Duke or Archon?

in a 1k pt game would you take Duke or this guy?

i will be fighting SM's ether BA or DA

i don't have a whole lot of models atm, would like to take tons of wyches and kabalites but i am not shure if that would work so i am guna play a few test games to figure out what models i want ect.

all comments are appreciated

Archon: Huskblade, Venom Blade, Ghostplate Armor, Combat Drugs, Soul-trap, Shadow Field, PGL [185]

list is:
7xIncubi 1xKlaivex 1xRaider [273]

9xWyches[2xRazorflails] 1x Hekatrix[venom blade, PGL] 1xRaider [205]

10xKabalite Warriors[Dark Lance] [115]

5xScourges[2x Blsater] [140]

1xRavager [105]

total: 1001

You have quite a lot of Incubi, there! I'm not sure your HQ needs to be that much of a beatstick with that many Punishers Klaives on the ground. You can support for much cheaper, which can give points to buff your limited other units without making you buy more units, which would be the typical way to spend leftover points. I would recommend an Archon simply for the Phantasm Grenade Launcher, and would run him like so:

Archon, Agonizer, PGL, Shadow Field 135

That's a man who can give consistent results in close combat. He lets his Klaivex accept any challenges from people wearing 2+ armor, and gets consistent numbers of wounds without needing to be powered up. Not being pulled towards hunting down enemy IC's to make your HQ good is good. And he saves you 50 points, or 5% of your total army! Though really you only get 49 to stay under 1000. I recommend 20 go towards giving those Wyches Haywire Grenades, 15 to give the Warriors a Blaster, and the last 14...maybe drop a Razorflail and upgrade your Hekatrix to a proper Agonizer.

That would give you a very 3rd-Edition style setup, which warms my black, shriveled heart with nostalgia.

I would consider losing a few of the Incubi, consider this:
You get to assault with them, no matter what they assault, they will kill them in the first round (maybe TH/SS termis can hold, but you have no reason to assault them)
This leaves your 250+ point (25 % of your army) out in the open for shooting, and with "only" a 3+ save, they are gonna die...
Drop some and give your Ravager a NS.
Maybe even drop 3 and give them a venom.
If you have the points for it, give the warriors a blaster and a raider (remove the dark lance), then take 3 trueborn and give them 1 or 2 dark lances and sitck em' in some heavy cover and snipe away. (Remember the +2 to your cover save when you go to ground in area terrain.)
Otherwise, very good and interesting list

When taking Duke Sliscus you have to look at the main reason to take him - his special rules. Combat wise he's a bit of a 'lesser Archon', the equivalent to the Dracon in the old Codex. He's not a bad fighter but any well built Archon will be better.

The idea is to make the most of his rules. I've always ignored deep striking and probably always will until it becomes more reliable but you should take that into account.

Rolling two dice on the drugs chart is nice, the more Wyches, Reavers and Hellions, the better Duke is for what he gives to the army. At 1000 points you only have the Wyches and not making much of this rule either.

Poison. Drop the 10 Kabalites to 9, change the lance to a cannon and add splinter racks and night shields to the Raider. Duke will make this unit a lot more formidable and pumps out a ton of poison.

Is wounding on 3s with a unit of Kabalites and two dice on drugs for one Wych squad enough? I'm not sure personally.

Then again I take Duke in every list I've ever run and he's certainly not the best.

I second pretty much everything Sky Serpent said. Duke is best when he is buffing 4-5 units in your army (1 Warrior squad, a couple wyche squads, and a couple Reaver squads... maybe some Hellions too). If you don't have enough combat drugs around and a decent warrior squad, I'd leave him at home.

I'm personally not one to bring Archons, there are too many other characters I like more than the generic Archons (Baron, Malys, Duke, and Succubii), however, because you are taking Incubi you should definately go with an Archon, if nothing else just for the PGL

I love the duke and use him almost always, especially in high point games. At less than a 1000 though, I would consider two haemes instead. start one with the incubi and one with the wyches for the pain token. give them liquifier guns if you have the points.

I only rarely use the archon. To kit him out properly makes him more expensive than the duke, and I don't think you get much more...at least in my lists which have a lot of wyches and reavers.

I love my archon, I pair him with 4 incubi and put them in a Venom. It gets them pretty close to CC where they do the most damage. I fit my archon with a PGL, Huskblade, Shadow Field, Soul trap and a blaster just incase.

Just quickly, you can't swap the lance to a cannon AND drop them to 9 models as you need 10 to get access to the heavy

why are we dropping a warrior? just start them outside the raider numbered at ten then first turn hop on and ditch the duke with the witches or something. nowhere does it say that he must remain with the squad just that he starts with them.

If you want to take that risk (especially if going second) be my guest!

Massaen wrote:

If you want to take that risk (especially if going second) be my guest!

True but an empty raider is less of a threat, and 10 warriors are easy to hide. So unless your opponent is running a lot of nasty barrage weapons it's still an option.

My weekly opponent is steel legion imperial guard... So yeah, barrage!

I do this frequently, sometimes even larger squads on an objective. There is not much that can move 20 warriors with 2 SC in cover. The one real risk is a barrage, but we have so many more dangerous things than a sqaud of warriors it would be almost worth the 9 warriors for them to waste it on them.

As to original question, I used the archon the weekend-SF, HB, ST, CD and he did really well. You still get that "oh, boy" feeling everytime you throw a save but I may use him more. Not as much as the duke, but he compliments the incubi better and I found him a little better in CC. Both work well with my usual lists, so perhaps will make it more situational.

I think wasting too many points on a HQ choice in a 1k game isn't the best option. I agree with Nappen I would probably go with Haemy's for the pain tokens. If I do run an archon though I usually run him with HB, VB, SF, CD and ST (I play Against Nids a lot!) and i run him with 4 wyches, one upgraded to a Hek for the PGL in a venom and have had great success with them.

I like and endorse the non-char Archon. I love him with a shadow field, Blaster, and venom blade, not too expensive, and a jack of all trades if necessary. I support him with blasterborn, in a venom. (There is so much evil glee in four blaster shots coming out of a venom , against someone who wasn't paying attention to your list, the look on their face..... Priceless. )