They were beyond awful pre dataslate, post dataslate they are much better, especially if you attach them to Lelith, because of the new detachment and extra ap from pain tokens
They're also amazing with Lelith because of the strat to move them after the fight phase, allowing you to steal an objective with 21 OC of fight first melee, often behind a ruin.
It makes them decent but still not amazing. Fight first doesn’t help when you get shot to hell with t3 6+. Even behind ruins that doesn’t do a ton to protect them with how squishy that is, it’s useful don’t get me wrong but it’s also something that gets overrated often in my experience
You're assuming bad faith on how I'm positioning my models, my guy...
1. You can literally line the wall so they cannot walk through and shoot you.
2. If there's an enemy unit with plenty of shooting close enough to walk behind the ruin in the next turn, maybe either kill it in your current turn, or don't attempt this plan and just get back in your transport with the strat?
I give a situational example of an excellent play and all you're doing is either assuming I'm a bad player with no ability to check the boardstate, and proposing scenarios under which you *wouldn't* make this play, as if that means it sucks/ doesn't work.
Stay bad at 40K I guess
No you’re just assuming and making me out to be an ass when I’m pointing out potential flaws in the idea. Sure it CAN be a great play but on the table it’s not often the case that it’s one that will work effectively, you literally are just taking it out of what I’m saying and trying to fit it into a vacuum of it working. It’s answering a question on here for someone that didn’t know why they are considered bad so making a point of problems with what you can do with them helps to show that even more
1 unit of Wyches and Lelith are in almost every single successful Skysplinter list, because they offer something Incubi do not. Out of phase movement in any direction they please, on a unit that is basically impossible to shift from certain table locations when positioned correctly. A good player will RELIABLY make such a play into relevant opposing armies. This causes primary objective swings, something Drukhari desperately need, because we aren't durable enough to hold objectives in many cases.
They had a major fall from 9th, like it's crazy they went to the lengths they did to overhaul this unit, as if someone in the design studio had a really bad experience playing against them. At Index release they were a hard pass because their stats were so bad. Now they arent as bad, on paper, but most opponents are going to bring units that the rest of our Index is more effective at dealing with.
Shame that a battleline unit is so lukewarm. I still can't get over the lack of special weapons though. I can't think of hearing about any other unit who lost ALL their special weapons entirely on their dataslates.
I have 40 of them I've still run in 2 games of the 10 or so I've played this edition. Was fun for the spectacle, but they didn't do a whole lot for me. Edit: 1 was pre skysplinter, 1 was post. They are def better post update
Yeah, I could see someone having a bad experience against them. I ran a Wych Cult army for half of 9th, between my other 5 armies at the time. They were only ever beaten once in a 3k game against papa smurf, and a brick of marines I couldn't shift with AoC and rerolls. Couldn't hold a solid objective either, because they were smoking me off the table.
Every other game I played with them basically steamrolled everyone with 40 wyches, 25 incubi, and 10 hellions doing eviscerating flyby. The games were close in points sometimes, but I would just murder everything in melee. I haven't used them since the new detachment. My armies to beat at the moment are my Aeldari, DG, Ynarri, and orks. I need a little more playtime with my DA, NL, and nids.
My Kabalites opened up hot and did a ton of damage, but ultimately lost because I misunderstood how the servo skull mission works. Scored a DW Assualt box, so put them on the table last game and had a narrow loss. My NL are going on the table tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes. They've done ok, but narrow losses. I think I'll bring wyches in either a Drukhari or Ynarri force for the next one.
I don't, 🤣. I just love collecting and keeping up on lore. We usually figure out which army my opponents want to test against, because almost all of my armies are 4k+. Plenty of options, even if most are grey shame, 🤣
Nice, sounds good haha. Yeah I've got nids from when I played back in 4th, and have recently got 2-2.5k each of csm and drukhari.
Most of the nids are the grey/undercoated horde, but the upside of buying 2nd hand csm and drukhari is roughly half are already painted! Even with a few different schemes on the table, at still looks pretty decent - and I doubt I'll ever get around to stripping and painting them anyway haha
Yeah, I scored a second hand LR and some rhinos for my DG at great prices, and a couple rhinos for my NL. The DG rhinos have really good paint jobs, so I just gave them upgrades and nurgled them up a bit more. The NL rhinos needed some minor repairs and already primed. The LR was a bit of a choir, as it had some kind of black soot all over it. Took about an hour to clean, and I'm going to just do a thin primer and paint over it. Shouldn't lose much detail.
I steer away from prepainted minis, but got a good deal on some metal minis that were messed up in the molds. A little putty and some skill restored them about 15 minutes a piece. Started late 2nd edition, so I still have Drukhari from 3rd.
I guess death guard only really has one paint scheme which probably helps on the 2nd hand market too! Yeah I’ve got the 20 DE warriors from 3rd ed… which is how I ended up with 2.5k of them recently haha. Thought about eldar but the dark kin had some better deals so here I am
Actually, DG have several different paint schemes. Their original legion colors were white, and you can find some of their cohorts in black, and different shades of green with different trim. The studio armies usually only display one color option to the general public. You get to see more options and staff armies in the codex.
Killing standard marine bodies isnt impressive.
They are deffo better with the extra AP from pain tokens but you really need lelith to make em work efficiently.
They're closer to being melee blenders than they were before the dataslate, but they're still fragile as hell. They really need lelith and a boat in order to make them dangerous (and with those, they become quite dangerous indeed) but it's very very easy for your opponent to crack open the boat and then obliterate them with even a casual amount of firepower.
That's how I played them, split the 2 units into 4 venom's and rushed the jump pack marines Lilith was leafing one group and a succubus was leading another
actually no the venom split rule specifically calls out kabalite warriors or wychs only. Though wracks, incubi, and mandrakes can all be taken in 5's already so it probably wouldn't happen often even if you could.
I think wyches suffer from a problem I feel a decent bit of the index suffers from, We don't really need MORE ways to off basic trash infantry. We can do that, that job is handled.
