Army update

Just a quick update to post some pictures of what I’ve gotten finished on my army so far.
Most things still need some touch ups, and everyone needs to be based.
The goal was a quartered black and red theme on the warriors inspired by Harley Quinn from the Batman comics.  The wyches were then done in a compatible scheme, which I later realized looks identical to one of the ones in the codex.

Infantry

Wyches

Warriors

The vehicles were done in the same Charadon Granite and Scab Red, but it’s a bit harder to wash the vehicles and bring them down to a better black.  So I’ve started my Ravager with a black base coat to see if it turns out better.

Raider

Venom

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

So summer classes finished up last week, and I’ve been working hard on a bunch of different things; mostly getting an army ready for Ard Boyz. But today I got a bit of all sorts of news.

The good news, a few packages came in. First, was the Zuzzy mats that I had ordered a while back. There was a small delay because of some technical issues with the production, not a big deal for me I wasn’t in a rush for them and they were good at communicating the delay. Still, as a indication of the quality of service, they threw in two small 14x11 mats as an apology. These things are absolutely mind blowing in person, I’ve seen very few fully textured boards that are of this quality. I order two mats to begin with, the Sulfur Fields and the Scourged Forest, I was a little hesitant on the price; but I’m positive at least two more mats, and possibly some of the terrain will be coming in an order soon.

Image courtesy of Zuzzy Minatures

Also on the good side, some of the models I needed came in at the local store, a stack of 20 wracks and some chaos hounds. Unfortunately, on the bad side most of the other models, which are more importantly a core part of my girlfriends army did not show up. They should hopefully be here in plenty of time still, but there is that outside possibility that they may not. We are also still waiting on an ebay shipment that will bolster her Eldar list to 30 wraithguard.

Finally, the ugly.

Packaged complete with baggy of shame.

Those 20 wracks that came in, of the four boxes three are going back to the store, with the fourth coming as a complaint on quality. Each box contains 5 models across 6 sprues, I was fairly generous on most of the sprues, but of the four boxes one has four sprues with some detail or bit completely unusable, another has three sprues unusable, the last one has two unusable sprues. The final box that is usable, not good, but usable, has a number of details that are not as sharp as they could be and a few pieces that are broken still. I understand the issues in working with resin, but this is absolutely disgraceful, a lot of the sprues have a film of resin that you need to cut through, not just break away like a thin sheet; the worst of it all, the above picture came as shown, fully half the sprue is encased, and it was the only sprue to come in the little baggy of shame. (The number was put on by me with a sharpie to mark the defects in that box).

For my first fine cast experience, I am not impressed, in the least. I’m quite glad my Incubi and first batch of razorwing flocks were in metal now, unfortunately one of the things I’m waiting on is another set of razorwings . . . lets keep our fingers crossed.

Incubi and Klaivex almost done

So when the new codex came out I made a decision, I was going to change my colour scheme. Now I have a fairly large Dark Eldar army already, and it uses a nice blue and dark green colour scheme(with some splashes of red) and purple weapons, I like the colours, but never really managed to get it to look as good as I'd like. Since I've been waiting on this new book for a long time, and with how great the new models are, I'm probably building another Dark Eldar army from the new models. So, when I looked at my existing models, I picked out one of the units I did like quite a bit and started with them, my incubi.

The old Incubi always had to have the coats, even if there were only 2 poses for them

They didn't see much use with the old book, I just didn't find that happiness in the points vs. effectiveness balance. But I did like how they looked, the deep red, with the off white faces, and the black jackets looked pretty badass, so it didn't take much decision on how the new incubi would look. Besides it would allow me to use the old incubi with the new ones if the opportunity arose, because they still look great.

So once I received the new Incubi, I painted up four of the five in a similar colour scheme, and then started some conversion work on the last one.

They hurt as good as they look, which is the best part

One of the things I liked about the new incubi rules, is they have that Aspect Warrior feel from the Eldar codex. I really liked the Klaivex with his special options and powers, in particular I liked the versatility of demiklaives and the onslaught ability, I've always been fond of random abilities because your opponent can't count on them. So the search started through the bits box. I had some Dark Elf swords that looked ok but didn't quite hit the feel for me, the next closest thing I found were some Ork choppas. Finally in the bottom of one of my Dark Eldar boxes I found this single metal sword that was part of an uncompleted conversion I received as part of a trade with a friend. It was perfect, except it was only one sword, and I needed two. The sword looked familiar, so I knew I had seen it before and after some searching I thought it was the sword on the old Lelith model, but it wasn't quite the same. Then I found it on one of the old Wych models, I almost bypassed it because the sword is normally connected to the wyches hair, so some work had been done to fix the end of the blade.

