new? use of baron

i don't know if anyone else has thought of that, or if it is allready mentioned somewhere, but here it is anyway...


i was trying to figure out a way to play my beloved incubi.
So instead of buying an archon and a transport, i thought of using the baron instead and a haemonculus with a webaway portal. The incubi and 12 wyches would emerge the portal and since they are assault units, they would not really be missed in the first turn, even maybe second if they don't come soon.

so the baron would start attached to let's say some bikes with heatlances (to also replace the 4 blasters that you lost to incubi), to also give them first round his leadership, stealth and an extra body, to survive any shooting (personaly i would get at least 6 bikes, you don't want to lose him to a bad ld roll in case of casualties, also i like to be more certain of a destroyed result on a vehicle, but debate on that on another thread).

first turn you would deploy the portal as far as possible (unless the enemy would be too close ofc), having the haemunculus on a venom of trueborn trying to deploy it out of LoS of enemy fire. You would want trueborn to be the haemy escorting unit, since they wouldn't be useless disembarging in the first turn, since you could be in range to shoot something.
The baron would join that unit and bikes could go tank hunting... So you would guard the portal a bit better with him there and that unit of trueborn could really last enemy shooting that turn.
So when the incubi would come out of the portal, you would move the baron joining them, taking along the pain token from the haemunculus, so you would have a unit of incubi with stealth, feel no pain, PGL, an IC with shadowfield to use him as you like and if everything would go wrong and needed to charge a vehicle at some point, some str 6 hits, and generally with an easy aquired pain token, furious charge for everyone. Also, since he moves 12" you could benefit of a little bit less than 3" (2" of coheresy and 1" of baron's base) to reach a unit farther away that incubi alone might not be able to reach. I would use a unit of around 7 incubi,( and i kinda like the klaivex, so at least hit at the same initiative with halberd grey knights if i face them)

I tried a list like that at 1750 and i kinda liked it. it's not the top competitive built, but makes a biger unit of incubi a bit more viable imo. also with baron you get the +1 on who plays first, a good boost, not risking the haemys vehicle. The rest of the list was a typical dark eldar list, with just 9 bikes extra.

anyone thinks it has some potential with some changes?
i guess the same thing could work with other units missing greandes, like grots, even mandrakes (since baron would also have a pain token)

Depending on how you interpret the rules the Baron and a unit with different speed greatly hinder each other.
The rulebook is highly unclear if a fast character can use itś supperior move to leave a slower unit.

The Reavers would not get their jump or boost with the baron attatched.


I often use the Baron in a unit of Scourges to give them stealth until a CC-unit arrives from the portal.
Then he can join them and give a longer charge as you describe.

Just a couple comments.

I think the trueborn should be left free to do whatever they do, not sure if trueborn could actually be in range of something and be in a good spot for a portal. I will admit I have never used truborn that way but I feel uneasy with them because they are not tough, they are a small squad and they would be such a high priority target that they would easily be erased from the face of the board.

Like the bikes, the truborn should be free to hunt tanks and would also add to target saturation that would benefit the haemy and portal escort unit. Personally, I like the bikes in the portal.

If you had to have a msu style unit to escort the haemy and still use your plan then a squad of wracks on a venom would be my suggestion. It would go something like this:

Venom w/wracks and haemy move 12" and disembark. Baron flys over and joins squad for stealth and Haemy deploys portal. Baron can sit there or take one of the 2 tokens to whatever is available on the 2nd turn and the haemy can sit there until something comes through the portal on the 2nd turn and he can join them.

I've tried this (except with 8 wracks on a raider) and it works quite well, since whatever is coming out of the portal is random then you have to option to use either the Baron or the Haemy (since they are both standing right there) to distribute token when units emerge. Baron is usually dishing out tokens to bikes or scourges while the haemy is distributing to units on foot.

Just my thoughts on the tactic.

yeah, anyone can use it as he likes ofc, i just wanted to share that use of baron mostly, and just wrote down a list that i used.

Instead of bikes ofc you could use scourges, it sounds good as well, personally i don't turboboost the bikes much, especially if there are no units on foot or, if they are, i could land in a good spot, i don't want to waste not even a single round of shooting those ap1 shots, even if that means targeting, rhinos/razors for a 5/6 --> glance/pene on first turn. (jump, do you mean the one in the assault phase, if so, in the movement phase baron would have left that unit, so it could do whatever it likes)

As for wracks, you might have better survivability, but i like my units to do something, and i almost always can hit something with one unit of trueborn, after all you can put the haemy on any unit, you could as well have a troop of wracks to put him if you think that is better depending on the situation.

About the baron moving farther, i was refering to the first movement of his, when he leaves the trueborn and joins incubi. He would join them after they would have moved and place him farther than them (since he alone can reach such a point), in the direction that you want to charge.

cegorach wrote:

About the baron moving farther, i was refering to the first movement of his, when he leaves the trueborn and joins incubi. He would join them after they would have moved and place him farther than them (since he alone can reach such a point), in the direction that you want to charge.

This is where the rulebook is unclear.
It isn't sure he is allowed to move 12" in that given situation.

Well, it's like this: If he can't function as a separate unit the moment either he or the unit he is attached to moves, he could never leave coherency with the unit. So if they are detaching, the only reasonable ruling is that they must both be able to move at their maximum speed as they stop being the same unit as soon as they break more than 2 inches away from each other.

The only rule is that he can't end up less than two inches away from his current unit unless he joins another friendly unit.