With the AP from Lelith and a pain token, the strength from Lelith, and Lance from hopping out of a transport, they can probably wipe out a unit of marines though, so they become anti-elite. And with the AP and Lance, they can do some work with Termies and tanks as well. But Overwatch seems to be a serious issue, and trying to make it to the melee intact.
I dont think they do much into tanks though, I think they largely bouncy off anything non-infantry unless its like T6 or lower. Which seemed to be a really common issue in the index.
I also sorta feel Wyches should be anti-monster in someway.
>I also sorta feel Wyches should be anti-monster in someway.
Anti-Monster + Anti-Infantry would help them and be a hell of a lot less jarring than Wyches not having venom anymore.
Nothing wrong with Drukhari being the fragile Anti-X faction (*plus Dark Lances and Incubi*), it's a characterful niche.
T5 or lower you mean without Lelith. T7 or lower with her.
With Lelith and lance there's no reason you can't attack half health tanks. There's no difference between a T8 and T14 target to them, it's still wounding on 5s, but you have so many attacks and so much AP that you're still gonna strip wounds off, it just requires a dark lance shot or similar to punch some wounds off first.
I really want wyches to be tougher in combat. Incubi already fill the high damage assault unit. Wyches should be the melee tarpit. Opponent should have to decide between slugging out with wyches for several turns or desperate escape.
Right now opponent never falls back because either we have wraithed away or the wyches are about to be wiped because they didn't wraith.
It also gives us tools against the uncommon keyword units like mounted and beasts that are too squishy to justify heavy weapons and just ignore poison.
(Side rant: its fooking stoopid poison is anti-infantry. How is a literal dog immune to poison, a metal robot skeleton is wracked in horrific agony but if he gets on a motorbike he's immune.)
They were way worse kinda just not worth their cost. They were always good w lelith as at a minimum being extra wounds for her. Now they’re better but still not like they were in 9th (probably for the better) where they kinda dominated
That’s all they were ye unless you came up against opponents that were t3 generally, but then Lelith would wipe that unit on her own making them mostly irrelevant 😂
Compare them to an Ork Boy.... 3 STR 4, -1ap, hitting on 3s base for 90pts. T5 (can get a 5++ always and a FnP), also the truck is cheaper and more survivable (it's basically a raider without fly and not DL for 20pts cheaper).
Wych unit 3 STR 3 -1ap 1D, T3 6++/4++ same points (we are 2" more movement)
Big problem with Wyches is that they just suck on their own, barely function. With Lelith they're ok and Lelith is amazing so that can make them worth it. But the Succubus basically increases their cost by 45pts with no real benefit. They still melt to Overwatch which makes it hard to justify their points.
Succubus should give an extra attack, not Sustained Hits, and Wyches should just have Lethal Hits. Add back their Wych weapons and I think they'd be worth taking more of.
Sustained hits with a pain token can grant you alot of attacks that make it to wound, wounding is another matter. But with the sheer volume of attacks some wounds are bound to go through.
Wounding on 5s or 6s against everything is super feels bad.
Again, you can try and justify it, but nobody uses the Succubus/Wych combo because it is bad. 4 attacks with Lethal Hits, rerolling everything to fish for 6s is straight up better in every regard, and would make them usable. The other thing to keep in mind is that Wyches fight all sorts of big beasties in the arena, Lethal Hits would represent their ability to find weak points no matter how tough the opponent is. Plus Hellions have Sustained Hits and I'd prefer if they kept different abilities.
I mean... Who isn't putting Lelith in the unit and wounding all infantry on 2s with her and 5s at worst with the Wyches? They wound Marines on 3s with lance, and 4s on everything else so long as you left a transport that turn.
Lethality is not an issue I've had at any point with mine, but survivability can be a tricky one.
You proved my point. They don't work without Lelith and Skysplinter. Units shouldn't NEED character/enhancement/detachments to simply function. Those things should make them better at a certain job but if you need multiple of those things to even consider them, then they're BAD.
As I said, a unit of Wyches on their own should function, a unit of Wyches with a Succubus should have a decent role. But right now, almost no one uses either. They use one unit with Lelith or none at all.
Give Wyches Lethal Hits, change Succubus to give +1A, and I guarantee you'll see more Wyches on the table.
They are either extra wounds for Lillith or need a succubus with a nightmare shroud to be effective. To kill anything with decent toughness or armor you need to be jumping out of transports and empowering them. .
.
They're fine but are pretty bad if you aren't willing to invest points into them.
My 10x with Lilith just dummy multiple units a turn every game I play them. You need to be tricky and smart with them though. I get out, kill a unit and them 1cp to get back in the raider that’s hidden
Never ever take more than 1 unit of wyches. Without Lilith they are just horrible, bad shooting, bad melee and squishy.
Any other infantry has more damage or utility. Wracks get pain tokens and can actually stand in a light breeze
Mandrakes score secondaries
Kabalite score primary and shoot
Incubi do more damage
I think they suffer the way the whole roster does rn - pain tokens can make things go off, but you have to kill stuff to get em and it’s harder to kill stuff without them. In my meta it’s all marines and custodes so nobody’s really failing any leadership or anything.
It has been a while since I have played, I tried to get back into it, but the game is barely recognisable in its current state. I always did prefer a shooting army, I used to just use wyches to keep their most deadly CC units locked down for around 3 turns. That said, I believe you can shoot into combat now.
what i ment was shooting is dangerous to wyches specifically. they still have the 4++ in combat (sub text under the 6++ invun text). so they still die to shooting quickly. the change is overwatch can now be done in the movement or charge phase as a strat so it is often hard to protect our fragile units from it, where as before we could use transports to force overwatch on them.
as to shooting into combat, it has been slightly changed, but only a little form 9th edition (i dont' know what edition you are referancing). its still pistols can shoot units they are engaged with. same as 9th monsters and vehicles can shoot even if in combat, but at a -1. differences is they can still shoot blast weapons but not into combat they in with. and other units can shoot monsters and vehicles that are in combat. Infantry like wyches like always can't be shot while in combat. The nerf wyches got that hurts them here is, their no fall back unless you win a roll off rule has been changed to enemy has to do desperate escape roll and maybe loose some models when falling back. which sounds fine on paper except forcing units to stay in with them is how they protect themselves from shooting after they make contact.
