2,500 profits of the flesh (Urien's footsloggers)

[w7west]

I have been playing a very speedy army with Duke and all of his shenanigens lately, but after taking down mech guard I decided it was time to set this army aside until a tourney rolls around. The army I am now currently working on is the other side of the dark eldar coin. Raw, undeniable, and sickening durability. I have only been able to play one game with proxies but it was quite different from any form of dark eldar I have yet played. With that said, lets take a look!


HQ:

-Urien, the master homunculus.

Elites:

-8 x Grotesque (Urien str upgrade, liquifier, aberration w/ mindphase guantlet

Troop:

-10 x wrack (2 liquifier, acolyte w/ poison blade)

-10 x wrack (2 liquifier, acolyte w/ poison blade)

-20 x warrior (2 dark lance)

-20 x warrior (2 dark lance)

-20 x warrior (2 dark lance)

Fast:

-10 x scourge (4 haywire blaster, solarite)

-4 x beastmaster (6 razorwing flock, 5 khymera)

-4 x beastmaster (6 razorwing flock, 5 khymera)

Heavy:

-Talos (chainsnares, twl haywire blaster)

-Talos (chainsnares, twl haywire blaster)

-Cronos (Blast)



As you can see, this army makes use of 0 vehicles. Urien starts with the grotesques and gives them one of the d3 extra pain tokens in order to start off fearless. This forms one of the hardest to kill squads in the game. the 60 warriors provide three huge troop squads that will eventually get flipped a pain token or two from the cronos if needed. Wracks and beastmasters advance with Urien and his grotesques leading the way, shrugging off lascannons and providing cover for the army.

You may also notice the lack of massed lance fire, another thing quite different from most de armies. In fact, the only lances present are the 6 in the warrior squads. The way I have approached anti tank with this army is my lances and haywire blasters from the talos and scourges will try to immobilize or shake vehicles. If I can prevent a tank from moving, the massive amount of rending attacks from the razorwing flocks can reach out and nab those tanks from quite a good distance. Once the grotesques and talos get into range they will also have no problem tearing through armor.

The main strength of the army lies in it's durability. There is not a single easy kill point to be had, and the model count is over 120.

Once again, I have only played one game with these guys. It was against a mechanized guard force with valkyries, 3 russ, and 10 or so chimeras. The army literally shrugged off the firepower as it continuously closed in on the guard. Keeping things like russes under constant haywire until I could assault them was crucial as the only gun he had which could do significant damage to a squad was the demolishers.

One possible tweak I may go for is to include a single homunculus with wwp since dawn of war deployment was kind of annoying for me. Other than that its a rough army to try and bring down, especially in objective games.

And yes, I know it is spelled prophet, but profit is synonymous with win.

[somerandomdude]

Overall, I like it. Very much like my possible list, the one I'm converting towards (although I had additional Haemonculi).

A few things I'd say:

-Definately go with a WWP, although in DoW the only units I'd put in reserves to use it would probably be Urien + Grotesques and the Wracks. Keep in mind that you can't use the WWP for your forces that arrive first turn with DoW, since they walk on before you have a chance to drop the portal. You need your Haywire Blasters on the board first turn in DoW, and if you have to roll for them they may come on after your melee units.

-I'd try to find a way to get a second Scourge squad. Assuming best results, you can stop 6 vehicles from doing something a turn with your current list, and I'd try to get as many more chances in there as possible (or if not that then more reliable choices). Considering you're only going for glances, especially against AV 12+ with the lances, you need as much suppression as possible.

-I also prefer a single Clawed Fiend in a unit of Beastmasters. Every part of the unit should receive a cover save, so the Khymerae's strength is in absorbing melee attacks. However, you can use Fiends to absorb a few of the strength 6+ shots that will otherwise remove a model each time (and anyone who knows how dangerous the flocks are will be shooting mass strength 6+ into them anyway). This is a great unit because of it's versatility when including every option - mid-high leadership from the beastmasters, 4++ for absorbing power weapons, high toughness that's only susceptible to S10 for ID, and a buttload of rending attacks. I'd suggest taking advantage of that.

-Not much else to say about Urien + Grotesques. They are absolutely incredible. Any opponent who bothers shooting at them is kidding themselves really. Also, is it just my experience or is Urien unkillable? T5, FNP, Fearless, AND a Clone Field is already ridiculous and reducing him to about 1 wound an assault, and he heals that anyway. Quite possibly the coolest special character I've ever used. Strength 10 melee attacks are the only thing I could see actually killing him, and those are too rare. My only question would be why the Mindphase Gauntlet? On the charge you only get Initiative 5, meaning that most characters are going to be going with you already. There are some instances where there is a benefit (Lysander, Librarians, Carnifexes) but for the most part it seems this unit is either killing the enemy or surviving the return strike anyway. I'd rather spend 5 more points on a Scissorhand - you get 7 attacks on the charge (great for vehicles) and wound on 3 with a reroll is better than wound on 2 against most (and if Tyranids are a problem, you still get the poison benefit). Also, if you can find a way to bump them up to a full ten, you have that much larger of a foot print for multi-assaults, which are really good for these guys.

-The bad thing about Wracks on the ground is that you can't get great position for the Liquifiers, but if it's been working for you then that's fantastic (and I'm certainly not going to suggest throwing in two raiders just for that). Good choice on the Venom Blade.

-Heavy support looks good. No other options for the Taloi make sense - they are fantastic gun platforms. And the Cronos should never be in close combat with a list like this, so that works out great.

