The Haemonculus Tools

Hello, fellow citizens of the Dark City,

Today I'm going to spend some words on the different tools that haemonculi have at their disposal. Some of them are useful, some are not... and some of them can just be a funny way to kill or torment your foes.

I'll rate the different tools by their (evil)laugh potential. Just because I like it.

1: No fun 2: Meh 3: Poker Face 4: Heh! 5: LOL

Let's start.


Archangel of Pain.

This deamon-in-a-box toy is like a funny joke to our Dark Eldar pride. Why? Look at Grey Knights and their funny psychotropic grenades... they even sound as a DE weapon!! And the only thing we can do to avenge is to release a trapped deamon... heh. Fly, birdie, fly!

Tactically, is too much random to be relied on. 3D6 area of effect, and you depend on the enemy failing a Ld test. Oh, and 1 use only. The only tactical use I can see on it is being a bonus on the charge: you're assaulting with your wyches, wracks, grotesques or Incubi, and this box can give you a chance to increase their survivability. WS and I1 means the enemy is hitting less and last (or at the same time if in cover and you don't have grenades). I can see that Grots and wracks (and Incubi without 'nades) get the most from this.

Rate: 2


Animus Vitae

This weapon has been lost in translation from the last codex. Now it’s an (easy?) way to get a Pain Token from lone models rather than whole non-vehicle units. Something like Chronos, but cheaper, only in assault, and worse. Why? The A.V. is a weapon that must be used as a main weapon to get the PT (so no Venom Blade or Agonizer for your Heamy), and has no S or AP modifiers. At least with a pistol you can get another attack…
So you’re risking your haemy in a fight, armed with a spool of wire, and only when you kill an enemy and pass a Ld test you’ll get a PT per TURN. No thanks, my haemy already gives me the number of pain tokens that matter: one. If I want more I’ll just wipe out the enemy squad and go on.
Well, on paper you can start with a heamonculus and some unit (incubi for example), and wipe out a squad while the Animus Vitae shreds a model, and then you have 3 paint tokens (so you are Fearless and won’t run from shots, but also won’t go to ground for cover!).

Rate: 1
<P.D. Some people use the A.V. the same as the Soul Trap, through the rule interpretation that the "bearer" (not "user", so no need to attack with it) benefits from the Pain Token leeching of the weapon, and they can use a Venom Blade at the time, for example>

Crucible of Malediction

The psychic “offense” of DE (Lady Malys is the only deffense). To me, depending on an enemy Ld test is nothing to rely on if we are talking about lone, high Ld psychers like librarians. But, if you know you are about to fight against Grey Knights (die for your silly grenades!!) or Eldar, this tool can be your most powerful one-shot weapon. Remember, warlocks are not a psychic brotherhood, so everyone of them will make a Ld test (at Ld 8 ). If you kill Eldrad once, you can be proud of yourself for taking this, and don’t forget to (evil) laugh out loud.

Like you could do with the Archangel of Pain, an extra move on the shooting phase with a Raider equipped with Torment Grenade Launchers can raise up your chances to send them home.

Just one more thing, an idea that flashed at my mind: Psy-bomb!

I can imagine the haemy throwing this on the ground and saying:

-“Opa gangnam style! “

Then all the psychers leave the battle dancing like they’re riding horses. Huzzah!!
Dance the Gangnam Style to death, you nerds!!

Rate: 5 (against GK and Eldar), 2 (against everyone else).


Dark Gate

This is a 30 points, one shot weapon. But it’s S10 and Large Blast! No AP is no longer a problem (or at least the same one for every AP>2 weapon), so you can smash whole vehicle squads with your outer-dimensional, purple tentacle.

Also, you can insta-kill multi-wound infantry with T5 or less. See that grotesque death star? Purple-smash! No more grots.

Hordes with FnP? Smash!

I know, I Know, only 12” range, one shot. But if you don’t take it, don’t blame IG for having large blast, high S shots…

Just remember, there won’t be a lot of things to charge after you shoot this.

Rate: 4


Mirrorshard

“Oh, this could’ve been the death of Fulgrim if he was near. He just loves himself too much…”

You know when someone is too ugly that breaks any mirror he/she looks at? Well it seems that mirrors strike back…

…and haemys are not that handsome. Then, you can get one shard of broken mirror for every battle, point at some unlucky bitches and turn them to pieces. Is there something more fun? Well, not really.

Only a toughness test and they’re gone. It could be a vanity test… well then maybe Eldar/Dark Eldar could take the worst part. I think a T-test is fair enough.

But hey! You can also snipe any model you want to crash! They’ll just hate you.

Hope you don’t get any bad luck for playing with mirrors!

Rate: 5


Casket of Flensing

Do you like randomness? No? Blame Phil Kelly. Oh, and avoid playing Codex: Demons (By Phil Kelly).

For the rest of us, who love our epic codex writer, here is a piece of wargear which kind of resembles the Medhusae shot. I know it’s worse (-1S worse exactly), but hey you don’t need to get the Medhusae itself. Nor 1-2 lhameans. Nor 1-3 Ssliz. Nor that ugly Ur’ghuls. Dark Muses save you from paying for that models… that you won’t ever use.

So with the Casket you have a 1 shot weapon (again… why oh dear Kelly), that can be super-awesome (yay! 12 S6 AP1 shots!!), or just an epic fail (1 S1 AP6 shot doh!), but most of the time it will be in the middle. Like some-epic-awe-fail ¿? Wot? I’ll just do some numbers…

Number of shots: 2D6. Average: 7. This roll is pretty decisive, but the 2D6 factor makes it quite reliable.