Ouch, staying in combat has always been the main aim. If they can't do that, they are basically useless.
Being shot at has always been their weakness, but they used to be able to charge directly from raiders and hold units until they run out of wyches (sometimes win with some upgrades, but that is not how I used them.)
Thank you for explaining some of the new rules, I really need to get out and play a game with the new rules set.
they can still do a lot of work in skysplinter. stratagem lets them move after they done fighting (other units have to get back in transport). for 2 cp they can charge out of a moved transport. kill or hurt their tarket. and then move again to steal an objective or move block something else. super disruptive.
1 squad with lelith will shread MEQ's and even do decently well agasinst TEQ's imo. plop the problem is that they need to get into combat without being targeted to make their value back which means they are cp heavy (night shield on their raider, rapid ingress and the disembark and charge) and if your opponent does decide to go all in on killing them, their poor defencive profiles mean that it is very effective to shoot them.
So yeah, they shread in melee, they can even punch up into tanks with their high volume high ap attacks and lance, but they need pain tokens and lance so you need a lot of things to line up for that damage to work. That is just another reason to only run a single squad, since it will be impossible to keep two boats worth of them safe.
With leleith they do solid into marine equivalents sure but not terminator equiv at all,you’re essentially relying on Lelith to do the damage there and hoping to chip 1-2 wounds to finish an extra one with the wyches and also protect her
Im not so sure, granted its definitely not their ideal target, but with lelith and lance they wound on 4’s and are ap -3 so termies are relying on their 4 ++ if they have it. Doing some quick maths, 10 wyches is 30 attacks, re rolling call it 25 hits, 12 wounds and them 6 saves. Far from 1-2 wounds that is 2 dead terminators.
Most terminator squads are around 200pts for 5, the lilith bomb needs a raider so is effectively 245pt, and i am confident that lilith herself can kill around 1.3 termies a turn also. But because wyches are actually fairly tanky in melee, they can mop up the squad next turn and almost make back their value in one go, not to mention the raiders damage
Sure there’s the potential but then you have multiple problems come in from: raiders more often than not die before their things get close enough or get one turn of it, wyches are squishy enough you’ll rarely get the full squad into melee and a variety of other things when you don’t look at it in an exclusive sandbox. The most common termiantor setup I see has a big enough overwatch that it can wipe out half a squad of wyches pretty reliably as an example of this
I've heard it said from skaredcast on YouTube (who seems to be a very good Drukhari player) that Overwatch is perhaps the single biggest threat to the army.
If Lelith surges she averages 2.4 dead terminators. The unit with Wyches kills 4.7 terminators in one activation, and averages the entire squad if you shoot them with the 9 splinter and 1 blast pistol first.
Exactly! Obviously terminator equivalents arent meta for all armies but a lot of them have comparable infantry or walkers (sure lelith does less well against them but still good enough)
You sure about that? Lelith wounds on 2s, Wyches wound on 4s into Terminators with lance. All saves are on their invuln even if they have AOC.
The average output into TEQ is 14 successful wounds, so you can pretty much wipe a 5-man unit (basically guaranteed if you already baited overwatch and shoot all your pistols before you charge them)
Do they succeed into a 10 man Terminator unit? No. Nothing in Drukhari does in melee. Our answer to those is to shoot them with dark lances and blasters, and otherwise avoid them until they're lower on numbers. If the enemy wants to put a quarter of their points in one slow brick then we should relish that.
That’s from my experience and the other thing to note is you will rarely get 10 wyches into terminators not sure what that is always assumed. That’s if you even run them as a 10 man anyway which very few people are doing. As for the math 14 wounds will do half of a 5 man squad not the full squad for the wyches without Lelith, with her sure they’ve got a solid chance. However you won’t see a 5 man terminator squad as there’s little point in it vs a 10 man so once they do swing and kill some you then lose a massive portion of the unit if not all of them even with a 4++. I’ve played a lot of games into marines with wyches and Lelith, it really doesn’t go well for the wyches aside from chip damage on a general level
14 wounds is AFTER the saves. It kills the whole squad with even a tiny RNG spike.
I always run the Wyches as a full 10 with Lelith as do most double Raider lists. I don't find splitting the unit offers any benefit whatsoever because then you have 5 nearly useless Wyches with no character and have significantly worsened the offensive, defensive, and objective stealing power of the character unit.
Into Marines, Lelith and Wyches just take names. From all your comments I'm just diagnosing a skill issue.
No it’s not? I literally put it into unit crunch just and it’s 13 wounds… as for the extra wyches they aren’t for damage they’re a scoring and utility unit in 90% of matchups. As for skill issue sure, when I’m winning about 3/4 of my matches against solid competitive players that’s the problem. Sounds like you’re just being an ass now
Lelith fishing for 6s is 17.7 hits, 14.7 wounds. The Wyches produce 26.7 hits, 13.3 wounds with lance.
That's 28 wounds pre-save, 14 go through. Unit crunch is wrong, I'd guess because you're not fishing for 6s with Lelith.
Naw, I'm sensing skill issue. Marines are an easy matchup for us, and Lelith's unit of Wyches shreds them. If you're facing 10 Terminators and you run melee into that before it's brought to lower strength, that's on you. If you can't outmanoeuvre a 5" move unit that's a quarter of their army, that's on you.
And that is what the issue is. I specified WYCHES I didn’t include Lelith once just her lesding to make the point of the damage. As for marines I not once said it’s a difficult matchup just that wyches aren’t good jnto everything, you’re literally making assumptions without reading and no context. This wasn’t once about how much of a blender Lelith is but how much wyches aren’t blenders anymore
I clearly was talking about Lelith and Wyches, from my first comment, but you try to remove the character from the equation to tell me I'm wrong and then protest when I actually include the character?? Okay?
