been going down hill since Phil Kelly stopped writing them and I think it's because he wrote those rules from a place of understanding, and playing the armies he wrote the rules for ... unless another genuine player of our army starts writing the rules for gw what we are going to see are rules that technically make our army good ... but not flavourful

It really does look like they had an inexperienced rules-writing team, who either didn't have the benefit of knowing what worked/didn't work in 8th/9th, or ignored it entirely. There are quite a few issues that they are going to need to clear up, hopefully sooner rather than later.

- Currently there are at least a few units (corsairs and storm guardians to name two) who, if you give them special weapons, they completely lose all of their close combat weapons. Since there is no default ccw, this means that they simply can't do anything in close combat. This needs to either be corrected, or noted as intentional.

- The rules for measuring distance to vehicles state that you measure to the base, or to the hull, if there is no base. There are no exceptions listed for vehicles like raiders or wave serpents. I actually don't care too much about measuring to base for a raider, but I don't think that it is really tenable for something like a falcon or wave serpent.

- I think that the cover rules are fine for smaller models, but RAW, a towering model can benefit from cover while standing behind a crate that goes up to its knee. Vehicles and monsters are already resilient enough in this edition without getting cover because it has a tiny part of it obscured from view. Personally, I think that vehicles/monsters should be more than 50% obscured in order to get cover benefit.

-There are numerous small things that GW need to clarify whether or not they are typos, like the wyche splinter pistols, which are strangely less potent than any other splinter pistol in the faction, and whether they really intend for spiritseers to resurrect a dead wraith model during *every* command phase.

So, I'd like to preface my first post on this forum by introducing myself. I'm a long-time player of DE/Drukhari that played a lot competitively in 5th, 6th, and 7th editions at the national level, at Adepticon, the LVO, and so on. I haven't played much in 8th or 9th editions because I didn't really like what GW was doing with Eldar and DE, but I recently bumped into a friend who told me about 10th edition coming out, and so I got interested and did some research. So far, I've read the core rules, our index, the aeldari index, and part of space marines.

In general, it does seem like DE got shafted in a number of ways. That said, I think the usefulness of the "Labyrinthine Cunning" enhancement is being overlooked quite a bit. Sure, it only works if you bring an archon, succubus, and haemonculus, but it's literally a free CP point every phase if you wanted it to be. You could enhance 3 separate units every single phase for the cost of 1 CP that you automatically get back, and 1 pain token.

Furthermore, if you utilize this combination on an Archon leading a footslogging group of kabalites with an attached court of the archon, the entire unit benefits from lethal hits, rerolling hits, and rerolling wounds. If you place this unit on a terrain piece that is 6" tall, it adds 1 strength and 1 AP to all of it's weapons. It makes for a very good backfield/midfield shooting unit, highly capable of dishing out wounds to just about anything on the board. And whenever they're targeted with shooting, the enemy has -1 to wound from the slyth, and for 0.5 CPs, you can impose -1 to hit as well.

With a native 4+ armor save that becomes 3+ in cover, -1 to wound them and -1 to hit them, this unit can be surprisingly resilient and form the anchor of your otherwise fast moving army. I'm currently working on putting together some example lists and combinations of units that would work well with them.

All that said, I still do agree that DE don't stand up well when compared to other factions, but for those who'd like to make the best of what is available, I have some ideas.

This army list is what I would generally refer to as an "all comers list", so it's assuming you don't know who you're going to play, or what army they'll bring. I appologize in advance for this post's lack of brevity. As an army that is often described as a "finesse" army, it is certainly more of a scalpel than a hammer, and so explanations of HOW to use the list are important. So without further delay, the list:

Alliance of Agony Requirement:
Archon w/ Labarynthine Cunning Enhancement & Blast Pistol - 115
  a. 10 Kabalite warriors w/ all weapon options selected - 120
  b. 1 Court of the Archon - 95
  c. Footslogging
1 Cronos kept within 12" of archon's unit - 50
Lelith Hesparax - 105
  a. 10 wyches with full weapon options - 110
  b. Raider - 90
Urien Rakarth - 105
  a. 10 wracks w/2x hexrifle, 2x liquifier gun, 2x ossefactor, & 2x stinger pistol - 130
  b. Raider - 90

Other Units:

2x5 Scourges w/ 4x heat lances, solarite weapon+blast pistol - 240
1x5 Scourges w/ 4x Haywire cannons, solarite weapon+blast pistol - 120
1x2 Talos w/twin Haywire Cannons - 180
1 Talos w/twin haywire Cannon - 90
3xRavagers w/triple dark lances - 285
3xReaver Jetbikes w/Heat Lance, cluster caltrops, Agonizer, & Blast pistol - 75

