The Juice of Life... or Death Army Dynamic Paradox

well Leaving a wake of destruction can ve done effectivly for 10 points each, just depends on the opponant, IG, Tau fire warriors, Eldar Guardians etc that you can easily get into cover from consolodation and into the next assault can be very successful. I think thats what wyches excel in, tarpitting large IEQ squads in order to inflict large casualties and simply tarpitting MEQ, FnP makes them a tough unit to move though

Yeah, especially when you play them with too many attacks ?

well yes but everyone was in the same boat at the store. Even so I stand by what Ive said.

Frankly you cant, a whole bunch of extra attacks at I6 would make a huge difference to how it runs.

Play them properly for a bit, then come back.

It may sound like I am being hard on wyches, I run them in every list, I think it's important to be clear what they can and cannot do.

They are str and T 3 with a 4 plus save, thats far from being an excellent cc unit by any measure you care to apply.

Alright don't have to be a little bitch. And also you may want to check what the OP is, your going a fair bit wayward.

Quote :

Yeah, ran a cc maxed Archon quite a bit, he's poor for the cost, like everything else in the book, subtly underpowered

You ran archon with Huskblade, Soultrap and Field? At least thats how its modelled in your blog.

For me that aint definition of maximum killiness archon.

Screw your face type of archon for me is like
Djin Blade, Soul Trap , Clone Field, Ghostplate Armor, Drugs. 130 points.

In unit of bloodbrides ( yeah, brides , for 2 shardnets ) and agoniser. More 167.

Thats maximum killiness possible for archon and closest to old "im-gonna-flay-your-skin-and-feed-it-to-you" Archon. That power comes with a price of being able to kill yourself and little-to-none defence against shooting.
In CC you are protected with Double Shardnets and disabling hits with CloneField. So against powerfists thats more reliable then Shadowfield.
My opponents usually tries to click shadowfield with normal atacks then atack with fist at i1.
Clonefield also protects against djinblade madness atacks.

What you get is 7 S3 Drugged Power Weapon Atacks with good chance to for them to be S6 and later S10. Far better then just Huskblade and far less safer.

Thats maximum killiness you can get.

I like the killyness the archon. In the right unit he can be the key to gaining pain tokens, lots of attacks, great stats, wyches are geared to tie things up in combat and eventually win, but they don't have that sheer killy power unless a character runs with them.


Fearless can be a detriment if you are loosing in cc. And as a DE player any combat that you are in should be one that you are winning... if not you just loose extra models instead of whole units. And by that time you also have FNP that mitigated the number of wounds you will take form any fearless tests, when the key is to not run from objectives. We can have one model that sits on an objective to win the game, has happened plenty of times with my hellions, ill have one or two left, in cover, the enemy tries to shoot them as much as they can, but unless they kill them they are not going anywhere! and They win the game, the thing is, unless you have trophies or what not to re roll tests leadership is one of the cruxes of the list, not having ATSKNF or any way to rally when under 50%. Pain tokens fix this, and having a way to gather them effectively can be the key to winning.

Grub wrote:

well Leaving a wake of destruction can ve done effectivly for 10 points each, just depends on the opponant, IG, Tau fire warriors, Eldar Guardians etc that you can easily get into cover from consolodation and into the next assault can be very successful. I think thats what wyches excel in, tarpitting large IEQ squads in order to inflict large casualties and simply tarpitting MEQ, FnP makes them a tough unit to move though

I am part of the "wyches are great camp" so I agree there are cases where wyches can murder everything in sight. I'm explaining that I do not expect wyches to assault every single unit of the game and succeed.

Sorrowshard wrote:

Play them properly for a bit, then come back.

I know this was unnecessarily directed at Grub... but I do play them properly and stand by what I'm saying. What exactly do you expect from an assault unit to make them qualify as good in your book?

Ok, look , Wyches are a cc troop unit, as fars as that goes they are about bang on for the cost, thats why I run them, well and because they have haywire grenades ...

For what the yare and what they cost they are indeed pretty good, with FNP that is definitely the case. I do feel that it's important to have played a unit with the correct rules in order to make comment on them and how to play with them though, sure it's an honest mistake but it does not detract from the fact he has been playing with and talking about what is essentially a completely different unit to the rest of us , ten point scoring bloodbrides ? yes please !!!!

As for your archon, I have run that build too and hte amount of times he just gets stuck there failing to do much with that pathetic str3 made me change, the huskblades insta kill means I only need to get one lucky wound through with it , with the djinn you are stuck needing to get twice as many in most cases if not more and running the risk of hurting yourself, admittedly its great fun once you actually kill something with a soul ...

Sorrowshard wrote:

I do feel that it's important to have played a unit with the correct rules in order to make comment on them and how to play with them though, sure it's an honest mistake but it does not detract from the fact he has been playing with and talking about what is essentially a completely different unit to the rest of us

Understandebly discussing effectiveness within assault you can feel free to disregard what I have said but in terms of how to use them? The only difference has been the number of attacks which was due to being told misinformation from others, this one error doesn't make them immune to shooting all of a sudden! The way you use them, move them, position them and assault with them; effectivly 2/3 of the game is still the same so that still stands. If you want to discuss wyches Im sure there is another thread in tactics...

Raneth wrote:

Arrex wrote:

That first token is valuable enough to warrant sticking a haemonculus in every important CC squad, I feel it's a superior option to Succubus/Archon escorts 99% of the time.

As a PGL junkie I can't entirely agree with this statement concerning Incubi. But I'm nitpicking here (taking both the FnP and the grenades really is the way to go).

Agree, PGL is the only other thing you ever really need with Incubi. Unfortunately, it's going to be hard to get both a PGL and a token without some shenanigans.

