Mandrakes: What if?

Hu .. how to make mandrakes good?
The first thought that comes to mind is giving them the option of purchasing a pain token some way. Maybe bump the night fiend's points up by a couple and give it altered physic?

Here's an idea for a buff that if they had I think everyone would feild them. They should play up the fact that they get stronger with every pain token they get. So they get baleblast with one token and then reduce the ap and increase the strength by one for every token they get after that. With two tokens you would have a strength 5 ap 3 assault 2 pinning attack and with a third token they would have a strength 6 ap 2 attack.
Thought? Maybe its a bit over powered but they would take carefully planning to get powered up and they would finally have some killing power. Maybe just increase the strength by one per token or just reduce the ap?

I think they could stand to borrow a few rules from Lictors / Deathleaper more than anything else... crank the stealthy assassin infiltrator angle right up...


Secretly elect a "target" model which must be a character (either a Sergeant or an IC) at the start of the game.
Make them start in reserve, and when they come in, let them deep strike and assault immediately but that they are not permitted to shoot or assault any unit other than one containing the target character in the turn they arrive.

Give them a rule that makes them always benefit from Night Fighting rules whether it's night or not.

That sort of thing.

Play up the fact that they are technically Daemons by allowing them to take Marks (except for Slannesh).

Modify their Baleblasts according to the type of Mark they take: ie Tzeentch: Soul Blaze, Nurgle: Plague Small Burst, Khorn: Turns it into a Template.

Turn "Kerudruakh the Useless" into a IC that allows you to take them as Troops (and join them).

Explain in their lore that they are Dark Eldar who either could not afford the services of the Haemonculi so made pacts with other Chaos Gods to avoid "She who Thirsts".

DE got away from anything to do with Chaos worship in the new Codex though and Demons don't mean that are under on of the Chaos gods.
We are DE not Chaos after all.
I do think leaning more on the Demon side would be a good idea. They already count as them for GK's so just give them the Demon rule and some upgrades to reflect it.

Yeah mandrakes are daemons but nothing to do with chaos, or the four chaos gods. Besides there are a lot more gods out there.

Funny how every now and then I see a Mandrake wishlisting pop up.

Well, I said it once and I' ll just repeat it (mister Kelly pay attention):

- Give the upgrade character (nightfiend?) some choices from the armoury and wargear section -> Like agoniser, venomblade, blastpistol, haywire grenades.

We could actually be done. This is all it takes. But, since they are an assault unit from the elite section that cost quite a lot we'd want more.

- Give them some means to gain a PT from the start (like paying points for it or something);
- Give the rest also acces to stuff from the armoury/wargear -> like haywire grenades (just make Mandrakes pay more than Wyches for balance).
- Make Kheradruakh an IC that can join the Mandrakes. Have him share his special deployment rule with the Mandrakes squad (+ the exception that they can assault the moment they come on).

I think this wouldn't be overpowered and they'd actually be worth their points. It's like taking the baron with the Hellions. If you're willing to pay and give up an HQ slot, you get an efficient unit.

To be honest they need assault grenades more than anything.

Frost Aura: the unit counts as being armed with offensive grenades.

Agreed. Increase their pointcost by 1 and give them assault grenades. Or give the nightfiend access to PGL for 10 to 20 pts.

tlronin wrote:

Agreed. Increase their pointcost by 1 and give them assault grenades. Or give the nightfiend access to PGL for 10 to 20 pts.

Increase points cost? They are expensive enough as is, give them assault grenades for free.

Well, I'm still thinking about my other demands. Gotta come at a price before overpowering stuff.

From a fluff stand point I wouldn't give them access to agonisers, PGLs plasma grenades or other wargear. Better to represent these with supernatural powers. Their chilling aura making them count as having grenades, their glacial touch giving them rending etc etc.

Oh that's fine... I'm just talking about game effects. I' ll leave the fluff to other people.