Take any advice you like, but if it were me I'd definately at least switch out to a Clawed Fiend (or find the points to add another Beastmaster + Fiend) to increase their survivability as they are walking against Assault/Autocannons. Keep the Khymeras for sure though. I'm not figuring in points unfortunately, so it may be too tight. If you do take my other advice and switch a beast group for Scourges, you can drop a warrior squad. Sure, you lose one more suppression option, but you lost it in exchange for a much better suppression option (same net range and a lot more likely to get a glance, plus twice as many shots). Given the range of the beasts, one unit should be able to multi-assault vehicles with relative ease.

Looking at this list on paper you can tell it would be a very frustrating and effective list. Locking down key vehicles pretty easily + impossible to kill front line combatants = opponents who won't know what to do.

[somerandomdude]

After I posted that, I decided I should try to be more helpful, so I grabbed my codex and did a few tweaks:

Your Beastmaster squads as they are equal 198 points, and the Scourge set-up is 270. Dropping the Beastmaster in exchange for the Scourges leaves us 62 points over.

If you drop a warrior sqaud (the only option other than a wracks squad, really) you end up with 168 points extra. Give the Abberation a scissorhand and including a fifth Beastmaster + Fiend, and we are at 111 points. Haemonculus with a WWP leaves us with 16 points to spare, and includes everything I suggested (except the extra two Grotesques).Venom Blade + Liquifier Gun is all that's left.

In games where you don't need to reserve, you can start your Haemonculus with a Warrior sqaud to start them with FNP OR run them with a sqaud of Wracks against an infantry heavy list for triple-liquifier goodness. In DoW you can stat him on the board with either Warriors or Wracks (depends on if you need the T4 on the board first turn or not) and haywire the bejesus out of the enemy until Urien & Co (with the beast probably) come through and munch on some metal.

These looks like a really fun list, and I may have to test it out a bit, even though I did just finish building raiders and converting venoms.

[w7west]

Solid advice on the clawed fiends. The original idea behind the mindphase gauntlet was to try out a piece of wargear that seems like it could be pretty powerful in combination with urien. Since most str 10 weaps are of the powerfist / thunderhammer variety I figured it would add to urien's invincibility. Plus it was only a 10 pt upgrade, and the unit wouldnt benifit too much from a couple more wounds with scissorhands.

I havn't played much with beastmasters but in my last game they were my main taking down tanks unit. I didn't lose any flocks to multilasers because the 5 khymera and 4 beastmasters took those wounds. I would love to have a second unit of scourges though. Those guys are great and haywire blasters are one of the most solid antitank weapons I have come across when combined with anititank assaults.

Time will tell, this army is quite new and everything is still proxies so I have a lot of wiggle room before the models come out for it.

On another note, the pictures in the codex for wrack, grotesque, and talos all are pretty detailed, leading me to believe they have to models already sculpted. It would be great if these were part of the next release, and they really do look menacing. A wall of advancing flesh is going to look pretty scary if they keep consistent with the picture.

[DrLove42]

I agree with what some random dude says about the beastmasters squad. Something to avoid the instant kills, and AP2 wounds on is a plus, and everyone that hits him he just gets harder!

And i also very much highlight the need for a WWP. Your army may be hard in combat (very hard) but they are going to get shot to buggery walking across the table, and if you've not going for any vehicles (very brave in my opinion) then you need a delivery system to drop your bomb of tortured flesh into the enemies line. A FNP save might be good compared to any other saves, but it can be easily invalidated (ID, Ap1/2 etc). Maybe cut one of the squads, give a cheap hemo a small squad of bodyguard and get him in (gonna need a Venom though) so the portals nice and close. Considering you're shooting is very limited to the dark lances in your warriors (which means they won't be able to move) the enemy will almost certainly have their full shooting power on you until you get right up to them

[somerandomdude]

Solid advice on the clawed fiends. The original idea behind the mindphase gauntlet was to try out a piece of wargear that seems like it could be pretty powerful in combination with urien. Since most str 10 weaps are of the powerfist / thunderhammer variety I figured it would add to urien's invincibility. Plus it was only a 10 pt upgrade, and the unit wouldnt benifit too much from a couple more wounds with scissorhands.

I havn't played much with beastmasters but in my last game they were my main taking down tanks unit. I didn't lose any flocks to multilasers because the 5 khymera and 4 beastmasters took those wounds. I would love to have a second unit of scourges though. Those guys are great and haywire blasters are one of the most solid antitank weapons I have come across when combined with anititank assaults.

Time will tell, this army is quite new and everything is still proxies so I have a lot of wiggle room before the models come out for it.

On another note, the pictures in the codex for wrack, grotesque, and talos all are pretty detailed, leading me to believe they have to models already sculpted. It would be great if these were part of the next release, and they really do look menacing. A wall of advancing flesh is going to look pretty scary if they keep consistent with the picture.

I realize now that I actually made a case for the Mindphase Gauntlet in the same paragraph that I dismissed it, by saying that Urien's only weakness was ID close combat wounds. Also, I had misread it this entire time. I thought it worked like the Electrocorrosive Whip and you had to wound, but since you only need to hit, it should statistically cause three strength and leadership tests the turn of the charge.

I wonder, how would it work against a brood of Carnifexes? Would you pick which model took each test (like assigning glancing/penetrating against squadrons), or would only the one in base contact test?