Which kabal is your fav

I know we have very little information about the new Drukhari, but I am really excited after seeing the kabal special rules.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/03/27/codex-drukhari-preview-the-kabalsgw-homepage-post-3/
Which kabal is your fav and why?

Black heart makes it easier to get charges from deep striking which could be solid. And the counting as power from pain being 1 turn ahead of normal pfp is pretty good of you design your detachments to take advantage of it.

They all seem pretty good. Poison tongue  is nice for reroll 1s for poison.

But the flayed skull has faster vehicles and reroll 1s to hit which is better with splinter racks.

Buuuut obsidian rose has the extra 6" of range on most of their weapons making is much easier to keep out of harms way. And have better rapid fire ranges etc.

The rose is my personal fav if I plan on hanging back. And the extra range helps a lot.

Not a lot of info so far (traits, relics and strats are missing for moss part), but from what we know :

- Black heart : not very useful (unless there is a major rework in PfP), as CC oriented in a shooty faction. 6+++ for vehicles is nice.

- Poisoned tongue : straight out less powerful than Flayed Skull, but nice relic... and more flexibility if you want your kabs in CC.

- Flayed Skull : the obvious N1. Mobility, some AP bonus with ignore cover, and the rerolls and the Strat will help you proc those sweet Splinter Racks 6's.

- Obsidian Rose : nice. Niche stratagem, i'm not convinced with the relic (but i see the appeal), but the obsession is neato. Not my playstyle (I like to get really close), but definitly powerful for a certain playstyle.


So i'd say FS - OR - PT - BH

My painting scheme is a variation of black heart. Luckily I'm in the middle of a repaint of the army, so I will no longer be bound to running them. Flayed skulls looks fun, though.

Flayed Skull is the clear favorite on my end. Though Obsidian Rose has some merits. I hope we can combine them. Have those Obsidian Blasterborn in their Flayed Venom reach out 43 inches and touch someone.

@Mppqlmd wrote:

So i'd say FS - OR - PT - BH

Agree with this order.

I do love the idea of having 42" Lance's. That really helps Drukhari get the first hit against 48" guns.

I’m torn. Will depend on the units.

I want a monster heavy army, so poison tongue (Altho I agree isn’t as good as FS) is better for a melee Court, especially sslyth heavy.

But if I need to keep all my ravagers in my list for anti tank, i may have to go OR because 42” range is gorgeous

Black Heart is useless because our PFP table is based on close combat only and the last thing you want is your soldiers in close combat.

Poison Tongue suffers from the fact poison is still awful.

Flayed Skull is a serious contender because it means faster boats and also a very, very fast Tantalus. Mobility is how this game is currently won.

Obsidian Rose is a close second because zoning is also important and Dark Lances do that well. A properly built list can run roughshod with this but the fact Scourges can't benefit really hamstrings the ultimate potential of it.

Putting units of Obsidian Rose in Flayed Skull transports is obviously the go-to strategy here.

Flayed Skull and Obsidian Rose are my picks so far.

The former is obviously geared towards gunboats and such, so which one I use will probably depend on how many of those I plan to field. Also, Flayed Skull have a much better Stratagem.

Poison Tongue seems like it will be worse than the above in most cases. Rerolling 1s on weapons that wound almost exclusively on 4s really isn't great (and for the most part, Flayed Skull already does that while also providing other benefits). And melee is even worse. They do have a nice artefact, but I don't think it's enough to tip the balance.

Unless the PfP table has improved dramatically, Black Heart is awful. I don't need more melee buffs on shooty units.

Yeah I want to like poisoned tongue, I definetly like the idea of better poison weapons but flayed skull seems to be better. On the off chance that I ever ran a infantry heavy list I'd definetly go poisoned tongue over flayed skull, but in that case obsidian rose is probably better for infantry based lists. At least I wouldn't feel bad about trying out poisoned tongue, especially compared to black heart.

from what i have seen so far im probably going to run a couple patrol dettachments and use multiple kabals.

flayed skulls and obsidian rose look like good compliments to each other so i might end up using both

Still way to early to see what synergies are within the book. Flayed Skull and Obsidian Rose are obvious favorites so far

Take a guess:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-65KTAyKvpN8/VEBkqQ84cFI/AAAAAAAADBY/T9nPTpCzLgY/s1600/dearmy.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zea6sjuPMSI/VEdGmSWWGFI/AAAAAAAADCQ/ULg-I-Zpzks/s1600/dearmy.jpg

And yes, I take 0 in painting every local ITC event.

