Codex: Drukhari Preview: Haemonculus Covens

Did anyone else catch that blip at the end about destroying tanks from afar with haywire blasters while the tank is surrounded by wracks? That could mean they are in for a boost to the haywire blaster ... Also because of the administor punishment stratagem ... We could see a basic ranged weapon choice for our coven or an increase in the amount of ranged weapons a basic coven unit is allowed to take.

@eae wrote:

Do we need to reserve points for Black Cornucopians stratagem?

Nope, you're not bringing on a new unit, just reploying and existing one at full strength. CSM has the same stratagem for chaos cultists. It can be a bit tricky to pull off though since the unit needs to not die, but it will definetly be easier for+4 invul wracks than chaos cultists.

Hm. Vehicles get obsessions, right? So a venom would inflict -1 leadership with Distillers of Fear? I'm pretty sure units in vehicles don't get the aura, but by disembarking a haemy and a unit of wracks/grots from a raider and charging with everything you instantly reach the cap. A passing archon or unit of kabalites can fire with their phantasm grenade, too, adding another easy -1 ld.

Yeah vehicles will count, only coven trait that actually benefits vehicles at least a little.

Also, this gives you access to venom with ap-1. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Or Raiders with the sniper keyword.

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It's only extra ap for melee weapons though, not terribly useful on venoms/raiders.

@Dark Elf Dave wrote:

So it is -1 per Dark Creed unit within 6 inches so you gotta do some work on that.  Hit it with PGL for additional -1 if that's allowed to stack.  Kill the warlord and use the strategem for -1 across whole army.

-5 LD maybe....

Add in a Hemlock with Horror for -3 leadership.
Add in a Harlequin character wearing the Mask of Secrets for another -1 leadership.
Add in a Farseer casting Mind War.

Boom.

@Crazy_Ivan wrote:

I'm stoked, really excited to see how they play, having a few pain engines come out of the webway to heat lance a HQ is brilliant.

oooooh. I hadn't thought of WWP for my pain engines (not sure why)! That could be a rather effective way to use them.

@Lord Asvaldir wrote:

It's only extra ap for melee weapons though, not terribly useful on venoms/raiders.

Actually its quite good on raiders and venoms, remember our vehicles can actually fight and tarpit in HTH, they are not winning any fights but can support and do enough damage, the -1 is still quite valid for them.

Just wait till they show us the Talos. They haven't improved the AP, but since you can give it another -1 for a total of -2, it's balanced right?

But yeah, buffs to vehicles are neat. It would be fun to snipe hq's with dark lances, if a bit on the extremely pricy side.

@Silverglade wrote:

@Crazy_Ivan wrote:

I'm stoked, really excited to see how they play, having a few pain engines come out of the webway to heat lance a HQ is brilliant.

oooooh.   I hadn't thought of WWP for my pain engines (not sure why)!   That could be a rather effective way to use them.

Wait, how? The stratagem from the index can't be used on monsters, right? Have I missed something?

It's a gamble, but s8, ap-4, d6 sniper truly is something.

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For me the Dark Creed and Prophets Of Flesh are very fun ideas for me.

Something that struck me is that we have already been given a few ways of targeting characters. This could be used to target Psykers that we always feel we have little defense against. It is a nice way to give us a way of targeting a problem unit but in our own way.

Ok so the dark Creed can actually inflict -4 leadership on the enemy, (turn 5 pfp is -1 leadership buff aura) plus Phantasm and then Pray they don't take you alive for a max debuff of -6ld. We don't know if there are relica that might subtract even more leadership but it seems like with a fair bit of cherry picking we can get it to where units will hit 0 leadership.

And the heat lance has a lousy profile for vehicles, but an excellent profile for hqs

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Is there a rule about 0 characteristic units? In 7th if your leadership toughness were 0 you were removed as a casualty I believe. Could you imagine. A 40 man cultist blob that's so strong right now just evaporating? The look on your opponents face as you explain what just happened...

-7 is possible from turn 1 with allies and luck. 3 dark creed units. Phantasm grenade launcher. Pray (tantalus snipe their warlord). And a hemlock. Oh. -8. Horrify from said hemlock. 9 if you drop an obsidian rose archon with the armour of misery as Well or was that something else? 10 if you include a harlequins with the mask of secrets.