2000 Total points


This list has the following shots per turn in the shooting phase:
11 Dark Lance shots
14 Haywire Cannon shots
9 Heat Lance shots
1 Dark Lance shot (Lethal hits)
1 Blaster shot (Lethal Hits)
3 Shardcarbine shots(Lethal hits)
14 Splinter Rifle Shots (10 w/Lethal Hits)
3 Splinter Cannon Shots (Lethal hits)
1 Shredder (1-6 autohits)
Eyeburst (1-6 autohits)
7 Blast Pistol Shots
2 Liquifier guns (2-12 autohits)
2 hexrifle shots
2 ossefactor shots
2 stinger pistol shots
9 Splinter Pistol Shots
1 Casket of Flensing (3-18 autohits)
1 Spirit Syphon (1-6 autohits)
1 Spirit Vortex (1d6 hits, blast)

While the number of shots here isn't incredible, the shot quality is actually fairly good. I really like our haywire cannons due to the interaction between anti-vehicle and devastating wounds. In any phase where your haywire are going to be firing at vehicles, they definitely deserve a pain token boost.

The 1 unit of wyches are actually respectable anti-MEQ in melee with Lelith leading them. They end up having 30 S4 WS3+ attacks with AP -2 and fights first, without counting Lelith's own attacks. Lelith herself comes in at 8 additional WS 2+ attacks at S4 AP-3. Against MEQ, they should put through about 11.27 unsaved wounds per fight phase, on average if they're unempowered. Empowered, they should put out 14.28 unsaved wounds on average. The latter is probably enough to delete a tactical squad with an attached character in a single fight phase. This unit of wyches is also an ideal candidate for the "grenade" strategem if you need a little extra boost to take out a monster or vehicle, since their ranged weapons are lackluster, and an extra 3 mortal wounds(on average) may make the difference in bringing something down with the heat lances/dark lances/haywire, or not.

In most cases with this list, I'd probably start the game with all of the Scourges and both Lelith and Urien's raiders in deep strike reserve. This allows for rapid ingress to be used on the wyches during your opponent's turn to position them to be able to safely disembark, potentially grenade, and charge on your turn, or for you to use a combination of rapid ingress/overwatch strategems with the casket of flensing and 2 wrack liquifier guns to subject a unit to a lot of hits when they're least expecting it. Now also seems like a good time to mention that the rules do allow for an entire army to be in reserve at the beginning of the game, so long as not more than 25% of the points value is in STRATEGIC reserve. All units that have rules like deep strike that allow them to be in reserve don't count against that total, and since all of our transports have deep strike, it's possible to have a list that puts 100% of our army in reserve at the start of the game.

Anyhow, insofar as this list goes: If your opponent has a lot of indirect fire or other long range things that you'd need to worry about your archon's footslogging unit surviving one round, you may also place his entire unit in strategic reserves, as well as everything else, with the exception of the Talos. You generally won't be abusing the "Alliance of Agony" strategem until turn 2-3 anyhow. The way this list works, you only have 725 points worth of models that don't have deep strike. 500 points of that can use strategic reserves, so as long as you have 225 points of models or more on the table at the start, you're in compliance. That could be 2 talos and a cronos, 2 talos and the reavers, 3 talos, etc. Alternatively, in the event your opponent is running almost no indirect fire weapons and there is a safe place on the board to keep your footslogging unit, you could strategic reserve your talos and have them come on the board in an advantageous position to utilize their haywire cannons in round 2. With only 7" of movement, strategic reserves for a round can get them significantly further upfield safely.

A lot of the utility of this list leans on recognizing how to effectively utilize reserves and strategic reserves depending on turn order(who goes first, etc), and knowing what your units can likely survive. It has a lot of tactical flexibility, but depends very heavily on the player recognizing mathematical probabilities in order to maximize pain token generation and optimal CP usage over the course of the game. This army basically has 2 modes: Hide and survive, or CARNAGE. In general, this army focuses on quality of attacks over quantity, and so you generally want to spend your entire pain token pool every round that you're in CARNAGE mode to ensure you get the most out of high quality attacks like heat lances and haywire cannons, while conserving your pain token pool prior to that.

As an alternative to this list, if you're more interested in a bit more of a "classic" feel to a list, you could ignore the alliance of agony rules completely, take a cheap warlord, and just spam the most effective shooting you can get your evil little hands on, as so:

Archon w/Blast Pistol 85
10 Kabalite Warriors with all weapon selections 120
1 Raider w/Dark Lance 90
1 Cronos 50
2x5 Scourges w/heat lances & blast pistol 240
1x5 Scourges w/haywire cannons & blast pistol 120
3x2 Talos w/Haywire 540
3 Ravager w/triple dark lances 285
2x6 Reavers w/double heat lances & caltrops 300
1 Razorwing Jetfighter w/2 Disintegrators and Splinter Cannon 170

2000 Points total

11 Dark Lance Shots
12 Heat Lance Shots
16 Haywire Cannon Shots
3 Blast Pistol Shots
1 Blaster Shot
1 Shredder Shot (1d6)
6 Disintegrator Shots
1 Razorwing Missile Option
6 Splinter Cannon Shots
18 Splinter Rifle Shots
1 Spirit Syphon shot(1d6)
1 Spirit vortex shot (1d6)

Granted, this list doesn't have a ton to deal with things like swarms of GEQ, but generally those aren't the things that are threatening to anyone, and they're extremely cost prohibitive to run anyhow so they aren't run very often.

