Mandrakes Infiltrating

Can Mandrakes infiltrate into a Raider?

Can mandrakes actually be played?

Sure they can, but they are not an easy to play or TAC unit.

So what can they do?
They can have a shooting attack, with two S4 and AP4 shots at the range on a blaster with pining. sounds not bad.
on attack they aren't too shabby at all, with three S4 Ini5 on the charge and 5++, they hit hardern than wyches, but can not take as much. if you count the shooting attack to the attack, then they have even more punch(and get FNP).
What they do not have are grenades. thats a heavy pump in their ride. That could be corrected by an archon and he could also suppy a PT, that he stole from someone.

Rules like Move through cover and their +1 to a cover save make them good cover hoppers, but the additional PT is mandatory.

So the essence is, they are not a stand alone unit(what DE unit really is XD ) so they are meant to be used in a combination of units.

A combination could be:
Archon with toys and PGL
Mandraks(with the size of the unit im not sure, how many are to many or to less)
and a PT bringer. 4 Wraks in a Venom or more in a Raider.

The Archon deployes with the Wraks in the raider, die mandrakes infiltrate, and the archon joins them turn one. Puff, letz fetz ;-)

or run them in a monster mash list as countercharge. keep them somewhere near a chronos or start a heamy with them and forget about infiltration. its not like its often a particularly good thing to start within 12-18" of the enemy on your own, way ahead of the rest of your forces anyways. tends to put a bit of a target on your head in my experience

csjarrat wrote:

or run them in a monster mash list as countercharge. keep them somewhere near a chronos or start a heamy with them and forget about infiltration. its not like its often a particularly good thing to start within 12-18" of the enemy on your own, way ahead of the rest of your forces anyways. tends to put a bit of a target on your head in my experience

How very true.
Let us compare the damage output of a mandrake to our other CC units.
Best case scenario, charge with 1 PT against MEQ
1# shooting: 4\6*3\6*2\6*2

I don't know about u guys but I'm seeing more Eldar and Tau and to me Mandrakes (on paper) are killing more Tau/Eldar troops than anything else, en mass. Mandrakes remove their armour sv and hit just as hard in assault.

Which is why I'm asking if u start a Haemie onboard a Raider, then can the Mandrakes Infiltrate onboard....but it really dowsnt matter as they will just infiltrate next to the raider and embark T1 and boost away, pain token and all

Don't think you can infiltrate into vehicles but don't have my book to check

Isn't Infiltrating part of deploying? In which case a transport can only contain the unit it is dedicated to.

commandersasha wrote:

Isn't Infiltrating part of deploying? In which case a transport can only contain the unit it is dedicated to.

Yeah, pg 121 has all the explanations including to my OP

Take Vect and his Dias then put the Mandrake in there, this way they'll have prefered enemy too. xD

Oh poop I forgot you'll need a Haemie in there too

Maybe in a fun game I'll give that one a shot.

I have some mandrakes waiting to be painted...maybe I will paint them up and give them a try.

Curiousity - If Mandrakes were Troops or scoring units, would they be considered acceptable with the current rule set?

We're currently going through a Planetstrike campaign to get into the whole forging a narrative thing... When all units are scoring, suddenly the Mandrakes are starting to look pretty good. Stealth, Infiltrate, and a 5++ are pretty good for a unit that just needs to survive. I'm currently painting them up as we're playing with only painted models for this go around... We'll see how they turn out.

Still bound and determined to make them cool, or at least not suck...

. Infiltrators cannot infiltrate onto a vehicle in general and do not have the option to take a dedicated transport. Now on turn one they embark onto a transport or during deployment you can put the with Vect in the Dias but that's it.

One thing I'm trying out is seeing how Mandrakes (or any infiltrators really) do with some of the new fortification rules found in Stronghold Assault. You can infiltrate into buildings and there are some very interesting set ups in the book that don't involve the void shield or the macro cannon.

A quick look at the infiltration rules shows they also get outflank if they're in reserves. Can lead to some "where did they come from!?" moments as well as a nice way to get linebreaker possibly. Also considering using infiltrate to put them on an objective in cover, with their stealth rule they'll be a pain to dislodge. Will have to try these out.

Personally I find Mandrakes fairly practical, now I freely admit to owning dice that have an unquenchable desire to please me - or fear failing me - and to not playing in anything even close to tournament level etcetera. However, when playing against an inexperienced player, someone who seems the model and thinks their sheer beauty must indicate a premier stat-line, or someone who may react poorly when under the pressue of having a unit closer to their lines than intended, I see them serving well.

Infiltrate them into cover, preferably the best possible and then in your first turn have a Haemonculus leap out of a passing raider to join them. Baleblasts aren't entirely awful, and when in cover their more effort to shift than your enemy really wants to send their way. If you've got them central - or near major thoroughfares - then you've also the option of jumping out of cover to assault something in an entirely sacrificial fashion, and anything that does come their way is likely having to use something that would hurt the rest of your army considerably more, to be able to get past their cover and stealth saves.

As my Haemonculus is also always carrying a Webway portal in the above scenario it adds to the advantage as suddenly an otherwise not really threatening unit is now also somewhere the enemy are going to have to be concerned about, and additional bodies never go amiss in that instance.