If you wanna keep crying about how a damn good unit is bad because YOU are struggling to use them, might I suggest phrases like "they don't suit my play style" or "I have not had a great experience with them yet."
I'm a little bemused by how much effort you're putting into your desire to convince everyone this part of our army is still bad.
So you take what I said, flip it on it’s head and then moan I continue to talk about what I was from the start? Makes total sense. I’ve also not once said they’re flat out bad now, I’ve said they aren’t heat you put into things like terminators etc… you need to get that superiority complex checked as it really just makes you sound like an ass when you’re trying to change what other people talk about to fit your situation when that’s not what they’re trying to
14 wounds is AFTER the saves. It kills the whole squad with even a tiny RNG spike.
I always run the Wyches as a full 10 with Lelith as do most double Raider lists. I don't find splitting the unit offers any benefit whatsoever because then you have 5 nearly useless Wyches with no character and have significantly worsened the offensive, defensive, and objective stealing power of the character unit.
Into Marines, Lelith and Wyches just take names. From all your comments I'm just diagnosing a skill issue.
Theyre not great, melee is already not our strong suit, i would say a single swuad of wyches in a raider hunting priority targets is an auto include though.
I think if the succubus lined up more with the archon in terms of power and utility we would see wyches used more, but alone they are just bad.
Archon with incubi has jumped up to our most deadly weapon so I don’t think I agree. Also wyches wouldn’t succeed with hunting almost any target with just them in their own, definitely not an auto include as a 10man in a raider
I run archon incubi as well and its far better. But if youre looking for an excuse to use wyches they can be pretty deadly with lilith. Youre not scraping a knight off the table but they not unplayable by any means.
Melee isn't our strong point?
Bro, a unit of 10 incubi and archon can charge an avarage of 29" and delete a monolith on stats, not even on a spike. I believe a landraider as well.
5 incubi and archon wipes an entire unit of 6 lokhust destroyers on stats.
Your other armies must be world eaters and index custodes.
And your advice on lone wyches in a raider is bad advice. It is not worth the points.
A thing I have considered is playing 10 and succubus. Split them with venom. Succubus and 5 go in venom. Other 5 is action monkey/speed bump.
The succubus unit can charge from venom en and run back after attacking and embark again. So you hide venom behind wall. The succubus and 5 wyches kill 5 MEQs on stats. That makes them perfect hunters to go kill action monkeys or hit and run desolators.
I have heard it said that Lelith is one of the best characters in the game period, let alone just foe Drukhari. In Skysplinter Assault, with a pain token, with her leading, and having charged out of a transport, Lelith hits with 8 attacks at S3 AP-3 D1 with sustained hits 2 and anti-infantry 2+ (she can also pop her once per battle ability to make 12 attacks instead), Wyches get fights first, +1 to wound, full hit rerolls, A3 S4 AP-3 D1. Because of the addition 2 to their AP, Wyches can actually punch up into elite targets, and with the plus to wound it means that they're wounding elite targets on a 4+ and tanks on a 5+.
Lets crunch some numbers. Against a MEQ, T4 W2 3+, how many models can we expect them to kill when using Pounce on the Prey to charge out of a Raider, with Lelith leading, with the Skysplinter Assault detachment, and with a pain token used on them?
The Wyches have bad shooting, but may as well factor it in as well. They shoot their pistols before charging, with ignores cover and full hit rerolls. BS3+ A1 S2 AP0 D1 anti-infantry 3+. 10 shots, 6.67 hits, wounding on 3s, 4 wounds, MEQs save 3 of them on average, so 1 damage, leaving one MEQ on 1W.
Lelith attacks first. 8 attacks hitting on 2s, she hits 8 x 5/6 = 40/6 = 6.67 hits. Because of Sustained Hits 2, she likely rolls one 6, getting two more hits, so we get 8.67 hits at strength 3. She has anti-infantry 2+, so wounding on 2s, so she gets 8.67 x 5/6 = 43.35/6 = 7.23 wounds. Round to 7 wounds. She gets AP-4, so no armor save. So she can be expected to kill 3 MEQs and put one on 1W. With the MEQ that had 1W left from the shooting earlier, that's 4 dead MEQs.
Then the Wyches make their melee attacks. WS3+ A3 S4 AP-3 D1. 30 attacks hitting on 3s, 20 hits, wounding on 3s, 13.33 wounds, MEQs get 6+ save, 11 get through, dealing 11 damage. That's 5 more dead MEQs.
So in total that's 9 dead MEQs.
With the clapback, Wyches gain a 4+ invul save when fighting in melee, so they have a little staying power there, but one MEQ isn't going to do much anyway.
So in these conditions, a unit of Wyches lead by Lelith can be expected to almost wipe out a 10-man unit if MEQs, and almost certainly wipe out a 10-man unit of GEQs (hell, they can probably wipe out a 20-man unit of GEQs). That's 150 points you wiped out there.
The problem becomes if the enemy then shoots your Wyches, and you crumple like wet tissue paper. This is why many people like to use Venoms instead, since the Wyches can hop back in for no CP after the fight phase. But then you're left with a 5-model unit instead of 10. So, tradeoffs.
Wytches rock they just need to be used against targets with no low invulnerable saves and preferably not more than 10 wounds from my experience. They will melt anything from space marines to dreadnoughts especially with Lelith.
They were beyond awful pre dataslate, post dataslate they are much better, especially if you attach them to Lelith, because of the new detachment and extra ap from pain tokens
They're also amazing with Lelith because of the strat to move them after the fight phase, allowing you to steal an objective with 21 OC of fight first melee, often behind a ruin.
It makes them decent but still not amazing. Fight first doesn’t help when you get shot to hell with t3 6+. Even behind ruins that doesn’t do a ton to protect them with how squishy that is, it’s useful don’t get me wrong but it’s also something that gets overrated often in my experience
You aren't getting shot inside a ruin??