Second in on the bottom left

So out came the jewellers saw and files and I salvaged a second sword, and started removing the klaive from the existing model. After a bit of pinning and some repositioning, I finally had them setup half decent. They still had the look that they could hit hard at +2 strength, but could also be lightning fast in skilled hands to give the +2 attacks. So off he went for some painting as well, and while they still have a few touch ups and some basing to be done, I'm quite happy with how they came out, and how the conversion worked.

Codex Thoughts

So it's been a couple months with the codex, unfortunately Christmas/New Years ate up alot of that time, so I didn't get any games in across that time. But I have gotten in about a half dozen games, and tried to change up parts of the list each game to keep trying new stuff. I've tried to stay away from special characters, I only used Drazhar in one list, because there was a phoenix lord on the other side of the table.

I still need to get in a game with scourges, mandrakes, hellions, succubus, archon court, and the fliers. Some of the units have performed dismally, and I may re-visit.


HQ

Archon - this guy seems like a glass cannon, it's a gamble whenever you use him, even more than before. The plus side is he's cheaper, depending on how heavy you go on upgrades. I suspect that I'll find most of the archon type special characters out perform the basic archon very well. I think there would have been a great benefit in an upgrade of some sort that conveyed the Eternal Warrior rule to the Archon. For a viscious eternal overlord of the web way, it seems like they would be easy to kill and replace.

Haemonculus - I was already a huge fan of the haemonculus before, they were great cheap HQs, that came in bunches. They still come in bunches, but they are a bit more expensive now. But with all the new toys you can get, still pretty cheap, these guys are still the jewels of the HQ slot in my eyes. I've particularly become a fan of my webway snipers, a Haemie with a wwp and hexrifle. These guys jump off a transport turn one and drop portals, then go into an overwatch with the hexrifles from there.

Haemonculus Ancient - I'm still trying to find the right spot for these guys, a little faster, another wound and better skill. My initial thought is to load these guys up with the Electrocorrosive whip and make them part of a CC unit, unfortunately they fall to similar issues as the Archon. Alot of investment in points for basically a space marine captain in a bath robe and special toys. I'll need to keep toying with these guys.

Elite

Incubi - Little cheaper, and some nice upgrades. I'm actually liking these guys now, which says alot, because I was a big hater of the old Incubi. They didn't do anything special, and by comparison wyches were always better. With the slightly less godly wyches, and some tweaks to make the Incubi like aspect warriors give it some fluffy effectiveness that just pulls me in. In my eyes, the Klaivex with Onslaught is a must. Whenever you roll wounds and then tell an opponent, oh I get more attacks, it really demoralizes them. They thought they were safe with you only rolling 5 hits, but Oh!, now you have 4 more swings, all with power weapons. Beyond that, demi-klaives are nice, but everything else is just for the heck of it.

Bloodbrides - I know everyone seems to LOVE these guys, and I can understand why, more attacks, more special weapons, they are closest to the wyches of old. But I just am not feeling them. I feel like they are just glorified Dark Eldar Ork Boyz, lots of attacks, not alot of punch. In most cases, you can get the same number of attacks from a wych squad of the same points. I'll definitely give them another go, but it will take alot to convince me of these guys over Incubi, or a normal wych squad.

Grotesques - If I use them, I'll likely convert from the same Rat Ogres I proxied with. Big, strong, tough, and lots of wounds. They draw alot of attention, unfortunately, it's usually the attention that ignores their FNP save. They are a bit prohibitive because of the high points cost, but I found that they really do a job vs. rear armour when accompanied by a Haemie to give them furious charge. I'll likely use them again, but I won't count on them as a major unit, more a distraction. Besides, even though it happens infrequently, it EXPLODES!

