Courage and Honor

Thursday, September 22, 2011

A New Love - The Archon & Court



This weekend I got to play a game with my Dark Eldar army that I am working on, and I now have a unit that I think I may never go without in a regular size game. The Archon & Court. Now when I first read about the court of the Archon I was not overly impressed with all the units, and you had to take at least one of each. The Ur-Ghul's, and Sslyth's were cool, but I was not a huge fan of the Medusa and Lhamaean. Well I was wrong!

In the past I have been playing Space Marines, and using a the terminator death star unit, Land Raider, Thunder Hammer & Storm Shield Terminators, and a terminator Librarian, Quite a nasty unit with much staying and hitting power. This unit came in as a whole at about 600 points. Now for 415 points I pick up the following:

  • Archon w/ Huskblade, Shadow Field, Soul Trap, Phantasm Grenade Launcher, Haywire Gernades.
  • 1 Lhamaean
  • 2 Medusa
  • 2 Ur-Ghul
  • 3 Sslyth
  • Raider with Flicker Field
Now over all the staying power in comparison to armor saves is nothing compared to the terminators, but this unit makes up for it in other ways, and may be nastier than the terminators over all. Here is my current list of my thoughts, and pros and cons.
  • This unit is faster than the Terminators, and most units in the game, by far. The Archon has 6 attacks on the charge, the Sslyth, and Ur-Ghuls pack a ton of Str 5 attacks on the charge, and the Lhamaean & Archon attacks are poisoned (2+).
  • The Sslyth's are tough 5, 2 wounds, which helps with high str weapons.
  • Add a homculus to the mix and the unit starst the game with feel no pain, and rest assured more tokens are soon to follow.
  • They all have fleet, which makes them really fast.
  • The Medusa were a surprising plus as well, not in the CC department, but with shooting. They use a template weapon of varying str, and ap, but being a template no cover saves can be taken. I managed to wipe out a unit of marines in cover by rolling an okay str and low ap. was nice, and to top it off the Sslyth carry carbines (aasualt 3).
  • Low Armour save, but the speed of the unit makes up for that, and makes me think this unit has a real chance of being my much cheaper death star unit. I wonder what this unit could do to a unit of Thunder Wolf Cavalry, or Paladin Squad? Guess I should go find out...right?
I am currently really like the unit and will continue to put them up against many units as possible, so stay tuned.



3 comments:

  1. Hey I just found out that the snakemen were supposed to come with 40mm bases. It was a mistake in production and current ones are going out with the larger base. Will actually extend your charge range.

    Some other things to think about:

    The haemo will make your unit lose fleet since he doesn't have it. Might mean he stays in the ride if you think you'll miss the charge.

    Do enough of your unit have feel no pain already? Meaning could you allocate earlier wounds to them?

    We talked about the poison thing... that sucks that your archon can't really use it.

    I really like the softening up that the Medusa can do.

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  2. I think you are right and the hemo would need to stay in the ride. I have been allocating to the fnp stuff first and it has been helpful. The medusa are totally wicked. I am also a bigger fan of the Sslyth over the ur-ghul cause if the str all the time and the carbines, makes for well rounded. What do you think of losing the husk blade and making it an agonizer? I would more often.

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  3. nah, the huskblade kills things outright and combined with the soultrap you're golden. If you figure most characters are toughness 4 you'll be wounding on 5's (or 4's if you furious charge). Since most have 3 wounds it's well worth it since all they need to do is fail once.

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