The Succubus

Clonefield actually strikes me as pretty darn fluffy though - it's not armor per se, it's just more deception and trickery. Though, frankly, Shadowfield wouldn't bother me on a Wych either - it used to be fluffy and I see no reason why it's not now.

Anyone ever think to put lelith into some sort of turbo tarpit squad with shardnet and impalers?
Since she has one herself you could bump that up to 4 in a single squad at least, and at least still be somewhat killy in her own sense. I am not sure how effective it could be, but it seems a bit more viable than putting a succy in it with an impaler. Perhaps I'm thinking on some sort of cheap one trick pony sort of level like the Shardnet/Clonefield combo for the archon. [Though now that I'm thinking of it, not really sure where I'd throw that to since that build for the archon just giggled at MC's trying to tickle it back]. Though hey i'm trying <_<;;

Also, while she does like looking for particularly unusual things to fight to be all "look at me I killed this guy" a large portion of arena combat is many vs one. Its the idea she can fight dozens of lesser men and come out unscathed.

I have run lilith and the succubus and have had mixed results...

I had lilith on the charge kill a tervigon at full wounds - yes i am a jammy bugger!!!

I have also had her smooshed by the first S6 hit she takes...

The succubus is ok but i would rather spend the extra points for the archon

I mainly run a succubus at all points, with either 3 hemmies or one of our kick ass named barons lady or duke..

With decent rolling and an agonized u can normal kill 3 marines... He'll that's I've half her points back right there. And u roll good she's a bloody monster... Just the other day my succubus and her bloodbrides charged a 6 man squad of purifiers.. I rolled amazingly well and all 6 (+1 attack drug) purifiers went splat before the brides even got in on it. Then they haywired a stormraven off the table.. Then ran after a squad of Paladins.. The brides were lost but the succubus finished off the last 3 in the next turn...

Ive never had any luck with an archon either... Wiff wiff... Fail a 2++ and go splat...

I use a succubus at all pointsn levels, in cc she is a beast.
Tho I really wish she could take a we portal, I hate that my WYCH cult can't rum without kabalite or coven assistance....

I've turned around on the Succubus. Thought she was quite good before, but Haemys just do more for less.

Haems do more for less if you don't want an assault HQ. There is a difference.

Haems in assault are...okay, and tend to require Wracks/Grots for maximum functionality. To get a decent Assault Haem is going to be 70-80 points for 4 attacks at I 5 WS 4 and Str 4 on the assault and can't get grenades. When you compare what you get for 85 from the Succubus (WS 8, I 8, 5 Attacks) I seriously question if the Haem is much of a value despite the point savings.

In a general army synergy situation the Haem's affordability becomes a lot stronger, and I'll agree the Succubus has no place there, but for affordable assault there's no competition.

A little word of defense towards Lelith.

She is really good in my opinion.
Natural thing would seems to place her with wyches or brides, but thats where she aint good , thats where she is just overcosted combat upgrade.

I run her with Wracks.Raider 5 man +liquifier , disembark , separate and charge her alone in enemy squad. She is much better alone than with squad, due to rules every enemy model must come into base contact with her, basically surrounding her and that means that every one of them will lose one atack due to shardnet.

And atacks thats left almost always hit on 5+, which than negated by 3++ and 4+ fnp.
Thats a lot survivable.She will almost always wins combat on her own, forcing leadership checks, forcing fearless saves.I once throw her at full ork mob, fearless saves alone killed almost as same as she do.She swept them next phase. Smart tank shock and she fought with 5 or 6 orks.
Where i play there a lot of combat squads in razorbacks, she proved superb choice against them.
Grey Hunters, vanilla , assault squads , strike squads , occasionally some sanguinary guard.She owned all of them on her own.

I also have in my list raider with Wyches (8+agoniser) + Haemy , and i use this raider with Leliths as a single strike force. If they both go to hit same target Lelith and Wych squad disembark , take their pain tokens with them , and go hit with Furious Charge.Raiders if they still alive can then go pretend they are banewolves and spew liquifier.