It has plenty to deal with vehicles, monsters, TEQ, MEQ, and cavalry, which is something DE currently struggles with. The razorwing loadout is primarily intended to help deal with bikers while maintaining flexibility to be effective on other things if bikers aren't present.

If someone just LOVED throwing lots of dice, and preferred a more Kabal-type list, it would take a hit to it's anti-vehicle power, but would improve it's anti-swarm while retaining it's monster-killing power. You could get rid of the coven units and go with:

Archon w/Blast Pistol 85
4x10 Kabalite Warriors with all weapon selections 480
1 Raider w/Dark Lance 90
5 Venoms w/double splinter cannons 400
2x5 Scourges w/heat lances & blast pistol 240
1x5 Scourges w/haywire cannons & blast pistol 120
3 Ravagers w/triple dark lances 285
2x6 Reavers w/double heat lances & caltrops 300

2000 Points Total

42 Splinter Cannon Shots
56 Splinter Rifle Shots
14 Dark Lance Shots
12 Heat Lance Shots
8 Haywire Cannon Shots
4 Shredder Shots (1d6 hits each)
4 Blaster Shots
8 Blast Pistol Shots

I would divide 2 of the KW units into groups to go onto the venoms, putting these models together in groups:
  Group A: Dark Lance, Blaster, Shredder & 2 splinter riflemen
  Group B: Sybarite, Splinter Cannon, & 3 Splinter Riflemen

The reason for these divisions is so that the "A" groups can focus on positioning themselves to crack tougher targets with their dark lances and blasters, while the "B" group positions itself to utilize it's anti-swarm weapons. The shredder was kept on group "A" due to the fact that it shares range 18 with the blaster, and it allows them to potentially utilize overwatch on things that might attempt to close distance on the transport that will, in general, be closer to targets than the group "B" venoms will be. The Sybarite's are in group B specifically to give the splinter cannon crews an anti-vehicle/anti-monster option via the grenade strategem. Due to the Athletic Aerialists venom special rule, these venoms can move 14", disembark the warriors up to 3", use a grenade strategem on a unit up to 8" away, and at the end of the fight phase, jump back in their transport. This gives them an effective delivery range of 25" on the grenade strategem, and 3 mortal wounds can be pretty clutch in certain circumstances.

1 Full KW unit goes with Archon on the raider.

The last KW unit gets divided differently, because 5 of them are going to be footslogging in the backfield, and it's probably better to put all the special weapons in a venom so the riflemen can hide and camp on an objective. If you have a good defensive position in your backfield where they can be 6" up in a ruin while still contesting an objective, I might consider putting a longer range special weapon on them, like the dark lance and/or splinter canon, both of which can benefit from remaining stationary in the backfield due to the "heavy" rule, and improve their strength and AP by being on higher terrain. Fortunately, that is something you can decide once you see the layout of your table. This is one benefit of us getting the 10 man squad minimums on warriors and wyches. Generally, I view this requirement as a negative overall, but at least this turd was served with a silver spoon.

So that's it! Tell me what you think! I'd love to hear some feedback or hear about something I missed in one of the lists above!

I was building a list the other day, focusing in a way to get the most useless stratagem we have (alliance of agony) to work and I think I found a way to make it a pain token generator based solely on an interation that I'm not entirely sure works but RAW I think does ... so rereading the cronos ability if there is a cronos near each of the three units selected to be empowered by the one pain token ... my understanding is that you would get to roll 3 times to generate a pain token so that one pain token can generate 3 for 1CP ... or even more if multiple of these units are within range of multiple cronos

Archon_91 wrote:

I was building a list the other day, focusing in a way to get the most useless stratagem we have (alliance of agony) to work and I think I found a way to make it a pain token generator based solely on an interation that I'm not entirely sure works but RAW I think does ... so rereading the cronos ability if there is a cronos near each of the three units selected to be empowered by the one pain token ... my understanding is that you would get to roll 3 times to generate a pain token so that one pain token can generate 3 for 1CP ... or even more if multiple of these units are within range of multiple cronos

That's my read on it as well. I fully expect it to eventually get errata'd to 'If one or more Cronos are within 9" '