@HERO wrote:

Take a guess:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-65KTAyKvpN8/VEBkqQ84cFI/AAAAAAAADBY/T9nPTpCzLgY/s1600/dearmy.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zea6sjuPMSI/VEdGmSWWGFI/AAAAAAAADCQ/ULg-I-Zpzks/s1600/dearmy.jpg

And yes, I take 0 in painting every local ITC event.

Hey now that's still pretty good after hearing some of the higher end events don't even let you in without the base 3 coats, basing, and now conversions are almost becoming a must to not lose points.

@Ubernoob1 wrote:

@HERO wrote:

Take a guess:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-65KTAyKvpN8/VEBkqQ84cFI/AAAAAAAADBY/T9nPTpCzLgY/s1600/dearmy.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zea6sjuPMSI/VEdGmSWWGFI/AAAAAAAADCQ/ULg-I-Zpzks/s1600/dearmy.jpg

And yes, I take 0 in painting every local ITC event.

Hey now that's still pretty good after hearing some of the higher end events don't even let you in without the base 3 coats, basing, and now conversions are almost becoming a must to not lose points.

If our book is competitive enough, I'll show up at the SoCal Open this year and get my 3 colors on there.

I like these traits a lot.

I’m going to stick up for the Poisoned Tongue a bit -
rerolling 1 to wounds on poison is going to do some work if you’re running a pile of warriors. The surprise melee buff could also make an agoniser on your sybarite worth considering. Plus, the bonus still applies when you hit the ground - chances are you’ll get out of your Raider at some stage!

Having said that the +3” move of the Flayed Skull is excellent. We’ll see how it hangs together with Cults and Covens, which are more likely to want a Raider than Kabalites in my opinion.

And +6” range from the Obsidian Rose is sweet - especially for your blasters. Great if your Kabalites are geared for shooty antitank support (spoiler: they are).

So many good options. Nice one GW!

@HERO wrote:

Take a guess:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-65KTAyKvpN8/VEBkqQ84cFI/AAAAAAAADBY/T9nPTpCzLgY/s1600/dearmy.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zea6sjuPMSI/VEdGmSWWGFI/AAAAAAAADCQ/ULg-I-Zpzks/s1600/dearmy.jpg

And yes, I take 0 in painting every local ITC event.

Ah, I see you play the Kabal of Bland Disappointment.

Somehow I do not expect the biggest kabal of them all to be significantly weaker. For example I could see it giving their obsession bonus to all other detachments (including Covens and Cults), since it includes actually Covens and Cults in fluff.

Flayed skull or poisoned tongue for me.
Flayed skull is very nice, but once venoms/raiders are getting popped it will become useless.
Poisoned tongue is worse for shooting, but I have been considering adding some court models and than they do look very interresting. Maybe a small vanguard detachment for poisoned tongue.

Surely this rerolling 1s on poison wounds is really strong?

Not only does it allow our weapons to finally clear chaff easier, but is also makes clearing space marines easier too.

With this Tesla rule, combined with poisoned tongue obsession 10 kabalites are killing 4 marines per turn, which is double what we currently do, for no extra cost.

The flayed skulls stratagem and cover debuff is great, but I do wonder what a poisoned tongue stratagem will be, I assume something to make splinter weapons even better, as that's their thing.

Works out the same as the flayed skull, so I guess we need the dex to consider if the artefacts are worth it, or if warlord traits change it at all.

Edit: Some math, 4 marines, not 2

@Britishgrotesque wrote:

Surely this rerolling 1s on poison wounds is really strong?

Not only does it allow our weapons to finally clear chaff easier, but is also makes clearing space marines easier too.

With this Tesla rule, combined with poisoned tongue obsession 10 kabalites are killing 4 marines per turn, which is double what we currently do, for no extra cost.

The flayed skulls stratagem and cover debuff is great, but I do wonder what a poisoned tongue stratagem will be, I assume something to make splinter weapons even better, as that's their thing.

Works out the same as the flayed skull, so I guess we need the dex to consider if the artefacts are worth it, or if warlord traits change it at all.

Edit: Some math, 4 marines, not 2

The thing is that as far as we know the reroll 1 to hit from the flayed skull is better than the rerolling 1 to wound from poison tongue since you can get a rider effect on a 6 to hit.
And flayed skull also ignore the +1 save from cover which in my experience is huge for marines, for it litterally doubles the number of wounds.