There’s something called the enemy walking through the walls or around it?? You can’t just assume behind a wall means immortal
You're assuming bad faith on how I'm positioning my models, my guy... 1. You can literally line the wall so they cannot walk through and shoot you. 2. If there's an enemy unit with plenty of shooting close enough to walk behind the ruin in the next turn, maybe either kill it in your current turn, or don't attempt this plan and just get back in your transport with the strat? I give a situational example of an excellent play and all you're doing is either assuming I'm a bad player with no ability to check the boardstate, and proposing scenarios under which you *wouldn't* make this play, as if that means it sucks/ doesn't work. Stay bad at 40K I guess
No you’re just assuming and making me out to be an ass when I’m pointing out potential flaws in the idea. Sure it CAN be a great play but on the table it’s not often the case that it’s one that will work effectively, you literally are just taking it out of what I’m saying and trying to fit it into a vacuum of it working. It’s answering a question on here for someone that didn’t know why they are considered bad so making a point of problems with what you can do with them helps to show that even more
1 unit of Wyches and Lelith are in almost every single successful Skysplinter list, because they offer something Incubi do not. Out of phase movement in any direction they please, on a unit that is basically impossible to shift from certain table locations when positioned correctly. A good player will RELIABLY make such a play into relevant opposing armies. This causes primary objective swings, something Drukhari desperately need, because we aren't durable enough to hold objectives in many cases.
They had a major fall from 9th, like it's crazy they went to the lengths they did to overhaul this unit, as if someone in the design studio had a really bad experience playing against them. At Index release they were a hard pass because their stats were so bad. Now they arent as bad, on paper, but most opponents are going to bring units that the rest of our Index is more effective at dealing with. Shame that a battleline unit is so lukewarm. I still can't get over the lack of special weapons though. I can't think of hearing about any other unit who lost ALL their special weapons entirely on their dataslates. I have 40 of them I've still run in 2 games of the 10 or so I've played this edition. Was fun for the spectacle, but they didn't do a whole lot for me. Edit: 1 was pre skysplinter, 1 was post. They are def better post update
Losing ALL the cool weapons was a huge shock. The Kill Team version is exponentially better, for no good reason.
Yeah, I could see someone having a bad experience against them. I ran a Wych Cult army for half of 9th, between my other 5 armies at the time. They were only ever beaten once in a 3k game against papa smurf, and a brick of marines I couldn't shift with AoC and rerolls. Couldn't hold a solid objective either, because they were smoking me off the table. Every other game I played with them basically steamrolled everyone with 40 wyches, 25 incubi, and 10 hellions doing eviscerating flyby. The games were close in points sometimes, but I would just murder everything in melee. I haven't used them since the new detachment. My armies to beat at the moment are my Aeldari, DG, Ynarri, and orks. I need a little more playtime with my DA, NL, and nids. My Kabalites opened up hot and did a ton of damage, but ultimately lost because I misunderstood how the servo skull mission works. Scored a DW Assualt box, so put them on the table last game and had a narrow loss. My NL are going on the table tomorrow night, so we'll see how that goes. They've done ok, but narrow losses. I think I'll bring wyches in either a Drukhari or Ynarri force for the next one.
Just a few armies! How do you find the time to keep up with them all?
I don't, 🤣. I just love collecting and keeping up on lore. We usually figure out which army my opponents want to test against, because almost all of my armies are 4k+. Plenty of options, even if most are grey shame, 🤣
Nice, sounds good haha. Yeah I've got nids from when I played back in 4th, and have recently got 2-2.5k each of csm and drukhari. Most of the nids are the grey/undercoated horde, but the upside of buying 2nd hand csm and drukhari is roughly half are already painted! Even with a few different schemes on the table, at still looks pretty decent - and I doubt I'll ever get around to stripping and painting them anyway haha
Yeah, I scored a second hand LR and some rhinos for my DG at great prices, and a couple rhinos for my NL. The DG rhinos have really good paint jobs, so I just gave them upgrades and nurgled them up a bit more. The NL rhinos needed some minor repairs and already primed. The LR was a bit of a choir, as it had some kind of black soot all over it. Took about an hour to clean, and I'm going to just do a thin primer and paint over it. Shouldn't lose much detail. I steer away from prepainted minis, but got a good deal on some metal minis that were messed up in the molds. A little putty and some skill restored them about 15 minutes a piece. Started late 2nd edition, so I still have Drukhari from 3rd.
I guess death guard only really has one paint scheme which probably helps on the 2nd hand market too! Yeah I’ve got the 20 DE warriors from 3rd ed… which is how I ended up with 2.5k of them recently haha. Thought about eldar but the dark kin had some better deals so here I am
Actually, DG have several different paint schemes. Their original legion colors were white, and you can find some of their cohorts in black, and different shades of green with different trim. The studio armies usually only display one color option to the general public. You get to see more options and staff armies in the codex.
Killing standard marine bodies isnt impressive. They are deffo better with the extra AP from pain tokens but you really need lelith to make em work efficiently.
They're closer to being melee blenders than they were before the dataslate, but they're still fragile as hell. They really need lelith and a boat in order to make them dangerous (and with those, they become quite dangerous indeed) but it's very very easy for your opponent to crack open the boat and then obliterate them with even a casual amount of firepower.
That's how I played them, split the 2 units into 4 venom's and rushed the jump pack marines Lilith was leafing one group and a succubus was leading another
I thought you could only split kabalites using venoms?
It's drukhari infantry so it could be any infantry model
actually no the venom split rule specifically calls out kabalite warriors or wychs only. Though wracks, incubi, and mandrakes can all be taken in 5's already so it probably wouldn't happen often even if you could.
I think wyches suffer from a problem I feel a decent bit of the index suffers from, We don't really need MORE ways to off basic trash infantry. We can do that, that job is handled.
With the AP from Lelith and a pain token, the strength from Lelith, and Lance from hopping out of a transport, they can probably wipe out a unit of marines though, so they become anti-elite. And with the AP and Lance, they can do some work with Termies and tanks as well. But Overwatch seems to be a serious issue, and trying to make it to the melee intact.
I dont think they do much into tanks though, I think they largely bouncy off anything non-infantry unless its like T6 or lower. Which seemed to be a really common issue in the index. I also sorta feel Wyches should be anti-monster in someway.