That unit is enough to take 8 man purifier squad.Lelith just crazy with FC , about 11 S4 power atacks on the charge.

Personally i love the Succubus she is the mainstay of my Army along with my Archon (yes i run both). Both Very killy and if you put them together they form on HELL of an Uber CC unit

Thor665 wrote:

Haems do more for less if you don't want an assault HQ. There is a difference.

In a general army synergy situation the Haem's affordability becomes a lot stronger, and I'll agree the Succubus has no place there, but for affordable assault there's no competition.

Fair enough. But I think 9 Wyches with FnP are a scarier cc unit than the same squad, lacking FnP, with a Succubus tacked on. Why would you even -want- an assault HQ?

I prefer an Assault HQ because you can Assault against multiple units if you break of the Succubus/Archon from the escort. Say 9 wyches in a raider + Succubus, send the wyches after big units and the Succubus after IC's or smaller squads. They will soon have FnP. Heamies will struggle to do that. (am not a fan of Heamis personally)

Raneth wrote:

Fair enough. But I think 9 Wyches with FnP are a scarier cc unit than the same squad, lacking FnP, with a Succubus tacked on. Why would you even -want- an assault HQ?

Scarier?
I bet the one with the Succubus does more damage.
I think the words you're looking for are 'more survivable' not 'scarier.'

Then comes the question - the Wyches will hit harder with the Succubus, increasing their chance to get FNP from eating a squad alive - so do you need to give them FNP to start via a 60 point flamer upgrade to the vehicle?

Also she will probably pull some damage off of the squad as your opponent might try to direct attacks to her. I like her alot, but I find that when using a CC HQ Im either looking for the HB/SS lord, or something to run with my incubi (PGL Archon). She is a great force multiplier for any assault unit though.

Thor665 wrote:

Scarier?
I bet the one with the Succubus does more damage.
I think the words you're looking for are 'more survivable' not 'scarier.'

Then comes the question - the Wyches will hit harder with the Succubus, increasing their chance to get FNP from eating a squad alive - so do you need to give them FNP to start via a 60 point flamer upgrade to the vehicle?

I guess you're right about me equating their survivability to efficiency. At the end of the day, to me, they excel at tarpitting, not so much at striking hard. Beasts, Harlies, Incubi do a better job at the latter anyway.

As for the Wyches being -that- much fiercer, chances are the basic Succiniser (???) accounts for maybe 2 Wounds per assault phase, and isn't too hard to pick off in cc (4++ only goes so far). Meh. Aside from that, starting out with FnP gets the squad to FC sooner, which is really the boon to be gunning for if you're adamant about using them as a strike force.

Maybe it's just me but I've tried really hard at having my Succi make a good showing and was always left kind of underwhelmed. Sorry for all the negativity.

I'm just surprised you can look at the statline and cost and feel underwhelmed. For her points I can't think of another IC that really stands much of a chance of dealing with her. Pretty much they'd be buying a Klaw/Fist/et al and just sort of praying they managed an ID hit, because that would be their only chance.

Thor665 wrote:

I'm just surprised you can look at the statline and cost and feel underwhelmed. For her points I can't think of another IC that really stands much of a chance of dealing with her. Pretty much they'd be buying a Klaw/Fist/et al and just sort of praying they managed an ID hit, because that would be their only chance.

Bad dice on my part maybe, but PKs have been a pretty big issue, hence my reserve. FnP at least saves the squad some pain from the regular return attacks.

She is pretty solid for the points, but one single powerfist in the right place, and she's gone to the grave. I'm also not that impressed with the insanely high stats, since she's usually not gonna wound better than a 4. (3s with lucky combat drugs and a pain token) I think she's another example of WOW STATS making people grab a model that doesn't perform all that amazing in the real world.

@Raneth - with no malice intended - what the heck are you doing placing her in such a way that the fist/klaw can base her? There are ways of avoiding doing that and I tend to endorse them

@Arrex - and yet her stats remain amazing. It's not about how easy she wounds, we're DE, we wound on 4+, that's just what it is. It's about monster initiative and WS scores that allow her to hit first, hit accurate, and be annoying to hit in return.

