You be the Rules Writer! - Lelith Hesperax

Lelith Hesperax is an iconic Dark Eldar character, and it would make sense for her to be "the best succubus out there" but as for myself, she seems to be lacking a role, something the fairly cheap succubus has. Her League Apart ability makes her good against low weaponskill foes but she obviously isn't made to take on hordes and one would be better advised to put to use her ability to ignore armor saves. This leaves a rather narrow range of units she can efficiently be deployed against. So how - if at all - would you change her rules/equipment/role etc. to suit your tastes? Try to keep it plausible, but hey, if you envision Lelith as a tankhunter, and Lelith's attacks should have the haywire rule because she can cut wires than so be it! Your opinion isn't wrong!

As for myself, I think making her best at winning challenges would be fluffy and fun. So I would remove the League Apart rule in favor of "when attacking a monstrous creature or fighting a challenge, Lelith always rolls to wound on a 4+ and has the preferred enemy special rule." That and I would simply add 2 attacks to her base profile. Those changes would make her ridiculously good at challenges and fighting monstrous creatures. That's my honest opinion, but I am looking forward to hearing yours!

I would just give her shred on top of her existing rules. Preferred enemy works too, but the effect is also conveyed to other models in her unit and I don't see her as a buffer.

Here are some thoughts!

Barbed Hair (counts as shardnet and impaler): Before striking blows in close combat, enemy models in base contact with Lelith must take one Initiative test for each attack on Lelith's profile (usually four). If any of these tests are failed, the model that failed them can only make a single close combat attack, regardless of their profile or any modifiers.

Butterknives... of death! : Lelith's close combat attacks are AP1, and always wound on a roll of 6 regardless of the target's Toughness value. Invulnerable saves may not be taken against Lelith's close combat attacks that roll a 6 to wound. For each close combat attack that she makes that hits, but fails to wound, roll a further D6: on a roll of 5 or 6, the attack wounds anyway, and if the result of this roll is 6, invulnerable saves may not be taken against it.

Defensive Stance: When Lelith attacks in close combat, she may choose to make fewer attacks than she would be entitled to. For each attack that she sacrifices in this way, she may negate a hit made against her later in the same round of combat.

I figure that letting her hair count as a razorflail rather than a shardnet would do the job nicely.

Or, for something completely different (and probably overpowered) maybe...
Perfect Placement: if you give Lelith any more than the merest split second to place her blows, she will find a way to hurt you. Lelith may choose to roll to wound against either her opponent's Toughness, or their (unmodified) initiative. Insta death still resolves on Toughness only.

Barking Agatha wrote:

Butterknives... of death! : Lelith's close combat attacks are AP1, and always wound on a roll of 6 regardless of the target's Toughness value. Invulnerable saves may not be taken against Lelith's close combat attacks that roll a 6 to wound.  For each close combat attack that she makes that hits, but fails to wound, roll a further D6: on a roll of 5 or 6, the attack wounds anyway, and if the result of this roll is 6, invulnerable saves may not be taken against it.

     so basically a d weapon.   

Just give her Combat Drugs and make her attacks Poison (4+) and cut her cost by about 25 points and she'd become viable.

I like idea of defensive stance.
And she realy need some monster-killing-weapon. Poison or something?

Count Adhemar wrote:

Just give her Combat Drugs and make her attacks Poison (4+) and cut her cost by about 25 points and she'd become viable.

Cha-ching. There's the money.

Agreed, although I would suggest her poison attacks be better than 4+. More fitting, I think.

I don't see why poison should be given to her, why would a skilled arena combatant need poison to bring down her foes? The same goes for drugs, foaming at the mouth on drugs like the lesser wyches? Doesn't seem to fit imo.

Personally I would make her more of a duelist character, maybe something similar to the Black Templar chapter tactics. After all she loves to pit her self against the most formidable champions she can.

Undisputed Champion - Whilst in a challenge Lelith is only ever hit on 5+ regardless of opponent's weapon skill and she gains the shred special rule.

Mistress of Death - "Lelith danced with them, gifting each with a single choice wound." During combat Lelith can exchange all her attacks to make a single attack with the instant death special rule.