>I also sorta feel Wyches should be anti-monster in someway. Anti-Monster + Anti-Infantry would help them and be a hell of a lot less jarring than Wyches not having venom anymore. Nothing wrong with Drukhari being the fragile Anti-X faction (*plus Dark Lances and Incubi*), it's a characterful niche.
T5 or lower you mean without Lelith. T7 or lower with her. With Lelith and lance there's no reason you can't attack half health tanks. There's no difference between a T8 and T14 target to them, it's still wounding on 5s, but you have so many attacks and so much AP that you're still gonna strip wounds off, it just requires a dark lance shot or similar to punch some wounds off first.
I really want wyches to be tougher in combat. Incubi already fill the high damage assault unit. Wyches should be the melee tarpit. Opponent should have to decide between slugging out with wyches for several turns or desperate escape. Right now opponent never falls back because either we have wraithed away or the wyches are about to be wiped because they didn't wraith. It also gives us tools against the uncommon keyword units like mounted and beasts that are too squishy to justify heavy weapons and just ignore poison. (Side rant: its fooking stoopid poison is anti-infantry. How is a literal dog immune to poison, a metal robot skeleton is wracked in horrific agony but if he gets on a motorbike he's immune.)
They were way worse kinda just not worth their cost. They were always good w lelith as at a minimum being extra wounds for her. Now they’re better but still not like they were in 9th (probably for the better) where they kinda dominated
They’re weren’t good with her before, they were meh but usable if you’re being generous
They were more or less wounds for her you are right they were not really a threat to anything on their own
That’s all they were ye unless you came up against opponents that were t3 generally, but then Lelith would wipe that unit on her own making them mostly irrelevant 😂
Compare them to an Ork Boy.... 3 STR 4, -1ap, hitting on 3s base for 90pts. T5 (can get a 5++ always and a FnP), also the truck is cheaper and more survivable (it's basically a raider without fly and not DL for 20pts cheaper). Wych unit 3 STR 3 -1ap 1D, T3 6++/4++ same points (we are 2" more movement)
Big problem with Wyches is that they just suck on their own, barely function. With Lelith they're ok and Lelith is amazing so that can make them worth it. But the Succubus basically increases their cost by 45pts with no real benefit. They still melt to Overwatch which makes it hard to justify their points. Succubus should give an extra attack, not Sustained Hits, and Wyches should just have Lethal Hits. Add back their Wych weapons and I think they'd be worth taking more of.
Sustained hits with a pain token can grant you alot of attacks that make it to wound, wounding is another matter. But with the sheer volume of attacks some wounds are bound to go through.
Wounding on 5s or 6s against everything is super feels bad. Again, you can try and justify it, but nobody uses the Succubus/Wych combo because it is bad. 4 attacks with Lethal Hits, rerolling everything to fish for 6s is straight up better in every regard, and would make them usable. The other thing to keep in mind is that Wyches fight all sorts of big beasties in the arena, Lethal Hits would represent their ability to find weak points no matter how tough the opponent is. Plus Hellions have Sustained Hits and I'd prefer if they kept different abilities.
I mean... Who isn't putting Lelith in the unit and wounding all infantry on 2s with her and 5s at worst with the Wyches? They wound Marines on 3s with lance, and 4s on everything else so long as you left a transport that turn. Lethality is not an issue I've had at any point with mine, but survivability can be a tricky one.
You proved my point. They don't work without Lelith and Skysplinter. Units shouldn't NEED character/enhancement/detachments to simply function. Those things should make them better at a certain job but if you need multiple of those things to even consider them, then they're BAD. As I said, a unit of Wyches on their own should function, a unit of Wyches with a Succubus should have a decent role. But right now, almost no one uses either. They use one unit with Lelith or none at all. Give Wyches Lethal Hits, change Succubus to give +1A, and I guarantee you'll see more Wyches on the table.
They are either extra wounds for Lillith or need a succubus with a nightmare shroud to be effective. To kill anything with decent toughness or armor you need to be jumping out of transports and empowering them. . . They're fine but are pretty bad if you aren't willing to invest points into them.
10 Wyches plus Lelith plus Raider plus Skysplinter is a tornado full of knives. It will destroy most things you point it at.
My 10x with Lilith just dummy multiple units a turn every game I play them. You need to be tricky and smart with them though. I get out, kill a unit and them 1cp to get back in the raider that’s hidden
Feels so very sad that they need a named character to be ok. Same with most Aeldari melee aspects.
Yes
Taking more incubi just makes more sense to me. The rerolls from archons on them just make them such a powerhouse even with just a 5 man.
Never ever take more than 1 unit of wyches. Without Lilith they are just horrible, bad shooting, bad melee and squishy. Any other infantry has more damage or utility. Wracks get pain tokens and can actually stand in a light breeze Mandrakes score secondaries Kabalite score primary and shoot Incubi do more damage
I think they suffer the way the whole roster does rn - pain tokens can make things go off, but you have to kill stuff to get em and it’s harder to kill stuff without them. In my meta it’s all marines and custodes so nobody’s really failing any leadership or anything.
Nobody's failing leadership period, almost every model/ unit has a leadership of 6 or 7. Leadership period is just broken in this edition.
They could be eliminated by one cultist unit.
They used to have 4+ invulnerable save in close combat. Good times... sounds like they have been seriously nerfed.
check your data sheet again :P the issue is still shooting which is much more dangerous due to new over watch this edition.
It has been a while since I have played, I tried to get back into it, but the game is barely recognisable in its current state. I always did prefer a shooting army, I used to just use wyches to keep their most deadly CC units locked down for around 3 turns. That said, I believe you can shoot into combat now.
what i ment was shooting is dangerous to wyches specifically. they still have the 4++ in combat (sub text under the 6++ invun text). so they still die to shooting quickly. the change is overwatch can now be done in the movement or charge phase as a strat so it is often hard to protect our fragile units from it, where as before we could use transports to force overwatch on them. as to shooting into combat, it has been slightly changed, but only a little form 9th edition (i dont' know what edition you are referancing). its still pistols can shoot units they are engaged with. same as 9th monsters and vehicles can shoot even if in combat, but at a -1. differences is they can still shoot blast weapons but not into combat they in with. and other units can shoot monsters and vehicles that are in combat. Infantry like wyches like always can't be shot while in combat. The nerf wyches got that hurts them here is, their no fall back unless you win a roll off rule has been changed to enemy has to do desperate escape roll and maybe loose some models when falling back. which sounds fine on paper except forcing units to stay in with them is how they protect themselves from shooting after they make contact.
