haemonculi and incubi

Has anyone ever considered putting 3 haemonculi with husk blades and liquifiers in a squad of incubi? Why is it a good/bad idea?

Good: Mass AP2 CC

Bad: Seriously expensive, loss of Fleet, no Grenades, No Invuls, still only Ld 8

The main problem is that the Haemons are sickeningly expensive while being worse fighters then the Incubi in nearly every way. Incubi have better W, I, S and have a better armor save while being cheaper (1/4 the cost or so! Not counting the Liquifiers which push it closer to 1/5!). The Haemon just don't bring enough to make up for their cost. You'd be better off just using Incubi by themselves or with an Archon to lead them (at least the Archon can make decent use of the Huskblade, Haemo really can't). Oh and 3 Incubi is the minimum squad size so 3 Haemo mean you can't fit them in a venom (not a big deal but just one more problem).

The only thing Haemo have in their favor is the starting Pain Tokens (and the Liquifiers) but honestly it's not remotely enough IMO.

yeah the one thing that we have going for us is high initiative. I always get excited when i see that a haemonc can take huskblade but then remember, no shadowfield and meh initiative. He would never survive one round of combat.

Ok thanks guys.

Haemy and Incubi would make it uber beefy though, but no grenades though. Keep it cheap with VB, Liquefier.

I bring my Haemys with VB and Soul-Traps

I actually run a squad of six incubi and a haemonculi with a liquifiergun in a raider with aethersails. They work out really well. The haemonculi provides a pain token for the incubi so they get FNP. If the raider blows up they have a 3+/5+fnp. The Haemonculi is also great for soaking higher strength wounds. When the incubi get into a position to assault they leave the haemonculi behind. I find this unit combo to be almost too good. They can project such a threat early on that can't be ignored.

Also, try this against tau... Incubi and haemonculi get ready for a turn two assault against fire warriors or kroot. Haemonculi leaves the unit in the movement phase and is the first unit to declare an assault... the fire warriors overwatch and kill him... The incubi assault unmolested and clean house... Ouch!

haemonculi can be really annoying to deal with in challenges if he has clone field. However, the biggest issue with haemonculus instead of archon or succubus is that the incubi lack grenades, and that for me is a deal breaker =/

6-7 Incubi dont need anything ... they dont need grenades , grenades cost you 25 which is another incubi which is worth more.. going 2nd is no big deal unless its versus Abadon/ Swarmlord or something like that for which not much will help you anyway. You dont always assault into terrain either..

That said i run them the same as Rancid in a Raider with Aethersails , i use the Haemo with VB to take any heavy overwatch. I have the pain token .. And the Haemo allows me to field Wracks as troops which is really nice ( normally a 10 Wrack assault unit , and some 3 Wrack Venoms).

bklooste wrote:

6-7 Incubi dont need anything ...  they dont need grenades , grenades cost you 25 which is another incubi which is worth more.. going 2nd is no big deal unless its versus Abadon/ Swarmlord  or something like that for which not much will help you anyway. You dont always assault into terrain either..

Yeah, but grenades buy you potential cover saves on your charge if you're assaulting something dangerous, and more importantly buy you your initiative back. One of the reasons an Incubi costs so much is that nice beefy I stat, and it's painful to have to give it up.

Attacking 10 Grey Hunters that managed to activate Counter Charge an Incubi squad that goes second will likely take 3 casualties before they get to swing. That's not 3 armor saves, that's three casualties. In return the Incubi (if starting at 7 men) will return swing and cut down 4. Depending on if overwatch got someone on the way in, the Incubi are, arguably, in position to loose an assault to ruddy generic Troop Space Wolves. That's your elite combat unit there, folks.

An Incbi 7 man squad that goes first will likely take 1 casualty and will have killed 7 Wolves before they had a chance to even notice they were dead. More if there was a Klaivex (though, I'll admit - not a big fan of the Klaivex)

So, for the cost of one Incubi I can get a net savings of 3 Incubi. Which is a pretty good ratio.
This is very true also when using them to bust up one of their primary targets, Termies - it is *very* valuable to have your Incubi swing first, and if you just blew up their landraider and they're standing in a crater, you don't want to wait for them to come out and assault stuff, you want to kill them first, and to do that to maximum effect you want your Incubi to be able to go in and get them.

Do Incubi *need* grenades?
No, heck, back under the old Dex they couldn't get them, and I ran them anyway, and they were great (albeit they were also a retinue, and your Archon/Dracon did all the killing anyway).
That said, are Incubi *better* with grenades? Yeah, I'd say that's unquestionable.

that 9uy wrote:

Has anyone ever considered putting 3 haemonculi with husk blades and liquifiers in a squad of incubi? Why is it a good/bad idea?

I fear it's a bad idea. For one, the Huskblades cost almost as much as the Haemonculi themselves, and are on models with 3 attacks at WS4 S3. It also means the Incubi can't fleet - something I consider vital to any combat unit these days.

I think a better idea would be a single Haemonculi with liquifier gun. Put them all in a raider or venom.

When you want to assault, move the venom/raider forward as necessary and disembark the Incubi only. They take the pain token with them, giving themselves extra resilience, whilst the Haemonculi stays in the transport to do some drive-by shooting with his liquifier gun (although, at this point, any casualties he inflicts should be considered a bonus).

Dont forget the Haemi and the Pain token ... and also the incubi goes twice..they go first second round.

Agree they are better with grenades but basically the grenade costs = more than  +1 incubi and only covers charging into cover so 50% of cases. So really the cost of the grenades is 2.3 incubi.  Anyway just for into cover lets look at 6 to 7..