I still think with DE, in general, Wyches need tokens the worst, followed by Incubi.

Dark Eldar HQs that don't carry pain tokens tend to offer nothing to the unit beyond a PGL and maybe a re-rollable tank busting attack. Aside from that, I'm unimpressed with Agonizers, and getting a power weapon up to the proper strength often requires luck and cunning. These guys aren't assault terminators, nor do they have any units equivalent to an assault terminator.

Right, the use of wyches and incubi are all for another tactica. Can we please try to stay on track about the pain tokens?

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I agree with the above wyches need tokens to really shine. And Incubi are fantastic once they have received furious charge (and have a PGL to go with them)

Well that's easy.

The first token is the most important, if the unit needs it badly enough, start 'em with a Haemonculus. Units in WH40K are usually priced based on hard it is to kill them, you can cheat this cost with pain tokens.

The second token is more limited, applying only to CC units.

The third is just a cherry on top.


In terms of target priority, I'm unlikely to change targets simply to gain a token. It's not like I'm gonna mow down a couple grots when there's Lootas needing my attention. However, if I'm choosing targets to charge, it is true that all things being equal, I'm gonna go after infantry with an attached and squishable Independent Character. Minor Independent Characters are great places to snag tokens.

Coincidentally, cc Haemy exemplifies that category

If only there was a more useful way of choosing combat drugs other then the Duke... I agree with Arrex completely. I wish the codex was clearer on how to "share the pain" because its just annoying when you have a Warrior squad with furious charge when you really need it on your Wyches or Incubi. I also think that Reavers need FnP, you can make them durable by turbo boosting but the 5+ save is just stupid, especially considering that Eldar Guardian (5+ normally) Jetbikes get a 3+ and can move 24".

I think that in a list that would use the clear and efficient distribution of pain tokens a chronos would be a must... In this case 2 ravagers + a chronos you would then need to add a unit of scourge or two to make up for the lack of lances.
Like this you could pick and choose the allocation of tokens.

Thoughts?

I have always been tempted by a Chronos, easily one of the most interesting units in our codex. Never tried it though, don't know how effective it is, also might be a bit limiting as you then have to keep units nearby and things like chronos/talos seem to drop like flies the moment they get shot up by ap1/2 weapons negating FnP.

For my two cents, I say that Pain tokens are only important to certain units in my army and utter nonsense for the rest of my units.

I start my Wyches with the first token, and let them earn the second one (unless I have the drug roll that gives me another token, which means I have my work cut out for me). They need the first token to be the tarpit 'boogeyman' that people assume they are in CC, and the second one is just to terrorize them as to what happens when a Wych wins their battles. The third I earn as a reluctant bonus (this often happens when the Wyches are just acting like a bunch of Pinkie Pies on my opponents or I have an Archon with drugs in the unit as I rolled that magical 6 on the drug roll).

My Incubi are somewhat more durable and I could allow them to earn their pain tokens rather than allowing them to start with one via the Haemonculus (though FNP is always a good thing for any CC unit). Hellions and Baron on the other hand need the good o' sleight of hand trick with the tokens to even make them a threat at all.

Anything else (which is essentially shooty units) I can honestly just say "you can die for the greater good for all I care" if they ever get hit in retaliation. But if they earn a token by some odd thing I did, I would just leave them be and just take it as it goes.

Wonderful assessment, Crisis. But while it's true that FnP doesn't have quite the impact on Incubi like on Wyches, the Incubi get loads more revenue out of their 2nd Pain token than Wyches could ever hope for. So, as far as I'm concerned, the Haemy is still pretty much a mandatory addition.

I'm kind of surprised nobody mentioned basic Hellions yet. Though imho, they're not the kind of unit you'd want to spend one of your Haemy's tokens on, they're unique in our Dex at being both surprisingly adept at earning tokens for themselves (at a safe-ish range) and able to reap significant benefits from them.

Hellions are one of those units that also benefit very very nicely from each token. Although, hellions with the baron and hellions without the baron are two very different boats.

I have recently begun making sure my wyches are tokened up with a heamy and i did notice the difference.

Raneth wrote:

Wonderful assessment, Crisis. But while it's true that FnP doesn't have quite the impact on Incubi like on Wyches, the Incubi get loads more revenue out of their 2nd Pain token than Wyches could ever hope for. So, as far as I'm concerned, the Haemy is still pretty much a mandatory addition.

If I have the points to get the third haemonculi, I would do it, but as of this moment, I love my Archon too much to do anything about it. Add that with my infrequent use of Incubi in large squads (if at all) only serves to make me not invest too much in a squad whose purpose is to just unlock wyches that are in combat too long.

Myeah, I see where you're coming from. But Incubi are too good in my book to be using solely as relief force. Sure the total combo costs 450-ish pts but to me it's sooooo worth it...

Raneth wrote:

Myeah, I see where you're coming from. But Incubi are too good in my book to be using solely as relief force. Sure the total combo costs 450-ish pts but to me it's sooooo worth it...

Yeah, and when they meet that Dreadnought, it makes me a sad panda. People always throw those bastards at my incubi whenever they know that if they do not do anything about those incubis, my incubi will cull those Marines like a boss.

Your haywire Wyches are never far off, right? I haven't had too many issues with outmanoeuvring Dreads... save the BA DC ones with Fleet and LCs. Yikes!

Raneth wrote:

Your haywire Wyches are never far off, right? I haven't had too many issues with outmanoeuvring Dreads... save the BA DC ones with Fleet and LCs. Yikes!

There's only so much wyches I can muster. Rifledreads are everywhere these days, but thanks to some good o' necron nonsense I hope I will see less of these buggers.