On turn 1

@Mppqlmd wrote:

And the heat lance has a lousy profile for vehicles, but an excellent profile for hqs

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When the index broke I initially thought I would use Reavers with Heat Lances to hunt characters...this is much better!

I wonder what changes will be made to Urien? Right now he doesn't have the "Insensible to pain" rule because they made the "Cone Field" a 4++. He cannot benefit from his Coven's rule I hope they change the Cone Field to 4+++ or 5+++, and give him "Insensible to pain".

He would then be; T6, 5W, 4++, 5+++, re-roll all failed saves of attacks < S9. That would be a tough kill.

@Dalamar wrote:

I wonder what changes will be made to Urien?  Right now he doesn't have the "Insensible to pain" rule because they made the "Cone Field" a 4++.  He cannot benefit from his Coven's rule  I hope they change the Cone Field to 4+++ or 5+++, and give him "Insensible to pain".  

He would then be; T6, 5W, 4++, 5+++, re-roll all failed saves of attacks < S9. That would be a tough kill.

It would also be nice if his weapons weren't salvaged from a dumpster-fire.

@The Shredder wrote:

@Dalamar wrote:

I wonder what changes will be made to Urien?  Right now he doesn't have the "Insensible to pain" rule because they made the "Cone Field" a 4++.  He cannot benefit from his Coven's rule  I hope they change the Cone Field to 4+++ or 5+++, and give him "Insensible to pain".  

He would then be; T6, 5W, 4++, 5+++, re-roll all failed saves of attacks < S9. That would be a tough kill.

It would also be nice if his weapons weren't salvaged from a dumpster-fire.

Well there is that, but that is for all Coven weapons really.

@Dizzie wrote:

@Lord Asvaldir wrote:

It's only extra ap for melee weapons though, not terribly useful on venoms/raiders.

Actually its quite good on raiders and venoms, remember our vehicles can actually fight and tarpit in HTH, they are not winning any fights but can support and do enough damage, the -1 is still quite valid for them.

It's definetly not quite good, we are talking about 2 s4 attacks on the venom and 3 on the raider, the extra ap really isn't going to add a whole lot of damage to their low number of attacks. Yeah it's not useless but it's nothing to write home about, especially considering it doesn't really affect their ability to tarpit much. The -1ld from a venom/raider would probably be more useful, or better yet any of the kabal traits.

The -1 AP is a welcome addition (or rather subtraction) for me. I've had Grotesques stuck in combat due to a Dreadnought charging in while I was already locked in combat. It was rather hard to do any damage to it. This will give even Wracks a better chance against those now.

What I'm hoping unit profiles contain are:
Wracks AP-
Grotesques AP-1
Talos/Cronos AP-2
With the -1 this would effectively make them -1, -2, -3. Fingers crossed for improved profiles!

For actual coven I completely agree, an extra point of ap is solid on assault oriented units like wracks, grotesques and talos. My point was merely that on the 2/3 s4 attack vehicles it really doesn't add a whole lot, which is perfectly fine because the coven traits should be focused on buffing the coven units, not our transports.

-1 from new trait (up to -3)
-1 PGL
-1 Dont let em take you alive
-1 Turn 5+ from power from pain? Unless that has changed?

@The Red King wrote:

Is there a rule about 0 characteristic units? In 7th if your leadership toughness were 0 you were removed as a casualty I believe. Could you imagine. A 40 man cultist blob that's so strong right now just evaporating? The look on your opponents face as you explain what just happened...

-7 is possible from turn 1 with allies and luck. 3 dark creed units. Phantasm grenade launcher. Pray (tantalus snipe their warlord). And a hemlock. Oh. -8. Horrify from said hemlock. 9 if you drop an obsidian rose archon with the armour of misery as Well or was that something else? 10 if you include a harlequins with the mask of secrets.

On turn 1

Fairly certain that you couldn't and still can't instagib units by reducing their ld to 0. But what happens with all these ld debuffs? If you reduce an opponent's ld to 0, kill two models and roll a 3 for morale, what happens? How many flee?