Thor665 wrote:

@Raneth - with no malice intended - what the heck are you doing placing her in such a way that the fist/klaw can base her? There are ways of avoiding doing that and I tend to endorse them

True enough, the intricacies of the assault phase (especially placing order) are as of yet a bit fuzzy to me, and the Ork player seems to have his own ways to ensure his Nob/Warboss gets where he wants it to be...

Thor665 wrote:

@Arrex - and yet her stats remain amazing. It's not about how easy she wounds, we're DE, we wound on 4+, that's just what it is. It's about monster initiative and WS scores that allow her to hit first, hit accurate, and be annoying to hit in return.

How is it any better to be I8 versus I7 when fighting Marines? Same with WS 8, it doesn't help any more than WS 7. (Unless you get lucky on combat drugs) To my mind, it's another case of paying for stats that aren't nearly as useful as they sound, just like DE warriors. (I'm paying 9 points a pop BECAUSE they're also I5 WS4? Since when do I ever wanna charge into CC with them?!)

Really, the only time the Succubus's stats come in hand is on one particular combat drug result, or against other Eldar.

Or against Nids, or Daemons, or a variety of various ICs. The WS Drug roll is quite nice, but the 8 does allow us to hit WS 4-7 on a 3+ which means an extra hit versus 4+ which is very nice indeed. If you think an Agoniser wielding HQ is worthwhile, then she is *very* valuable and her statline is incredible for what you're paying for her. I don't see the issue of shelling out an extra 1-3 points for +1 I and WS.

Arrex wrote:

Thor665 wrote:

@Arrex - and yet her stats remain amazing. It's not about how easy she wounds, we're DE, we wound on 4+, that's just what it is. It's about monster initiative and WS scores that allow her to hit first, hit accurate, and be annoying to hit in return.

How is it any better to be I8 versus I7 when fighting Marines? Same with WS 8, it doesn't help any more than WS 7. (Unless you get lucky on combat drugs) To my mind, it's another case of paying for stats that aren't nearly as useful as they sound, just like DE warriors. (I'm paying 9 points a pop BECAUSE they're also I5 WS4? Since when do I ever wanna charge into CC with them?!)

Really, the only time the Succubus's stats come in hand is on one particular combat drug result, or against other Eldar.

But that's just it, you aren't paying much for the stats at all, and yet you're still getting a hilariously cheap HQ who can dish out extreme damage far above what should be possible for something of her low points cost.

I wouldn't say extreme damage. She usually isn't doing better than a +4 to wound, occasionally she'll get lucky and lay out 4 power weapon wounds, but that isn't average. Still, for 80ish points, she's good in smaller games.

But... but she can dish pretty much as many CC attacks as Archon with (roughly) same weapons!



To be honest... I don't quite see point of that entry in codex. Archon can do EXACTLY the same job as she, plus he can do a lot more if You spend more points. She isn't bad, just... pointless.

CC "productivity" is the same.
Archon starts with worse save, however he can pick A LOT better inv (It's questionable if he actually will survive breaking Shadow Field).
Archon have better LD.
Archon have wider choice of weapons. Also, BS 7 Blaster. And BS 7 Blaster.
Archon can take Webway Portal.
Archon may NOT take combat drugs to cut some points.

I just like flexibility.

Now, if she (and only she) could pick skyboard or bike... that would be interesting twist since she could have "unique" ability to move fast.

I'm definitely perplexed by the lack of options for the succubus. Also, no army buffs at all for her. Not even so much as a pain token.

The point of the Succubus is for affordable support - which the Archon can't do.

Archon, Ghostplate, Agoniser - basically as cheap as you can make him while having an invulnerable save and the Aggie (or whatever power weapon, but, yeah, we know it's the Aggie)

90 points.

Succubus with 4+ invuln (better then Ghostplate) Aggie, better stats, and Combat Drugs(!).

85 points.

She fills a *very* specialized purpose, and that is being an affordable combat HQ support piece for a squad. However, at that purpose there is nothing else in the codex that comes close to giving you the offensive punch she generates at the affordability she has. That's why you take her.