Fixing the Court and Retinues

The Court of the Archon is something that has potential, but is underwhelming. IMO, it should act more like Wolf Guard and/or Royal Court from Necrons, providing specialists/leaders to buffer other squads. Additionally, options for retinues should be considered as a means of supporting our HQ choices. To that effect, I suggest the following:

Court of the Archon
For each Archon (including Malys, Vect) you may select one Court. At the start of the game, each member of the Court may elect to start the game attached to a different unit as an upgrade character. No single unit may have more than one Court member of a given type.

Medusae: (15 pt/model, 0-3 per court) - same

Lhamean (20 pt/model, 0-3 per court) - same stats, wargear. All models in the same unit as a Lhamean add "Poison (4+)" to any melee weapons they possess. If they already possess poisoned weapons, improve their poison roll by 1 (i.e., 4+ becomes 3+, 3+ becomes 2+). Additionally, this bonus applies to any ranged poison weaponry including splinter rifle, pistol, and cannon; shardcarbine; and splinter pods.
[Basically, they upgrade the poisoning ability of units, as well as adding specific bonuses such as making Power Weapons and Agonisers count as poison as well]

Ur-Ghul (20 pts/model, 0-3 per court) - same stats, basic abilities. Add: "Soulless: Ur-Ghul are unnatural monstrosities from the depths of the universe. Any Psyker that uses a power within 12" of an Ur-Ghul or that targets a unit with one or more Ur-Ghul suffers Perils of the Warp on ANY roll of doubles. If the power would normally cause Perils of the Warp (double 1s or double 6s), remove the model from play, no saves allowed."
[They now offer something more than mediocre CC attacks; they provide legitimate psychic defense]

Sslyth: (35 pts/model, 0-3 per court) - same stats, wargear, basic rules. Add: "Bodyguard: While in the same unit as a character or independent character, apply any wounds (at the S and AP of the attack) suffered by that character to the Sslyth instead."
[They now bodyguard your ICs/characters as they should]

Dracon: (25 pts/model, 0-3 per court) Has stats and wargear options as Trueborn Dracon. Add: May take Blaster (15), Fusion Gun (10), Shredder (5), Plasma Grenades (1), Haywire Grenades (2), Webway Portal (35), Combat Drugs (10).
[A "lieutenant" upgrade to help buffer squads.]

Retinues

Archon:
May take a squad of Incubi as a retinue. If taken as a Retinue, the squad takes up no additional Force Org Chart slot and the Archon loses his IC status as long as any member of the retinue remains in play.

Succubus:
May take a squad of Syrens as a retinue. If taken as a Retinue, the squad takes up no additional Force Org Chart slot and the Succubus loses her IC status as long as any member of the retinue remains in play.

Syrens: 23 pts/model, squad size 3-10
Stats/Special Rules/Wargear: same as Bloodbride Syren
Options: may take any options listed for Bloodbrides/Syrens, plus Fusion Gun (10), Webway Portal (35), Wych Weapons [any] (5)

Haemonculus (Ancient Only)
May take a Squad of Grotesques OR a Squad of Wracks as a Retinue. If taken as a Retinue, the squad takes up no additional Force Org Chart slot and the Haemonculus loses his IC status as long as any member of the retinue remains in play.

I like the idea of the ancient getting a retinue, allowing a extra unit gives it a role for its extra cost. When it says fusion gun do you mean heatlance?

I think he means the Fire Dragon's one

(I really agree with this choice, if you have really chosen the fusion blaster and this is not a writing error, because the big heat lance wouldn't look too good on a foot eldar )

Really nice rules : now the lhamean does really something (And her rule now is really good! How can the write "Makes every poisoned weapons of the archon a poisoned 2+ weapon when he can only take a Venom Blade?)

I don't really know the new fluff, but in the old codex weren't dracons less important archons? If so I don't think could be a good idea put them in archon's retinue; I'd see better some trueborn.

