Court Is Now In Session: The Court Of The Archon

So I have been reading the Dark Eldar codex with a fine tooth comb. With the release of new Court Of The Archon models, making it so you can actually field all of them, I have been looking at the Court again. They are much lamented as an effective unit. We all know I like trying to “Take back units”. I had great success running mandrakes despite the hate the internet hurled at them. Of course that hate was generally hurled by guys who think the only effective kind of lists are from The Space Wolves and Grey Knights codex’s and involve lots of Razorbacks. SO I take it with a grain of salt.

SO lets look at the Court Of The Archon. The first thing you will notice upon close inspection is that you must take at least one of each member of the court. Thats not a big hindrance. You only really need one Lhamaean. The same goes for the Medusae. Sslyth and Ur Ghuls should be taken to their max or near max. They are the real punch of the unit.

The Ur Ghuls are actually, theoretically, not to bad in close combat. They are strength 5 on the charge and have 4 attacks each at initiative 6. This gives your unit a good solid mass of attacks that go after you Archon. They have FNP from the start so this makes up for their lack of armor, kinda. The Sslyth are the real beefy portion of the unit. They are strength 5 and toughness 5 with 2 wounds. They sport shard carbines so this adds nice mobile shooting. They also have 4 attacks on the charge so this gives you a whole host of attacks that will wound marines on a 3+. Between the Sslyth and the Ur Ghuls, if you take 3 Sslyth and 4 Ur Ghuls, you get 32 attacks at strength 5 on the charge. The Sslyth also give you good options for strength 8 and lower wound allocation. You don't have to just sit there and take a wound you don't get FNP on. You just allocate to a Sslyth and not loose any models from the unit. I do have to note for all my Craftworld brethren that the low leadership of the Ur Ghuls and Sslyth make them prime targets for Mind War. They are leadership 3 so even if they roll a 6 you will kill them outright if you roll a 1, because Farseers are LD 10 and will inflict 2 wounds on a roll of a 1.

The Medusae is a strange duck, as in a duck possessed by Cthulhu. They have a template eye beam that has variable strength and variable AP. As I am a fan of liqufier guns this does not really phase me. Templates are nice to thin the heard before you lay into a unit. Hitting a unit with the Medusae gives you a chance to have some unsaveable wounds in the mix to force allocation. Depending on what you arm your Archon with you can really deal out some hurt before the assault phase.

The Lhamaean is an enhancer. She beefs up any of your Archons poison weapons to wound on a 2+. This basically means you should choose your Archons weapon load out to take advantage of the 2+ wounding ability. She adds a little in combat, but basically is a 10 point ablative wound that gives your Archon a little more potency. Granted the only real poison weapons available are his splinter pistol and a venom blade......which already wounds on a 2+. So take the minimum and throw her in front of that melta gun like a crazy ex girlfriend so you don't scuff up your shadow field.

I am going to try and run a Court this week if I make it to the FLGS this week. I need to get some Ur Ghuls, but I have the rest of the Court I plan on running. With my new found Warhammer Fantasy habit the budget has been stretched thin. I am thinking to just doing high elves as I have always been a fan. I like the ogres, but I have a nice chunk of High Elves to start the army thanks to the Island of Blood set. I am also trying to get some ork truk bits, or whole kits, into the mix so I can get my conversions done for Da Kabal uf Da Big Teef. I have one about 25% done and it is screaming to get done. More on that later.

Until then...............................

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

New Meta: The Foot Army Making A Comback

5^th edition is cited as being the Mech edition. That is mechanized infantry and armies are king. As such the tournament meta has shifted to very mech heavy armies with tons of anti tank. The local meta at my FLGS has shifted from mech armies to foot armies. After a couple years of tanks and armies rumbling across the field in transports people at the shop have gotten kinda tired of the parking lot the table has become. 

Some would say this is a hold over from 4^th edition. It is for players that only have been playing since 4^th ed came out. I actually never played 4^th edition. Although I play tested codex’s, benefit of working for GW back in the day, that eventually became early 4^th edition codexs, I started really playing a lot in 2^nd and 3^rd edition. Foot armies were the norm. In fact the whole concept of a foot army is not weird to me. With the local meta shifting to foot armies and massed infantry I thought I would cover some different concepts you need when doing a foot army. This goes hand in hand with my Dark Eldar Webway list as I have a whole whopping 2 transports in the army. There are two real solid methods of running a foot list. The horde method and using armies using alternate deployment methods.

To anybody who says the “Green Tide” style of list does not work has obviously never played a real one. The only time I have ever rage quit in a tournament, after the game was over, was the spanking I received by Team Americas Shawn Kemp and his Ghazghul Thraka powered Green Tide list.

The Horde Method relies on massed infantry, and I mean massed. Looking across the table at 50 man blob squads and multiple mobs of 30 boys is pretty disheartening. The main strength of a horde style foot list is its ability to win be attrition. “Green Tide” lists run by many ork players now forgo any truks and battle wagons and field as many boyz as they can fit in the list supported by mobs of lootas or flash gits. OST runs his Deathwing all on foot, ominously marching his terminators forward while the devastator squads pound the enemy from afar. Orks and Tyranids lend themselves well to the horde style. Large numbers of boys or gaunts although not robust make up for it in sheer numbers. I have been experimenting with Horde style Eldar lists. The integral part is of course Guardians, both Storm Guardians and Guardian Defenders.

Running units of 15 to 20 guardians with a warlock works well. The Warlock usually has the conceal power for the defenders to help keep them alive as they march across the table and the Storm Guardians Warlock has the Enhance power to bolster their fighting ability. The real key to running a Horde list with Eldar is long range support. Night Spinners are great for hitting close combat units and pinning them down as well as killing a few in the process. Dark Reapers are effective for getting rid of harder targets and light vehicles. I personally like using Swooping hawks to jump in and deal with vehicles. They can also deep strike in and hit the back field if you opponent was not smart enough to ensure there is no good available landing zone for deep striking units. Taking out hard hitting artillery like manticores and such is essential to foot unit survival. Regardless of how you do it you must support the advancing foot units. Having fast moving units that are capable of dealing with armor are ideal, both for harassing units and contesting objectives.

Using alternate deployment methods is the other effective method of doing a foot list. This is the method I am using with my webway list. It eliminates the need for transports and an excessive amount of kill points. Infiltration, outflanking and Deep striking your whole list can throw your opponents off. They have no idea where you are going to come in. Granted they can guess. When I place my webway portals my opponents know my forces are going to come pouring thru them. I can still come from the board edge though. If you mix deployment styles this can really throw your opponent off. They will either spread out, which makes it easier to divide the army up and kill it a unit at a time, or they will turtle up in one spot, giving you board control.

Even when you have several or one alternate deployment method the goal is victory thru attrition. Having several deployment options gives you flexibility. It also lets you mix up the flow of the game so your opponent can't adjust quickly. It helps you gain and keep momentum which is essential.

I am going to try and get a game in this weekend using my Guardian horde list so I can bring you a battle report as a decent example of a good footdar list. That and I have not had the Craftworlders out for a good romp in a while.

Also thought I would throw in a nice pic of the next half of the court of the archon.  The Slyth and the Lahmean.  I actually like both of them.  I may have to start experimenting with the Archons court and see if they are as horrible as people think they are.

Until then...

Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls............... …......WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!