All great suggestions! I don't know what I was thinking however when I said plus 2 attacks. 5 base is plenty. In my personal opinion, no attacks should ever negate invulnerable saves entirely, re-roll or modify to a minimum 6+ but it is after all an invulnerable save. Anyway I like the idea of wounding against unmodified initiative (wounding necrons on a 3+!). She'd still wound marines against a 5+

Wounding against unmodified initiative interestingly means that she becomes terrible at killing anything eldar, and unable to wound another succubus at all.  On the upside you have just created an ultimate rip-tide assassin.  I doubt those arena fights would be very entertaining though.

Yes, it would have to be the option of wounding against initiative. That way she could still wound Succubi on 4+.

Definitely the option.

Hmm, let's try going over the top:
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Untouchable Whirlwind of Death: to Lelith, everyone else is moving at the pace of a snail. She has plenty of time to choose to gut them or avoid their slow, clumsy swings.

At her initiative step, and then at every initiative step afterwards, Lelith may choose to either attack or defend. If she chooses to attack, make her attacks as usual, including any bonuses for charging etc. If she chooses to defend, then for every attack she would have been eligible to make, she may attempt to parry one enemy strike. For each hit scored against her, roll to hit as if she were attacking the enemy that scored the hit against her. A successful hit inflicts no damage, but parries the enemy's blow. The enemy's hit is discounted.

However, if Lelith ever suffers an unsaved wound, this breaks her concentration, and she may make no further attack or defend actions this Fight sub phase.
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So still S3, but a truly ridiculous number of attacks (even after removing her current bonus), plus a mechanism to dance around combatants like a really annoying thing

And she still gets to be the only wych in the galaxy that doesn't take combat drugs...

Nice idea Creeping Darkness! My favourite so far.

The real problem is her fluff. In it (her fluff) she cannot be beaten in combat. She fights the best the galaxy can offer on a daily basis and does not even chip her fingernail polish.

I'd just cut the crap, Make her a Lord of War choice. Charge a massive amount of pts for her and give her truly redonculous CC rules like a 2+ to wound everything and a re-roll on her save.

This is the only way her rules can live up to her fluff.

I actually see LoW being a better choice for Vect (especially as Gazghul became a LoW).
With Litlith I really don;t mind her as is.

Marvelous idea Creeping Darkness! I suppose everything is viable if you lower it's points cost enough!

I'm just thinking, well have always wanted furious charge on her or just poison 4+. It would also be good if you could field a Lhmyian with here but she's not an Archon so..

Hmm, how about, if you field lelith, bloodbribes are troops choices.

I like the Bloodbrides as troops idea. I would also settle for all bloodbrides being upgradable to I8 for a small points fee. It would be just like Lelith's counterpart in Urien Rakarth's ability to upgrade his Grotesques to Strength 6. Of course it would be more like plus 1 point because the difference between I6 and I8 is pretty slight, it would just be fluffy.

Rending and shred would be great. It fixes two problems, it means she can wound models that are T7+ and makes her S3 less of a problem as she gets to re-roll to wound. Throw in Hatred just to make sure she doesn't miss.

Maybe some mix of old and new Lelith?

Keep her stats at this edition, rules are pretty the same.
But add ability to use all wyches weapons (chose separetely for every fighting sub-phase) and make her cheaper. Like 150-140 pts would be fine for me.

And maybe give her some aditional weapon choise. Agonizer or something.

Giving Lelith rending and shred would be the most straightforward solution.
And then some unit boosts, like what Duke and Baron do. Something like... the squad of Bloodbrides that Lelith begins play with all have rending, representing her hand-picked backup dancers.

Her fights are also very popular to record, so Lelith should also generate a killpoint for each death she causes in a challenge.

All she really needs in her rolls is a price reduction and increased damage potential. Therefore, she should be 140, her attacks be AP2, and a League Apart should give her re-roll To Hit and To Wound in addition to its current rules.

HERO wrote:

All she really needs in her rolls is a price reduction and increased damage potential.  Therefore, she should be 140, her attacks be AP2, and a League Apart should give her re-roll To Hit and To Wound in addition to its current rules.

Well, she has ignor armor save rule, so its like ap2.
But what she realy need - is abylity to slay big guys, like carnifex.