And, in the end, don't you think Ur-ghul's ability is a little too strong? removing enemy psyker on a roll of double 1 or double 6 (Casting a psyonic power) is really huge! I'd let him add another peril of the warp.
So with every double, the psyker gets a peril, and for every double 6 and double 1, he gets 2
Nice job

The archon has a splinter pistol, the 4+ would become 2+.

In the old codex there is a story where an archon makes a dracon an adviser, after the dracon tried to kill the archon.

I don't see why the heatlance would look any worse then firepike, or darklance, on a foot model.

abjectus wrote:

The archon has a splinter pistol, the 4+ would become 2+.

In the old codex there is a story where an archon makes a dracon an adviser, after the dracon tried to kill the archon.

I don't see why the heatlance would look any worse then firepike, or darklance, on a foot model.

Right, I have forgotten the splinter pistol
But i think I‘d never take a lhamaen only for a single 12“ poisoned 2+ shot ^^
Instead her new rules make perfect sense to me.

The difference between the heat lance and the dark lance, in my opinion, is the assault 1 against the heavy 1: with the dark lance the warrior can prepare himself and shot his shot with that big weapon, with the heat lance he could fire on the move. and I really can‘t imagine a dark eldar (an important 1 like a drachon especially) running and firing with a big lance and, hey, the fusion gun is stronger! (talking about firepike... i don‘t like it too on exarchs)
It's just me, but i can't think about an eldar running and firing with his big gun

I think at some point the elecrocorrosive whip was a poison weapon (the description mentions venoms), but was changed before release. Leaving the only posion weapon effected by the lhamean the splinter pistol.

abjectus wrote:

I think at some point the elecrocorrosive whip was a poison weapon (the description mentions venoms), but was changed before release. Leaving the only posion weapon effected by the lhamean the splinter pistol.

Yeah, it's very sad, because the model is REALLY cool! (We can always use it as a cool archon after all )

I meant Fusion Pistol, like the Harlies get. The Heat Lance, as it currently sits, is sorta weak.

As far as Dracons go, obviously GW rewrote the fluff a bit. I see them as underling Lords, perfect for acting squad leaders in the hopes of attaining glory for themselves while pretending to serve their Archon. In-game, they serve as upgrade characters with more kit than a Sybarite, allowing you to buff small squads a bit.

May want to add melee to the lhameaen's poison rule, to avoid the dark lances are now poison effect.

Well, I doubt that's a really big concern. Most people would want their Blasters/Blast Pistols/Lances to wound on a 2+ instead of a 4+ with reroll. But it might be beneficial for the Heat Lance, for example, so I will edit it.

This could make trueborn a viable melee unit. 2ccw, 2 dracons, and a lhameaen to make their attacks poison. Also, it's what made me think of poison lance oddity, since any blasters they took would have been poisoned too.

Making a variety of viable units was what I was going for. Hopefully, lots of good set ups:

Wracks plus Lhamean (3+ poison now) and double Medusae for flamer unit supreme
Add Dracons to single blaster units to create viable double blaster units
Essentially create retinues for Vect, etc. via Sslyth bodyguards
Add CC Dracon to wych units for double Agonisers
Spread Ur-Ghul around to protect against psykers
Add Lhameans to Grotesques, Beasts, Wyches, Hellions, Harlequins... everything just got better, but not broken IMO.

Any, I thought that this would be a much better way to utilize the Court as a cadre of specialists army buffers than yet another CC unit (as they are presently).

Wow!! I really dig this!! There are a couple of things I am not so sure about though... The Slyth should have to remain in the archons unit (seeing as their his bodyguard & all that!). I can also imagine the Dark Eldar being very proud and putting a warrior type model in their squad would be a very high insult! A complete re-write would be needed for these but then they might not match the model... If you want to continue down the anti psker path maybe something like making them a fair plain model but berserk against any psyker it is in combat with...

I really like the return of the old retinues too!

Huh. I'd love to try these out. I agree with the Git, Sslyth should be exempt from the "no more than one" when joining the Archon's unit. But yeah, this seems awesome. I'll need to talk to a couple of my frequent opponents about these variants.