Kabalite Trueborn - My first pass through the book I dismissed these guys as the standard veteran squad. But realistically, most of the veteran squads are good and these are no different. These are closer to what the old Warrior squads were, a small cheap squad with 2 heavy weapons. But where they really start to shine is the addition of 4 special weapons and the option for shardcarbines for the whole group. They can get expensive quickly, but some smart shopping gives you a really tough squad to ignore.

Troops

Wracks - I know they show up in the elite slot, but since I abide by always having 1 Haemonculus, these guys will be troops in virtually any army I run. That aside, T4 starting with FNP makes these guys surprisingly tough in a Dark Eldar army. Add the paired poisoned weapon and the Acothyst with an agonizer makes for a flexible close combat unit. Especially with up to 2 Liquifiers making a mess just before you hit assault. One trick I've already warmed up to is a minimum 3 man squad with the Acothyst with a Hexrifle escorting a Haemonculus with a Portal and Hexrifle. I know the Hexrifle catches some flack, but it's a nice cheap assault 1 sniper rifle and I think it's a bargain for a unit that would otherwise be expendable.

Wyches - It's great that they are a core troop all the time now. They lost a little bit of punch because of some changes in the combat drug chart (I'll miss the 12" charge), and they split the wych weapons back into individual upgrades. But they got cheaper for the same basic statline. I'm not sure which if any of the upgrades I'm sold on, I think the shardnet/impaler combo helps bring the wyches a little closer to the tarpit unit they were before. I forsee atleast a squad of wyches in virtually all Dark Eldar armies.

Warriors - Same basic warrior, but with the night vision and Power from Pain. Apparently those are worth 1 pt. I don't think I'd have complained about them being 9 pts instead of 8 if the wyches hadn't seen a reduction, and the Wracks been introduced as another viable cheap troop. As it stands, although it needed to have the Lances limited. I think the increased heavy weapon costs with the increase per model makes these guys a little less desireable. I think the way to go with warriors is an anti-infantry squad, with the rifle and cannon spam sitting on an objective.

Fast Attack

Reavers - Worse save, worse strength, worse unit. The points reduction is nice, but really, with the terrible save and lack of strength to push into close combat, the reavers have two options. Try and move around the board and get side/rear armour tank hunting, which should be familiar to old reaver users. Or use the new gimmick to blast over units to try and hurt them, and give yourself any measure of survivability. With the uselessness that is a 5+ save vs. shooting, the anti-tank role is very limited, because most vehicles steer clear of terrain to avoid getting stuck. That just leaves the gimmick, which doesn't seem that great.

Beast Masters - Although the mix and matching style of the unit can be confusing, this is by far the hidden gem of the codex. Razorwing flocks are ridiculously powerful, mixing in Chymera's gives some great survivability. This is the close combat deathstar unit of the codex, all for much less than your standard deathstar price.

Heavy Support

Ravager - Same basic stats, but the change to move 12" and fire 3 lances make these a much better gunboat then they were before. The disentegrator changes are disappointing, but not as disapointing as them basically becoming star cannons. I understand the theme change behind it though.

Talos - Finally, gone are all those ridiculous rules that made this an arguement waiting to happen. It's an MC now, all of it's attacks hit and pen on vehicles like normal, and it starts with a normal ranged weapon that shoots like everything else. All for the same cost. Add to that some spiffy upgrade options, like chain flails, twin linked liquifiers, or even another CCW to add to the painful number of attacks. This thing is much more beastly than it was before, and people should worry much more about it getting into their lines.

Cronos - The smaller, less assault oriented brother of the Talos. It's still an MC, but with WS 3, and Str 5, close combat isn't it's main goal. However, with an AP 3 flamer, and an upgrade to take a AP 3 large blast template, I doubt there should be much left to assault. Oh, and just for giggles, if you kill any model with either of those weapons, you can give a free pain token to any Dark Eldar unit within 12". I love this thing, run it close enough to the incubi, have it shoot one unit, buff the incubi, and the better stronger faster incubi assault a seperate unit and turn it into paste.


So that's my opinion so far. In all likelyhood I'll give everything else except the Harlequins a try, I don't like the odds of the Hellions or the Jetfighter doing enough in my eyes, but I'm very interested in trying the Bomber with the Str 9 lances in place of a Ravager.

I'm going to be trying a couple new methods for posting over the next week or so, hopefully it will help get updates much faster.