Here is a fantastic guest article about how to run your Haemonculi courtesy of gundog8324 from skimmerspam.blogspot.com. Enjoy!
The Haemonculus is an often underated HQ when compared to the raw power of the Dark Eldar Lord. However they do have quite a bit of potential especially in games 1500 and lower. In larger point battles an advantage they have is three can be taken per HQ choice.
The first major choice is which ranged weapon you want, a stinger or destructor. The stinger has a slightly better range, always wounds on a 2+, and when it kills a model you place a blast template on it generally wounding models on a 4+ with no saves allowed. The destructor is a flamer with str 4 and a variable AP. The destructor is more expensive but it ignores cover and has a 50/50 on ignoring power armour.
Since the ranges on both are relatively short (12in or less) some mobilty boost is needed. This gives 3 choices:
1. mounted in a raider with another squad.
2. a Hellion Skyboard.
3. a Reaver Jetbike.
I prefer the reaver jetbike for a couple of reasons. First, it increases the tougness to 5! (may not seem like much but for a Elar light or dark that is high) and the Str to 4 (more on that later). Second it gives the option of turboboosting for a 3+ save. Third, it follows the Eldar Jetbike rules and lets them make a 6" move in the assault phase. Finally don't forget the built in splinter rifle for when your special gun is out of range.
Whenever you take a Haemonculus never forget the Scissorhand and combat drugs they will turn it in to a respectible CC character.
On to actual usefullness the build I run is Scissorhand, Destructor, Combat drugs, and Reaver Jetbike at a total of 105 pts
The Scissorhand wounds on 2+ and grants +1 attack, and reroll to wound against T4 and lower due to the Str 4 granted by the bike.
The Destructor goes well with the bike since the extra mobilty lets you line up to get the most per template.
The Drug choices usually taken are reroll misses and +1 A for the benefits of 4-5 wounds before saves from one guy!
now 3 of these guys attatched to a unit of reavers will turn any marine unit into mush.
An expirament I am trying with mixed results is a unit of 3-5 Reavers and 6 (yes 6!) Haemonculi 3 with stingers and 3 Destructors and the reavers with Succubus with Goblet of spite and Punisher, Tormentor Helm, and two Reavers with Blasters or Shredders.
While incredibly expensive, the multiple toughness rule means they use the T5 from the haemonculi and this is modled after the ever so famous eldar seer council, it lacks the definsive power but makes up for it in the offensive aspect.
by gundog8324 of skimmerspam.blogspot.com
If you'd like to contribute a guest article please send submissions to cuchulain84@gmail.com.
Out of curiousity, your 6 Haemo + 5 Reaver squad, do the Haemo's take combat drugs?
ReplyDeleteof course the +1 A and rerolls lets them put out more wounds than a 30 boyz squad
ReplyDeleteSo that's 741 points if you have just 3 Reavers including a succubus. That's a lot of points. :P
ReplyDeleteP.S.
ReplyDelete"The Scissorhand wounds on 2+ and grants +1 attack, and reroll to wound against T4 and lower due to the Str 4 granted by the bike." Which rule says that?
It's in the rulebook entry for Poisoned Weapons. It is debatable as to whether Dark Eldar poisoned weapons are poisoned weapons as per the rulebook though.
ReplyDelete775 the way I do it the Haemys combat drugs scissors, destructors bikes, 3 bikes 2 blasters succubus punisher thelm goblet of spite and haywire grenades
ReplyDeletebit pricey yes the eldar seer council is 605 and that is for the same size yet it has less wounds than the haemies/reavers lower tough ness
and if all six haemys are going to be overkill you can always break a couple off and hit another exposed unit taking out 2 units and the opposition can't have 6 haemies and the reaver squad running through their backfield if they have ANY non vehicle
I believe they are poisoned attacks. The main rulebook states under poisoned attacks that you reroll failed wounds when your Str is equal or greater than the opponents toughness. With combat drugs giving +1 str and the bike giving you +1 str (+2 total) you will be rerolling wounds against plaguebearers and nurgle marines.
ReplyDeleteIt's alot of points but very effective.
@Cuchulain84 If a judge/T.O. rules that the poisoned weapons are not poisoned weapons then you can make a case for Dark Lances and Blasters working blessed Land Raiders and Monoliths, since They are not Lance type weapons but instead reduce AV12+ to AV12
ReplyDeletesame net effect as the current rules just outdated
I ran an 11 strong Jetbike squad in my last game. 2 Blasters led by a tooled up Dracon. It was good fun to use but the trouble was it's fragility. I was able to keep it safe for most of the game thanks to the eldar assault move but as soon as it was out in the open I lost 80% of the squad to a single round of bolter fire. Maybe sticking the Haemo's on skyboards with a unit of hellions would be worth thinking about, thanks to the 5+ inv (and it's a cheaper)
ReplyDelete@gundog, I agree with you. Just putting it out there that it could (and therefore will be) argued by some.
