Soul Trap vs Combat Drugs

So, I've been thinking over the merits of both pieces of wargear, and hope to stimulate some discussion about which of the two is better if you can only take one. Personally, I'd take combat drugs over soul trap. Its how I run my archon - huskblade, shadowfield, combat drugs (and venom blade points permitting).

My logic is: drugs have a better than 50/50 shot of benefiting the archon - 2 help mitigate his relatively weak strength of 3 (+1S and re-roll wounds), 1 helps to a lesser extent by boosting his attacks, and having a bonus pain token for him and his escort is awesome (especially if its wyches). +1 WS is meh because of his WS of 7 - it's only good if you have him against an opponent of exactly WS7 (in which case you become 3s to hit) or WS8 (when they become 4s to hit), and the bonus run dice are iffy.

With a soul trap, you have to kill an IC or an MC (and lets face it, with S3 its only going to be an IC) and pass a Ld test, and then have enough of the game left to go and kill other things. I see the merit of both, but I've found that the drugs are more useful more of the time.

Obviously more people are going to have opinions, hopefully some the same and some that differ - which do you run, and why? Have at it!

I think looking at them as an either/or dynamic intrinsically flaws the discussion.

That's like saying 'Shadowfield *or* Venom Blade'

Why not both and why do they need to be an either/or?

Why is it hard to kill a MC with a husk blade? Most MCs are T5-6 so 6s to wound, it's not unreasonable considering the husk blade ignores armour and FNP. At first glance you might have better odds at wounding a T4 IC, but they tend to have better invulnerable saves than MCs. You have same chances of killing a tervigon than killing a T4 IC with a 4++.

My archon always has both apart from the crappy run drug all the rest benefit him.

Both, but drugs are better.

One is useless, two isnt great, the rest are pretty good.
I rarely pop my ST.
ICs just arent that common. Even the enemy HQ isnt a solid shot at one, and even if he is, the game rarely has much to run after you hack him to pieces.
A S10 Archon smashing open a raider is lots of fun, but except for BAs and nids, what army fields a lot of ICs and MCs?

The growing number of big walkers are all MCs, and are priority targets; my Archon's soul trap already has several Dreadknights and a Riptide, and is looking forward to tasting Wraithknight!
I also prioritise Slay The Warlord, so the opponent's IC HQ is flavoursome too!

Haven't used the trap have never felt the need. Even drugs are on my extras list below hwg but ya when their affordable I take drugs..
Combat drugs that is.

Take a venom blade as well if you're worried about wounding high toughness models, I did that vs a carnifex and hey ho by turn 3 I'd got a S6 Archon with a huskblade. Dropping the pistol doesn't worry me since i usually run him with Incubi anyway.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Take a venom blade as well if you're worried about wounding high toughness models, I did that vs a carnifex and hey ho by turn 3 I'd got a S6 Archon with a huskblade. Dropping the pistol doesn't worry me since i usually run him with Incubi anyway.

Does losing the extra attack from the pistol not concern you then?

The Shredder wrote:

Does losing the extra attack from the pistol not concern you then?

Nope, because in 6th edition you would still get an extra attack for having a husk blade and a venom blade (two close combat weapons).

Yeah but the VB has no AP or ID, so unless you splinter an MC to 1 wound your chances of killing it still arent great, even if you do, its still not great.
I likes me my AP2 and ID

+1S is actualy of little use against most MCs, S4 and S3 are both wounding T6 on a 6.

A charging Archon has a 44% chance of killing a dreadknight, 51% with an extra attack, and 81% with rerolls.
There are worse odds.

I almost always take a trap, but I dont expect it to do a great deal.

The HB/VB combo is amazing if you face any armies besides marines. The dual weapons allow the archon to murder pretty much everything in the game with brutal efficiently.

DominicJ wrote:

Yeah but the VB has no AP or ID, so unless you splinter an MC to 1 wound your chances of killing it still arent great, even if you do, its still not great.

I'd far rare take the likelihood of causing lots of 2+ wounds and forcing saves than have to rely on rolling a 6 to wound, plus it's just as useful against T7+ models whereas the husk blade can't hurt them at all.

I prefer the soul trap, but only because I love the idea of a strength 10 archon. In reality I SHOULD be taking drugs because 1/3 of the time it is truly epic (re-roll to wound or pain token) while the others are meh compared. Although once I played a tyranid army and trolled with a strength 64 archon (+1 strength, Spore pod, Swarmlord, another pod and a tervigon) which is also fun, but not as competitive. Pieces of wargear that need your opponent to make a mistake ( getting something killable into range of archon) rarely are reliable.

Thor665 wrote:

I think looking at them as an either/or dynamic intrinsically flaws the discussion.

That's like saying 'Shadowfield *or* Venom Blade'

Why not both and why do they need to be an either/or?

I think this best sums it up for me. They're not mutually-exclusive, nor are they prohibitively expensive.

If you only want to take one, then combat drugs is probably the better all-rounder. It's a little dependant on what you roll, but it works immediately and doesn't require your Archon to kill a specific target before he can get the benefit.

Soul Trap is definitely more fun (if you can get it to work), and you at least know what the effect will be (it's just activating that effect that poses a problem).

Again though, I'd just take both. If I'm buying a tooled-up combat Archon, then I've already opted for a relatively expensive HQ (compared to a blaster-archon or Haemonculus). So, why not splash out that extra 10pts and take both?

if im taking a combat archon i will take both though it is generally the only time i will fail a LD test a game whenever i manage to get it off