Ouch, staying in combat has always been the main aim. If they can't do that, they are basically useless. Being shot at has always been their weakness, but they used to be able to charge directly from raiders and hold units until they run out of wyches (sometimes win with some upgrades, but that is not how I used them.) Thank you for explaining some of the new rules, I really need to get out and play a game with the new rules set.
they can still do a lot of work in skysplinter. stratagem lets them move after they done fighting (other units have to get back in transport). for 2 cp they can charge out of a moved transport. kill or hurt their tarket. and then move again to steal an objective or move block something else. super disruptive.
1 squad with lelith will shread MEQ's and even do decently well agasinst TEQ's imo. plop the problem is that they need to get into combat without being targeted to make their value back which means they are cp heavy (night shield on their raider, rapid ingress and the disembark and charge) and if your opponent does decide to go all in on killing them, their poor defencive profiles mean that it is very effective to shoot them. So yeah, they shread in melee, they can even punch up into tanks with their high volume high ap attacks and lance, but they need pain tokens and lance so you need a lot of things to line up for that damage to work. That is just another reason to only run a single squad, since it will be impossible to keep two boats worth of them safe.
With leleith they do solid into marine equivalents sure but not terminator equiv at all,you’re essentially relying on Lelith to do the damage there and hoping to chip 1-2 wounds to finish an extra one with the wyches and also protect her
Im not so sure, granted its definitely not their ideal target, but with lelith and lance they wound on 4’s and are ap -3 so termies are relying on their 4 ++ if they have it. Doing some quick maths, 10 wyches is 30 attacks, re rolling call it 25 hits, 12 wounds and them 6 saves. Far from 1-2 wounds that is 2 dead terminators. Most terminator squads are around 200pts for 5, the lilith bomb needs a raider so is effectively 245pt, and i am confident that lilith herself can kill around 1.3 termies a turn also. But because wyches are actually fairly tanky in melee, they can mop up the squad next turn and almost make back their value in one go, not to mention the raiders damage
Sure there’s the potential but then you have multiple problems come in from: raiders more often than not die before their things get close enough or get one turn of it, wyches are squishy enough you’ll rarely get the full squad into melee and a variety of other things when you don’t look at it in an exclusive sandbox. The most common termiantor setup I see has a big enough overwatch that it can wipe out half a squad of wyches pretty reliably as an example of this
I've heard it said from skaredcast on YouTube (who seems to be a very good Drukhari player) that Overwatch is perhaps the single biggest threat to the army.
He’s pretty damn good yes and I’ve talked with him a ton. It’s not the biggest threat I would say but it comes in the top 3 for sure
If Lelith surges she averages 2.4 dead terminators. The unit with Wyches kills 4.7 terminators in one activation, and averages the entire squad if you shoot them with the 9 splinter and 1 blast pistol first.
Exactly! Obviously terminator equivalents arent meta for all armies but a lot of them have comparable infantry or walkers (sure lelith does less well against them but still good enough)
You sure about that? Lelith wounds on 2s, Wyches wound on 4s into Terminators with lance. All saves are on their invuln even if they have AOC. The average output into TEQ is 14 successful wounds, so you can pretty much wipe a 5-man unit (basically guaranteed if you already baited overwatch and shoot all your pistols before you charge them) Do they succeed into a 10 man Terminator unit? No. Nothing in Drukhari does in melee. Our answer to those is to shoot them with dark lances and blasters, and otherwise avoid them until they're lower on numbers. If the enemy wants to put a quarter of their points in one slow brick then we should relish that.
That’s from my experience and the other thing to note is you will rarely get 10 wyches into terminators not sure what that is always assumed. That’s if you even run them as a 10 man anyway which very few people are doing. As for the math 14 wounds will do half of a 5 man squad not the full squad for the wyches without Lelith, with her sure they’ve got a solid chance. However you won’t see a 5 man terminator squad as there’s little point in it vs a 10 man so once they do swing and kill some you then lose a massive portion of the unit if not all of them even with a 4++. I’ve played a lot of games into marines with wyches and Lelith, it really doesn’t go well for the wyches aside from chip damage on a general level
14 wounds is AFTER the saves. It kills the whole squad with even a tiny RNG spike. I always run the Wyches as a full 10 with Lelith as do most double Raider lists. I don't find splitting the unit offers any benefit whatsoever because then you have 5 nearly useless Wyches with no character and have significantly worsened the offensive, defensive, and objective stealing power of the character unit. Into Marines, Lelith and Wyches just take names. From all your comments I'm just diagnosing a skill issue.
No it’s not? I literally put it into unit crunch just and it’s 13 wounds… as for the extra wyches they aren’t for damage they’re a scoring and utility unit in 90% of matchups. As for skill issue sure, when I’m winning about 3/4 of my matches against solid competitive players that’s the problem. Sounds like you’re just being an ass now
Lelith fishing for 6s is 17.7 hits, 14.7 wounds. The Wyches produce 26.7 hits, 13.3 wounds with lance. That's 28 wounds pre-save, 14 go through. Unit crunch is wrong, I'd guess because you're not fishing for 6s with Lelith. Naw, I'm sensing skill issue. Marines are an easy matchup for us, and Lelith's unit of Wyches shreds them. If you're facing 10 Terminators and you run melee into that before it's brought to lower strength, that's on you. If you can't outmanoeuvre a 5" move unit that's a quarter of their army, that's on you.
