.jpg)
Hi guys,
it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted the last article on my blog. This time the delay is clearly due to me being extremely occupied by university. Over the last weeks I had to give several presentations, had meetings and lots of stuff to do. Now that I’ve finished nearly all of this, I will return to writing some articles for my blog.
So what has happened in the meantime? Of course, GW raised lots of their prices, this time a lot of books and plastic kits got more expensive. Metal models nowadays are out-dated and have been replaced by shiny new resin models, but obviously this move wasn’t thought to the end by GW. Lots of these models seem to have major flaws due to resin not properly filling the moulds. I for myself can’t say anything to this, because I haven’t had any of these models in my own hands and maybe never will have, because due to the high prices I’m most certainly not going to buy those.
After these unhappy remarks I can announce that my gaming table has been set up at the moment, so I’ll maybe be able to play a few games, write battle reports and of course make lots of pictures of the finished table and lots of our terrain (recently we received a huge LOS-blocking piece of terrain, take that shooty armies :P).
Over the last weeks I was able to play two games against my brother’s BAs with my new DE army. By now I also received some of the models I bought on ebay (still don’t know what to do with about 60 Wyches …), so I don’t have to use proxies for every single miniature. At this point I’m experimenting a lot with different lists and am not even sure whether to focus on playing with webway portals or to prefer aggressive lists with lots of vehicles. One thing I already learned the hard way: DE tend to die quite fast if you move them the wrong way and most of my DE lists bear lots of killpoints. This means that in killpoint games I have to play really aggressive in order to score lots of points, because I will give away a lot as well.
So what has happened in the meantime? Of course, GW raised lots of their prices, this time a lot of books and plastic kits got more expensive. Metal models nowadays are out-dated and have been replaced by shiny new resin models, but obviously this move wasn’t thought to the end by GW. Lots of these models seem to have major flaws due to resin not properly filling the moulds. I for myself can’t say anything to this, because I haven’t had any of these models in my own hands and maybe never will have, because due to the high prices I’m most certainly not going to buy those.
After these unhappy remarks I can announce that my gaming table has been set up at the moment, so I’ll maybe be able to play a few games, write battle reports and of course make lots of pictures of the finished table and lots of our terrain (recently we received a huge LOS-blocking piece of terrain, take that shooty armies :P).
Over the last weeks I was able to play two games against my brother’s BAs with my new DE army. By now I also received some of the models I bought on ebay (still don’t know what to do with about 60 Wyches …), so I don’t have to use proxies for every single miniature. At this point I’m experimenting a lot with different lists and am not even sure whether to focus on playing with webway portals or to prefer aggressive lists with lots of vehicles. One thing I already learned the hard way: DE tend to die quite fast if you move them the wrong way and most of my DE lists bear lots of killpoints. This means that in killpoint games I have to play really aggressive in order to score lots of points, because I will give away a lot as well.
So let’s see what I can already say about the DE codex after having played a few games with different lists. First of all I’m impressed that there are not many units I would certainly not buy for my lists. Most of the units are clearly strong, good in combinations are can at least be called playable. As always I will leave out special characters, because I just play them not often enough to make up my mind about them (besides, Baron Sathonyx is a real bitch for only 105 points).
In the HQ there are three different choices, beginning with the Archon. The Archon is quite cheap and can get lots of shiny stuff, some of this is even useful and things like an invulnerable save should always be bought for him. He is also the perfect addition for a unit of Inccubi to equip them with grenades (I normally like to keep my high initiative). After buying the Archon you can buy his court as well, but this unit has the same problems most of command squads share, I don’t get what I should do with it and it is just not strong enough.
The second choice is the Succubus, already equipped with an invulnerable save (at least for CC) there are only some weapons that can be bought and otherwise there are no options at all. In a small force the Succubus can be played, because it’s cheaper than an equipped Archon, but of course it is not as good as the former.
Last but not least there are units of 1-3 Haemonculi. Cheap, interesting upgrades, making Wracks to Troop choices, free Pain Tokens … There are several good reasons to buy these guys.
Before this article now becomes quite too long I will cut the other sections short.
In the HQ there are three different choices, beginning with the Archon. The Archon is quite cheap and can get lots of shiny stuff, some of this is even useful and things like an invulnerable save should always be bought for him. He is also the perfect addition for a unit of Inccubi to equip them with grenades (I normally like to keep my high initiative). After buying the Archon you can buy his court as well, but this unit has the same problems most of command squads share, I don’t get what I should do with it and it is just not strong enough.
The second choice is the Succubus, already equipped with an invulnerable save (at least for CC) there are only some weapons that can be bought and otherwise there are no options at all. In a small force the Succubus can be played, because it’s cheaper than an equipped Archon, but of course it is not as good as the former.
Last but not least there are units of 1-3 Haemonculi. Cheap, interesting upgrades, making Wracks to Troop choices, free Pain Tokens … There are several good reasons to buy these guys.
Before this article now becomes quite too long I will cut the other sections short.
In the Elite slot there are Incubi, Grotesques, Wracks, Mandrakes, Harlequins, Trueborn and Bloodbrides. Incubi are one of the best CC units, because they have S4 and power weapons. Grotesques have S5 and three wounds, so you could you them to block lots of things, but I haven’t tried this yet. Wracks should be played as Troop choices and are good for this job, because they have T4 and FnP. Mandrakes are one of the worst units the codex offers us, either you infiltrate them or give them a Pain Token for their shooting attack, but I normally would want a combination of these things. Harlequins are always good, especially at protecting a portal carrier during the first turns. Trueborn are great to buy several special weapons in small squads and saving points this way. Bloodbrides are just improved Wyches but still got no power weapons and therefore I don’t know if I should really play them.
In the Troop slot there are only Warriors and Wyches, both units can be played and are not bad. Warriors are great in units of 5 in a Venom or Raider and Wyches can have any size between 5 and 10, this way they stay cheap and can already kill lots of smaller units.
The Fast Attack slot grants us Hellions, Scourges, Beasts and Reavers. Hellions are good in units of at least 15 guys, because then they spit out lots of poison shots and can kill even huge enemy units in CC. Scourges can have two special weapons per 5 models and can therefore be designed to either hunt vehicles or infantry. Beasts have really really really lots of attacks in CC and excel in fighting any kind of infantry but can also destroy slightly armed vehicles because of their high number of attacks. Reavers have not been tested by me right now, so I can’t really say anything about this unit.
Last but not least there is the Heavy Support slot featuring Ravagers, Talos/Cronos and Jetfighter/Bomber. The Ravager was good in the old codex and hasn’t lost a bit in the new book. If you have 105 spare points and don’t know what to do with them, buy one of those. Talos/Cronos are only good if coming through a portal, because otherwise their three wounds will be shot away quite fast. If they enter field through a portal they can deal a lot of damage, because S5/7 and being a monstrous creature is always good in CC. The Jetfighter/Bomber are a bit more expensive than the Ravager and are therefore often ignored by me. In addition to some lances they are equipped with different bombs as well, but because I want them to shoot at vehicles in my opinion the bombs are often wasted. But maybe I’m mistaken here and just have to playtest them a little bit.
All in all the codex is really great and it’s lots of fun to play with it. As soon as I have played some more games and figured out some possible lists, I’ll of course write about that to keep you updated. But this is it for today ;)
Cheers Cleutin