PS how do you get 4 wounds?
20 shots: 16.66 hits : 9.7 wounds : 3.2 damage

Flayed Skull surely are better poisoners than Poisoned Tongue, not only do they reroll 1s ofr a better roll of 3+ instead of the reroll 1s on 4+ to wound, but also they trigger splinter racks more often that way. Add to that, that they ignore cover when in transports (which you always should do, so you can trigger the racks and overall all the time) but if you should choose to shoot at flyers you can use the stratagem to get 2+ to hit and trigger the racks at 5+ effectively.

If they do not change anything regarding poison weapons wounding, Poisoned tongue stinks I think.
But let's see what else will be revealed for them when the codex drops actually.

I'll be using at least two obsessions every game because my raiding force fluff is already a grand coalition.  

The one obsession I know I'll include in every list is the Black Heart.
The tactic presented in the community article suits my play style perfectly.
Being able to deep strike in massed raiders on turn one and then being sure they make the charges with the re-rolls is huge.

The raider is a long model. If you position your deep strike properly, charge intelligently and make sure to take advantage of the pile in rules, you can often tie up at least two units in CC turn one while only allowing one of them to overwatch. If you drop in, say 4 raiders you can probably box in some stuff to stop it from falling back.

Downing a raider in overwatch and then CC in just one turn is relatively hard, and when it gets a 6+++ it is even harder. At least if you pick your targets wisely.

The units embarked probably does not even have to be Black Heart.
but If they are allowed to embark on kabal transports you get the benefit of having your grotesque and wych laden raiders be "safe" in close combat on the other side of the board turn one, as long as the raider gets the bonus.
Some times it would be just as well to drop in some empty raiders, to stop a backfield shooting unit from shooting for one or more turns while other things advance up from your table edge.

If you are playing against a CC army then you should at least be able to bait some of their units out of position this way.

The only PfP bonus that exclusively benefits CC is +1 to hit. While not particularly useful on warriors, if it will help them gang up on a scout squad I'll take it. Sybarites with agonisers and throw away archons ( or dracons ) will benefit, but in general the black heart kabs will probably use turn 2 to move on to objectives.

Where they will stay to the last man from turn 3 onwards.

Also bumping the -1 ld aura to turn 4 buffs all Black Heart phantasm grenade launchers. Now if we also get a LD de-buff from the covens that stack...

And Labyrinthine Cunning. Boy am I going to have a field day making my opponent resent spending command points and second guessing his decisions with this!

@Magnetrofl wrote:

Flayed Skull surely are better poisoners than Poisoned Tongue, not only do they reroll 1s ofr a better roll of 3+ instead of the reroll 1s on 4+ to wound, but also they trigger splinter racks more often that way. Add to that, that they ignore cover when in transports (which you always should do, so you can trigger the racks and overall all the time) but if you should choose to shoot at flyers you can use the stratagem to get 2+ to hit and trigger the racks at 5+ effectively.

If they do not change anything regarding poison weapons wounding, Poisoned tongue stinks I think.
But let's see what else will be revealed for them when the codex drops actually.

Small detail reroll 1 to hit or wound makes no difference if you do not have splinter racks.

Yes the +1 to hit against flyers is really good, then again for all I know poisoned tongue might get a stratagem that gives +1 to hit against anything (unlikely I agree, but a mortal wound on a 6 would not surprise me)

That being said from what we have seen now the flayed skull looks slightly better as long as your complete kabalite force stays mounted.

@Scrz wrote:

The units embarked probably does not even have to be Black Heart.
If they are allowed to embark on kabal transports you get the benefit of having your grotesque and wych laden raiders be "safe" in close combat on the other side of the board turn one, as long as the raider gets the bonus.

I wouldn't bet the farm on being able to embark non Black Heart units in Black Heart transports. Craftworlds, CSM and Marines all limit transports to CRAFTWORLD/CHAPTER/LEGION respectively so I would not be surprised to see ours limited to KABAL/CULT/COVEN.

Why did you decide that you will be able to reroll charges for your Raiders?
It is also unclear, how many Raiders we can set up in reserve. It is said only about 1 vehicle. Is it legit to apply the same stratagem several times during deployment? If so why there is such strict conditions in the Webway portal stratagem?