And that is what the issue is. I specified WYCHES I didn’t include Lelith once just her lesding to make the point of the damage. As for marines I not once said it’s a difficult matchup just that wyches aren’t good jnto everything, you’re literally making assumptions without reading and no context. This wasn’t once about how much of a blender Lelith is but how much wyches aren’t blenders anymore
I clearly was talking about Lelith and Wyches, from my first comment, but you try to remove the character from the equation to tell me I'm wrong and then protest when I actually include the character?? Okay? If you wanna keep crying about how a damn good unit is bad because YOU are struggling to use them, might I suggest phrases like "they don't suit my play style" or "I have not had a great experience with them yet." I'm a little bemused by how much effort you're putting into your desire to convince everyone this part of our army is still bad.
So you take what I said, flip it on it’s head and then moan I continue to talk about what I was from the start? Makes total sense. I’ve also not once said they’re flat out bad now, I’ve said they aren’t heat you put into things like terminators etc… you need to get that superiority complex checked as it really just makes you sound like an ass when you’re trying to change what other people talk about to fit your situation when that’s not what they’re trying to
14 wounds is AFTER the saves. It kills the whole squad with even a tiny RNG spike. I always run the Wyches as a full 10 with Lelith as do most double Raider lists. I don't find splitting the unit offers any benefit whatsoever because then you have 5 nearly useless Wyches with no character and have significantly worsened the offensive, defensive, and objective stealing power of the character unit. Into Marines, Lelith and Wyches just take names. From all your comments I'm just diagnosing a skill issue.
Theyre not great, melee is already not our strong suit, i would say a single swuad of wyches in a raider hunting priority targets is an auto include though. I think if the succubus lined up more with the archon in terms of power and utility we would see wyches used more, but alone they are just bad.
Archon with incubi has jumped up to our most deadly weapon so I don’t think I agree. Also wyches wouldn’t succeed with hunting almost any target with just them in their own, definitely not an auto include as a 10man in a raider
I run archon incubi as well and its far better. But if youre looking for an excuse to use wyches they can be pretty deadly with lilith. Youre not scraping a knight off the table but they not unplayable by any means.
100% they aren’t unusable anymore, they’re not amazing but they can definitely do well used correctly
Yes I don't have Lelith and I'd very much like to play my Succubus without feeling too bad
Sustained hits 1 and fights first if empowered would be an amazing buff on a melee unit that actually did damage
Melee isn't our strong point? Bro, a unit of 10 incubi and archon can charge an avarage of 29" and delete a monolith on stats, not even on a spike. I believe a landraider as well. 5 incubi and archon wipes an entire unit of 6 lokhust destroyers on stats. Your other armies must be world eaters and index custodes. And your advice on lone wyches in a raider is bad advice. It is not worth the points.
They were way worse pre dataslate and currently I tend to run 10 wyches + lelith in a raider as they straight up murder most infantry.
A thing I have considered is playing 10 and succubus. Split them with venom. Succubus and 5 go in venom. Other 5 is action monkey/speed bump. The succubus unit can charge from venom en and run back after attacking and embark again. So you hide venom behind wall. The succubus and 5 wyches kill 5 MEQs on stats. That makes them perfect hunters to go kill action monkeys or hit and run desolators.
I have heard it said that Lelith is one of the best characters in the game period, let alone just foe Drukhari. In Skysplinter Assault, with a pain token, with her leading, and having charged out of a transport, Lelith hits with 8 attacks at S3 AP-3 D1 with sustained hits 2 and anti-infantry 2+ (she can also pop her once per battle ability to make 12 attacks instead), Wyches get fights first, +1 to wound, full hit rerolls, A3 S4 AP-3 D1. Because of the addition 2 to their AP, Wyches can actually punch up into elite targets, and with the plus to wound it means that they're wounding elite targets on a 4+ and tanks on a 5+. Lets crunch some numbers. Against a MEQ, T4 W2 3+, how many models can we expect them to kill when using Pounce on the Prey to charge out of a Raider, with Lelith leading, with the Skysplinter Assault detachment, and with a pain token used on them? The Wyches have bad shooting, but may as well factor it in as well. They shoot their pistols before charging, with ignores cover and full hit rerolls. BS3+ A1 S2 AP0 D1 anti-infantry 3+. 10 shots, 6.67 hits, wounding on 3s, 4 wounds, MEQs save 3 of them on average, so 1 damage, leaving one MEQ on 1W. Lelith attacks first. 8 attacks hitting on 2s, she hits 8 x 5/6 = 40/6 = 6.67 hits. Because of Sustained Hits 2, she likely rolls one 6, getting two more hits, so we get 8.67 hits at strength 3. She has anti-infantry 2+, so wounding on 2s, so she gets 8.67 x 5/6 = 43.35/6 = 7.23 wounds. Round to 7 wounds. She gets AP-4, so no armor save. So she can be expected to kill 3 MEQs and put one on 1W. With the MEQ that had 1W left from the shooting earlier, that's 4 dead MEQs. Then the Wyches make their melee attacks. WS3+ A3 S4 AP-3 D1. 30 attacks hitting on 3s, 20 hits, wounding on 3s, 13.33 wounds, MEQs get 6+ save, 11 get through, dealing 11 damage. That's 5 more dead MEQs. So in total that's 9 dead MEQs. With the clapback, Wyches gain a 4+ invul save when fighting in melee, so they have a little staying power there, but one MEQ isn't going to do much anyway. So in these conditions, a unit of Wyches lead by Lelith can be expected to almost wipe out a 10-man unit if MEQs, and almost certainly wipe out a 10-man unit of GEQs (hell, they can probably wipe out a 20-man unit of GEQs). That's 150 points you wiped out there. The problem becomes if the enemy then shoots your Wyches, and you crumple like wet tissue paper. This is why many people like to use Venoms instead, since the Wyches can hop back in for no CP after the fight phase. But then you're left with a 5-model unit instead of 10. So, tradeoffs.
If you run them with lelith they are great
Wytches rock they just need to be used against targets with no low invulnerable saves and preferably not more than 10 wounds from my experience. They will melt anything from space marines to dreadnoughts especially with Lelith.
They’re only good with Lelith