ReplyDeleteMy problems with the Hellions Aside from I don't own any as of now (hopefully that will change soon) is they only have 1 special weapon no assaulting after shooting the splinter rifles and no +1 Str and +1T and no bike rules, and the hellions themselves are even more fraile then the bikes
ReplyDeleteon the plus side instead of being locked in combat the the hellions can pull out of combat letting the Haemies finish the combat and it drops the Haemies to a 4+ save
ReplyDeletewill we be seeing a Batrep of that match?
ReplyDeleteAs a Dark Eldar player myself, I do not use the BRB poisoned weapon rules. Games Workshop has firmly established that all the rules in a codex takes precedence over those found in the rulebook. Because Scissorhand says to "See the poisoned blades entry for more details", and that entry is part of our listed codex wargear, the rules for those trump the new poisoned weapons.
ReplyDeleteIts unfortunate, but that's the way GW wants it. *shrug* But it won't matter all that much soon, as we'll be getting a brand spankin' new codex soon. :)
@Gundog, alas no. It was my first time playing this person and I wanted it to be nice and laid back.
ReplyDeleteI did win. He was a Deathwing player, mission was capture and control (3 objectives) deployment spearhead. I deployed my Ravagers and Sniper units hiding in cover as he had first turn. I siezed inititive though and imobalized his Landraider and made his devastators run off the board. From then on I had my Jetbike unit outflank him, pestering a Tactical squad whilst my Wyches and Incubi charged into Terminator Squads. All the while picking off others with Disentegrators and trying to make the Landraider go boom. When the game ended he only had 3 Terminators and the Imobilised LR left. I won 2-0 the last objective was contested with his termies. I still both my Ravagers, tooled up Dracon on Jetbike and a good few Raiders on the board with all my troops still intact.
We're playing another game this Wed, 1750pt this time. I'll take my camera and ask if he doesn't mind me doing a write up.
Sorry for the double post, but in 4th Edition, Games Workshop Errata'd the Bright/Dark Lances to add the "Lance" special rule to them. I'm sure you can find the old FAQ somewhere on the net still.
ReplyDeleteIf you notice in the reference section of the BRB for the Dark Eldar (Pg 297), the Dark Lance/Blaster both have the "Lance" special rule. The rulebook also specifically mentions that all lance weapons have the lance special rule and it gives the rules for it. The Bright Lance in the Eldar codex doesn't have the "Lance" special rule either. However, in the example on Weapons page 32, the rulebook gives it "Lance". You can safely assume the same to be true of Dark Lances, even though the Errata no longer exists in the current edition.
Unfortunately, this ends up being an exception to the codex trumps rulebook position because it was errata'd in the past. :(
I would argue that since the old errata has been updated and hence is no longer availible the is is unuseable.
ReplyDeleteIf it was ruled OLD errata's still applied then I would argue about out of date Codexes being useable. (If you have not noticed most of my arguements are about continuity/consisentcy) If a judge ruled against me both ways ( Because there the judge and they say so) I would accept it maybe grumble a little, but I would Accept it
When a new codex comes out are you allowed to use the old one in tournaments? no, so if a new Errata comes out that is the one you must use.
I know the way my FLGS handles new releases is that if the new codex came out in less than 30 days prior to the tourney yo have a choice but I do not imagine that is quite the norm at bigger tournies
I've been reading your blog for the past two days now, and I have to say you've got some good stuff on here, lots of interesting articles, and pictures of nicely painted models.
ReplyDeleteThe beginner's guide articles have also been inspirational, as they've gotten me interested in starting a Dark Eldar army of my own. I have an Ork army at the moment, and have had an Emperor's Children Chaos Space Marine army, but I've recently gotten it into my head that I want a new WH40K army. Looks like my choice is made! Thanks for the inspiration.
I like your army's light blue and white colour scheme, by the way: In my 20-something years of gaming I've seen way too many Dark Eldar armies painted in dull black with blue/turquoise highlights or dark red. It kind of gets old.
@ Navdi: Aw shucks *blush*
ReplyDeleteBe sure to send me some pics when you've started! :)
new rulesbook no skyboard .. no jetbike
ReplyDeleteis a good assasin like the dark eldar but too much easy to kill onlly the mask can save with a psico test from the attak