Strenght: 1D6 ->no average, but 1 third of the time S1-2 (fail), another third S3-4 (not bad), another third S5-6 (good). So 2/3 of the time it won’t be bad at all. Against MEQs you could say that only S4-6 is acceptable, but it’s still half of the time.

AP: 1D6 ->no average, but half of the time it will be equal or less to 3, which is good!

If we take into account that there are 2 to 12 shots, 1-6 strenght values and 1-6 AP values, then it’s equal to 396 different kinds of weapon profiles!!!! This is crazy…

Apart from this, half of the time your strength rolls will be poor(against MEQ), and also half of the time your AP rolls too. Taking into account that the number of shots can be averaged to 7, we have 4 average situations:

S1-3, AP4-6. The worst shot. Hope you have something more powerful inside your bag to kill your foes, cause this won’t work.

S1-3, AP1-3. Your gun is big enough, but you don’t have the strength to make it work. Hah! This shot can kill someone, but won’t hurt that much.

S4-6, AP4-6. This is not that bad, you will hurt people badly, but first they must fail their saves (but if they're in cover or have a bad save, no worries!)

S4-6, AP1-3. One fourth of the time, this weapon will pay itself, and with benefits… but only if you manage to hit and wound!!!



So much randomness makes Eldur a dull boy… RATING TIME!!


Rate: 3
<Get this gun if you have the points and try it every time you can (if you're not that desperate so there's no risk at trying), sometimes it will work, sometimes it will fail, but the moment when it gets a lot of high S low AP shots will be priceless. JUST AIM HIGH!>

P.D. Oh and Urien gets it for free (I guess it represents the Haematovores on the base of the new model), so remember this if you want to go with him.


(wait for more!)

Good start. Keep it coming!

Updated! Enough for today.

Tools still in the box...

- Casket of Flensing
- Orb of Despair
- Liquifer Gun
- Scissorhands
- Flesh Gauntlet
- Hexrifle
- Vexator Mask
- Webway Portal
- Soultrap
- Weapons

Quick word on the Animus Vitae. You only need to be the "bearer" of the weapon to gain the benefits of the rules. You don't actually need to attack with it! This may seem silly but that's what the descripton of the item says and there are recent FAQs (Grey Knights and Chaos Space Marines) that confirm that this is how it works. Might make it more useful as a pain token dispenser.

I noticed already that if you read it RAW (rules as written) then it goes like that, and then you just need to sacrifice a pistol/second ccw to equip this and get the Pain tokens as you fight. This way, the A.V. can be a nice piece of wargear, and the posibilities can give raise to another whole post.

But unless it says so in the DE FAQ, I won't risk a rule discussion with my opponent!

I rarely give Haems more than a liquifier so I doubt I'd take it anyway but would be more useful if it works as suggested.

Read the last FAQ for DE. If you use Animus Vitae with another weapon you must choose to use it instead of te other weapon to get the Pain Token...

Eldur wrote:

Read the last FAQ for DE. If you use Animus Vitae with another weapon you must choose to use it instead of te other weapon to get the Pain Token...

Can you point that FAQ out? I just re-read the entire latest version and I cannot find anything discussing the Animus Vitae. There is a point talking about a Djin Blade, and it would seem that the same logic should hold true for the Animus Vitae, but I don't see it discussed anywhere. I know what you mean about not risking a rules discussion, but given the the wording of the Haemonculus/Ancient Haemonculus entry it seems like you can take it without replacing any wargear and still receive the benefits.

DE Codex p.85 wrote:

Take up to two of the following pieces of arcane wargear: Animus Vitae...5 points..."

Read THIS post.

I hope it helps.


Soon, I'll continue with the Arcane Wargear guide!!

Eldur wrote:

Read THIS post.

Thanks for pointing that out. I always hate language based differences between FAQs and this is just silly. One FAQ has something in it, while another completely lacks any point like it. The English FAQ makes no mention about the Animus Vitae at all.

However, on a side note, as per the codex, you don't actually have to replace any wargear to purchase the Animus Vitae; you can just "buy it" and then model it appropriately on your Haemonculus. The effects of it are, as per your previous post, open to interpretation, but without an FAQ ruling (for English speakers) it is worded that you can just attack away and collect pain tokens.

It could've been easier if the Animus Vitae worked just like the Soul Trap ¿why not? You're fighting a model, and when you're about to kill him (with a Venom blade etc.) the Animus opens up and traps the poor man to turn him into pieces.

I think in this case it's best to assume that the error is in the Spanish version.

Balisong wrote:

I think in this case it's best to assume that the error is in the Spanish version.

Agreed.

Eldur wrote:

It could've been easier if the Animus Vitae worked just like the Soul Trap ¿why not? You're fighting a model, and when you're about to kill him (with a Venom blade etc.) the Animus opens up and traps the poor man to turn him into pieces.

It really is an evil piece of wargear when you think about it like that and what a modelling opportunity to show off something cool. I agree though, that wording would have made a lot of sense.

Great article! I look forward to hearing your views on the other items of arcane wargear.

I love the fluff for the Animus Vitae, but I have never found the spare points to try it out (I know it's super-cheap, but a Venom Blade is just much more kill-y).

Eldur wrote:

If you kill Eldrad once, you can be proud of yourself for taking this, and don’t forget to (evil) laugh out loud..

Well I guess then I can be proud of myself as I managed exactly that. It happened on turn 3 of an Apo game, when I started to turn on my allies, as my objection was to kill as many army generals as possible, allies included he he he..
Next to go was Yriel.


Now on topic. Great comments on the little play things. I really think they can make a game more enjoyable, and some, like the shatter shard can be really nasty. Looking forward to the other.

Sláinte

Edited: Casket of Flensing added to the list.

Just an idea: post your experiences with the haemys tools on the battlefield. (mines will come soon, when I finish the list )