Pro/cons of our units. Troop week - Wyches + Kabalite Warriors

Good evening gentlemen, seeing as most of us have the new rules in hand, PDF form or even played 1-2 matches, I think it is time to cut all the rumour crap, the whine and the OMG TERMIES AND VENDETTA OMG OP And get down to some real tactics,mathhammer and how we will evolve in the new metagame.

First of all I shall explain the idea of this thread, each week I we will choose a slot (hq,troop,HS, etc) in which you willstate in you own opinion what are the pros and cons of that particular unit in a easy to read format (Below).

At the begning of each week (monday morning) ill come and write up one final post which contains all the ideas brought by the community (mostly pros/cons), Then I will kindly ask an admin to lock the tread and I will create another thread for the next unit to be put in the spotlight

For me this seems like a great idea because every player will be able to see a simple, easy to read guide how the units are affected in this new edition. Each player has his or her own opinion of how they should play a certain unit or army. This thread will help any player to weigh the pros/cons and make a personal decision of how you will play your army.

A personal note, Our army has and will always react to the metagame, we are not trend setters, we are the ones who destroy those trends.


Format

Unit Name:

Pros:
-
-
-


Cons:
-
-
-

Unit Name:

Pros:
-
-
-


Cons:
-
-
-

(A reasoning behind why you think these pros/cons are viable in your opinion)


I will come back later this evening after I have played a few more games to post my own pro/con table.

Lets begin, shall we?

Thank you so much for beginning this. I'm getting tired of all the whining about Terminators and Vendettas, as if every army we'll ever fight will be comprised of nothing but those two units.

Kabalite Warriors

Pros:
- Really helped by new rapid fire, which increases mobility
- Still have loads of splinter weapons
- Good synergy between splinter racks and Doom


Cons:
- Only hit on a 6 when snap firing
- Still not an assault unit
- Can't hold objectives from a raider

Unit Name: Wyches

Pros:
- Haywire grenades and new rules for planting grenades
- Still a good tarpit (slightly better with new FnP)
- Still mess up GEQ


Cons:
- No more first turn assaults
- Agoniser can't whittle down terminators and the like
- Overwatch makes assaulting riskier

Warriors seem to have improved overall. They gained mobility and a little killing power, in such a way that my gunboats with splinter racks seem more lethal than they already were. While shots at cruising speed and long range aren't very accurate, splinter racks help with that. While they can't hold objectives from a raider, I usually find that mine sink by then.
Wyches are in an interesting place. They can still function as a tarpit and as GEQ killers quite well, but they lost their ability to whittle at terminators when tarpitting them. Haywire grenades make them very effective tank hunters, of course, and walkers are much easier to bring down. While overwatch really isn't much of a threat, it's enough to make assaults risky, possibly enough to keep the girls from closing in (if they take enough casualties.) Wyches also lost the ability to lock an enemy unit down from turn one or two. They still seem useful.

Warriors also have the advantage that you can have the sit back and still contribute to the game by shooting things. Allows them to function as bodyguards for an allied Farseer or just hold an objective on the backfield.

Kabalites also benefit from the new Precision Shots: 5-man unit w. Sybarite and Blaster. Put the Blaster on the Sybarite, and he gets to chose who takes the hit on a 6 to hit... AND he gets Look Out Sir saves.
I'd say Sybarites are a must for Kabalite units now

You can't put the Blaster on a Sybarite, as he can't swap his weapons for one. He's a Sybarite, not a Warrior.

Oh, i thought it was commonly accepted that you buy the Blaster (or any other weapons) for a Kabalite, who is THEN upgraded to a Sybarite

Keranas wrote:

Oh, i thought it was commonly accepted that you buy the Blaster (or any other weapons) for a Kabalite, who is THEN upgraded to a Sybarite

There's a lengthy discussion of multiple upgrades on the same model in the rules queries sub-forum. So far as there's any agreement on this I'd suggest it's that RAW aren't as clear as they could be, RAI that's perhaps not the intention, but under 5th it didn't really matter much. Now that it does matter, hopefully we'll see an FAQ clarification (but given that the FAQs were just updated, don't hold your breath).

Unit Name: Wyches

Pros:
-Very good AT, better than blasterborn IMO
-Still good tarpits
-Maybe the fact that they can enter in CC with a weakened unit t3 then come out t4-5 to hold an objective?


Cons:
-Cant assault as easily (no turn one assaulting, need a raider to do it)
-Agoniser does not do anything against 2+ (no more slowly biting at a wounded group of termies)
-Get shot up when assaulting
-Random assault = chances of them failing the assault


Unit Name: Kabalite Warriors

Pros:
-Snapfire
-Blobs of 20 to hold an eldrad or a farseer
-Splinter racks + snap fire seem to be an interesting idea
-New rapid fire means quite an interesting threat bubble.


Cons:
-Need to have a raider to utilise most of its pros
-usless in CC
-When on foot, its mobility and range is hindered quite a bit.


I am somewhat of a wych fanboy, Love the playstyle, the idea and the power which the wyches have, but now it seems like the only thing they are good for now is AT in small groups of 5 or "specialist hunting" i.e devastators, 5 man squads etc.

Kabalite warriors have taken the stage now, they seem like a great combo when it comes to gunboat armies or babysitting a farseer, the only thing I worry about is where will i fill up the CC hole that has been left by the squads of wyches that i will take out for warriors and ONE squad of incubi with draz/lillith? Beastmaster spam maybe? who knows.

Beastmasters, Hellions, possibly Harlequins are all quite viable assaulty units.

So far I'm lookin at hellions since they can shoot and assault and are fast, and with baron they are troops!

Next week ill put up fast attack slots because I think that Helions/Beastmasters will become our new basic CC unit and I would like to see what other people think as well. But until then keep to the topic of Wyches/Kabalite warriors

Unit Name: Wyches

PROs:
- shardnet/implaer = a useful tarpit tool
- FnP = immune to power weapons (I see this as an increase)
- smaller unit sizes = more efficient; thus more venoms can be taken
- obviously great vs vehicles in base to base
- Nightfighting could allow wyches to survive a little more in earlier turns
- can more easily deal with walkers (no more 6s to hit)
- grenade changes gave some boosts to wyches (thrown Str4 AP4 / Stealthed if close to enemy or went to ground)
- Almost always a scoring unit

CONs:
- significantly less delivery systems: Raiders travel less far (lose 2" from dissembarking), cannot run and assault and WWP is seriously nerfed now
- suffer hideously to ranged firepower even with FnP
- Agoniser became weaker & so Hekatrix became almost pointless (except for Phant. Grenade Launcher - PGL)
- enemy anti-assault snap shots combined with Wyches shooting could put them out of assault range.
- random assault range = chance of failing (and being snap shot for free by enemy)
----------------------------------------------------------------

Unit Name: Kabalite Warriors

PROs:
- flexible unit sizes for different roles: small to gain an extra blaster, medium for 'gunboat role' and large for farseer guard
- Snap shooting and rapid fire rule changes are a bonus
- Shredder became a tiny bit better (no negative armour pen modifier)
- potential to work in WWP lists
- synergy with splinter racks on raiders became better
- scoring unit

CONs:
- poor once n assaults (but good with snap shots)
- require Raider for mobility (large units are VERY immobile)
- Not a scoring unit if sat in the Raider
- PGL does very little for them (apart from being assaulted)

Althought Warriors seem to have the edge over wyches here, I am certain that mixing the two will be crucial to getting the most out of our troops - I hope we can come up with some ideas and strategies for using wyches that don't mean they're getting shot up all the time...!