So to compare you have 6 incubi you go first and probably kill 4 .. Those 6  will kill about 2.5. then you attack again  killing 2-3 and they kill 1.5.      After 2 rounds you have 1.5-2. They have 3-4.

Now back to the 7 .As you say first round you loose 3 ( 2 with pain token)  , the 5 left  cut down 4  . Next turn you cut down 3  and the 3 left  kill 1.5 . After 2 rounds you have  2.5 they have 3. Its probably a bit worse as i havent done trhe exact numbers but  in both cases its similar and you get smashed .. but in cases where your not charging into cover its a clear win.

Its just not a good option to charge Grey wolves  in cover without reducing them first  ( I send my 10 Wracks into cover early on ) . That said grey hunters are not cheap  , so even charging into cover the Incubi get the job done 154 (7)  vs 150 (10) point .

Defensive grenades dont work vs counter charge ..

haemi takes the overwatch in both cases.

I am not sure I follow where you're getting your numbers from - you have 6 Incubi and 5 Incubi killing the same number of Marines on the charge...that doesn't actually make much sense if you're using law of averages mathhammer.

Here is what the math looks like.
1 Incubi - 3 attacks on charge - 2 hit - 1 wounds = 1 dead marine.
So, in your example the 6 Incubi going first should kill 6 Grey Hunters on average. Not 4.
The 5 going second should kill 5. Not 4. That's even a pretty good example for you as to why I think you're doing something incorrect with your math - you're saying 5 Incubi=6 Incubi in combat, there should probably be some advantage to having 6, right

I stand by my arguments because the averages back up my statements. I will admit I disagree with your conclusions because you're using some incorrect math to get there, and I think that's affecting your conclusions. Yes, with your math you seem to have a point - but I am pretty certain your math is wrong, and therefore it doesn't support your conclusion. You may want to double check yourself, maybe I'm messed up and doing my math badly and if so I'd like to know. But I'm pretty certain I'm correct and you're the one accidentally doing something wrong.

It is a perfectly fine option for Incubi to charge Grey Hunters in cover...as long as they have a PGL in the squad.
Incubi are built for killing MEQ - they are very good at it, they can and will kill the Grey Hunters as long as they are able to swing first, which is the point of the PGL.
Yes, you can choose to 'whittle' them more, but no matter how much you whittle you will always take more damage (by a significant percentile) if you lack grenades versus if you posses them.


As far as the value of the PGL - even if you want to take it as a stand alone piece of gear worth 25, and compare it to the value of an Incubi, and then say that you only get to use it 50% of the time and add that to the cost. By my math that doesn't make it cost 2.5 Incubi, it would make it cost 1.7 Incubi.
Even with either sets of numbers - it is capable of saving that many Incubi lives, making it worth its value.

That said, the real cost of a PGL is, in reality, probably about 90+ points, because you're getting an Archon to carry that PGL (because for some reason GW won't let a Klaivex do it). However, that starts to get awkward to figure out the points value of relative to just Incubi as there are a *lot* of variables there (would you normally take an Archon, what would his loadou be if he wasn't with Incubi, he is now part of the assault and adds to the combat functionality of the squad, yadda, yadda, yadda...though, as a random note, with an Archon and 6 Incubi - generally speaking that is probably just a wiped out Grey Hunter squad )

If your just wanting to get Incubi with PGL then Baron would be the most cost effective because he has PGL and Shadowfield but he will count as bulky in a transport.  I personally prefer the Archon with PGL and Shadowfield, a Venom blade or if I have the points a Huskblade.

The Baron does count as Bulky.
But he can't get into a Raider or Venom with Incubi regardless - he's not allowed.

DE Codex on page 48 says, "... custom skyboard counts as a normal skyboard...".

DE Codex on page 28 says, "Skyboards count as jump infantry".

Rulebook page 47, under special rules, " jump units have the Bulky and ... special rules".

Am I still wrong and missed something?

I think this is what you overlooked;

Rulebook on page 78 says, "only infantry models can embark upon transports (this does not include Jump or Jet Pack Infantry) unless specifically stated otherwise.

DE Codex on page 'nowhere that I can find' does not state specifically otherwise.

Baron would be a good combo with Incubi if he could get on a transport though, I agree with that.

Thank you. Atleast I can say I never did it.

My opponents very rarely let me assault them with my Incubi OUT of cover!

You can force them to allow it - but, yes, an opponent who lets you assault stuff that is out of cover more often than not is either playing you on a very barren table or is not making smart choices about how to place his units.

Heck, it's actually one thing I like to take advantage of with my Orks - we don't care if you're in cover or have cover saves because our initiative is so low and our weapons don't have good AP...and *still* MEQ players will hug cover. I'm always happy to let them get slowed down on their movement and use it to help maximize my ability to control the board and where fights take place. It's odd, but they do it.

I was having this talk yesterday with someone about Orks. He was telling me he is making a DE army and how he will start off spread out then slowly move his units together in a corner and pick off the Orks slowly. It sounds to me they have crazy board coverage. I have not yet played against an Ork army.

Orks have good board coverage and are also surprisingly quick. They're actually my other main army and I play them and DE in many similar ways (less so now that we suck a bit more at assault, but still)
I don't think he is describing a good strategy versus Orks.
That said, it's somewhat beyond the purview of this topic - I suspect we have some vs. Ork threads out there.

commandersasha wrote:

My opponents very rarely let me assault them with my Incubi OUT of cover!

That is almost ideal ( and not really possible for Orcs and Nids) ... it means he is spread out using terrain .. So you can clean up all his vehicles and then concentrate on one part of the board and use the 15+ Splinter Cannons you have to wittle them down.. and then assault whats left. Rinse and repeat.