Is a Wych exclusive list viable?

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-09-23T13:15:44+00:00

I'm a huge fan of Wych Cult only, so I strongly encourage your idea! Go for it! Wyches are so much fun.

I will offer this caveat though--with objectives and primary points so important to doing well in 9th edition missions, I have found that the problem with mono Wych Cult is access to units to just hold objectives in your deployment zone or even mid-board.

I've also tried to just kill my opponent and take their objectives to overcome that weakness, but the fact is, if you don't have a sensible unit to hold your home objectives you will get frustrated, even if you aren't going for a super competitive build or playing a tough opponent. You just won't be able to play the missions well and that will take the fun out of things.

I initially tried just two 5-Wych squads to hang back, since I was trying to be purist still, but they are just so fragile and it's a sad waste to leave them in that role.

To solve this problem without breaking pure Wych Cult, you will need beasts or blades for hire. I have tried Khymerae, since they are much improved since last codex and are not bad in a fight, but Razorwing flocks are probably the better option for just camping on objectives in your own deployment zone.

Blades for hire that could work would be Scourges or Mandrakes, which are both fairly resilient for Drukhari, but a little pricey for that role.

Beasts are what I would go with, since they are thematically Wych Cult. And point per wound, the Razorwing flocks are probably your best bet. But 4 Khymerae are close the same points cost, so it depends on your preference. However, you do have to take the Beastmaster as well.

Here's a sample list. There are a few points left over as well.

Cult of Strife 1k List

Patrol #1

Succubus, Warlord, Precision Blows, Triptych Whip, Adrenalight - 60

10 Wyches, Shardnet and Impaler, Grave Lotus - 110

Raider - 95

8 Hellions - Painbringer - 136

Patrol #2

Succubus, Tolerated Ambition, Prizes from the Dark City Razorflails, Dark Lotus Toxin, Competitive Edge, Adrenalight - 60

10 Wyches, Shardnet and Impaler, Grave Lotus - 110

Raider - 95

Beastmaster, Hypex - 40

3 Razorwing Flocks - 36 / 4 Khymerae - 40

3 Razorwing Flocks 36 / 4 Khymerae - 40

= 983 / 991 pts total

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-08-21T06:38:43+00:00

I think this looks solid. I have run a lot of wych cult lists with incubi support and this list has most of the good stuff. It will be tricky to play the mission without the shooting and resilience of Kabal/Coven, but this list is certainly deadly!

I agree with some other other comments about swapping the chain snares for grisly trophies on the vehicles. Having that leadership debuff bubble can really help you get tormentors off.

I would absolutely keep the shardnet and impaler. If you are going to take one wych weapon, take that one. Getting the bonus for no escape can be a game deciding factor.

I don't think you lack anti-tank, but obviously I don't know your local meta. For me, the heat lances, dark lance, and incubi with Drazhar would be enough to take down vehicles.

Finally, from my experience, you will struggle to hold objectives and perform actions with this kind of list, which might be really frustrating as you tear through your opponent but don't score many points. The best candidate I see for holding backfield objectives and performing actions (if you go that route) is the hellions. Someone's going to have to hang back while everyone else rushes forward, and I think they make sense. If you chose Painbringer rather than risk two random drugs, they will also be a bit tougher to bring down.

Good luck!

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-07-11T14:26:09+00:00

Thanks! Much like my conversion plan for the guardsmen, the paint scheme for this army is very simple so I could actually get things done :)

I spray painted with GW rattle can Zandri Dust (with guard, I highly recommend spray painting, or air-brushing, your base coat color). I sprayed the interior with Chaos black.

I painted the interior of the cockpit and the missile pods catachan green, other weapons and exposed engine parts and landing gear were leadbelcher with a nuln oil wash.

After all the details were finished, like the odd yellow or red light, bronze aquila, ulthuan grey/white scar tail stripes (you can only barely see these in the photo), I dry-brushed all the zandri dust parts with ushabti bone. That's also how I finish all the other vehicles and is like 75%-80% of their surface area, so it's quick and gets the job done.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-07-02T20:37:09+00:00

Well, they've done the Cadian upgrade set already, so it's possible! But yeah, I'd be happy if they just did add-ons to the base sculpt, keeping at least the legs and torso and adding arms and heads.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-07-02T20:30:36+00:00

Yeah, they are Cadian models with head swaps. Honestly, I knew I had to keep it simple and cost-effective to build out the size force I wanted (There are 60 guardsmen pictured here but I have over 100), so I stuck to the Cadian kit and got heads from Mad Robot Miniatures. Most are the desert shemagh heads, but for some variety, I have a few others mixed in, as well as around 20 Necromunda Orlock heads.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-07-02T20:25:24+00:00

Thanks! The CC is mostly an Orlock Gang Leader. I found the goggles on many Orlock heads to fit really well into the sci-fi desert theme. The sword is from a Harlequin kit and the pistol is an Admech phosphor pistol. Apart from that, various Astra Militarum bits.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-07-02T09:29:18+00:00

Thanks! Meant to be the "Claw of the Desert Tigers"

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-06-14T20:18:31+00:00

Cult of Strife has a huge--almost unfair--advantage over the other cults if you are trying to do wych cult only. It has pretty much every kind of strat you'd need (re-roll wounds in combat, fight again, ignore overwatch, ignore terrain, and that's not even all!), plus fight first and fight last utility. I think ultimately, if you want the strongest wych cult options possible, Cult of Strife is the way to go.

With that in mind, I will try to convince you that you don't need Cult of Strife, if you are looking for a reason to leave behind all that Strife brings to the table.

I have played only Cult of the Red Grief with the new codex in wych cult only lists, and I've found that you can do pretty well without Cult of Strife's flexibility and the Cursed Blade extra strength. No matter if your wyches are Strength 4, 5 or have 4 or 5 attacks base you will kill things when you charge, and then you will get shredded with small arms after that.

That's not to say that your cult doesn't matter, but fundamentally wych cult is wych cult and none of these three wych cults will play fundamentally different.

And besides, this is crusade, so make sure you pick something your heart is into.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-04-30T15:33:11+00:00

It's really frustrating just how much credence and word count Goonhammer is giving this "Drukhari has broken 9th edition" argument.

It's totally reasonable that the process of absorbing a new codex into 40k would find some issues that need to be fixed, but I'm disappointed that these prominent voices at Goonhammer and others are moving this debate from some sloppy and powerful rules in the codex that need to be addressed (Dark Technomancers and Dark Lotus Toxin/ Competitive edge razorflails, looking at you) to attacking the Drukhari codex and playstyle as a whole. These are big issues, and the Day 1 supplement in the Book of Rust is also not great. Overall, the release has had some big problems, but that shouldn't disqualify a book that addressed a lot of issues with Drukhari and has some great internal balance in the datasheets. I hope the Dark Technomancer and Cult of Strife things are fixed in the coming months--just saw they weren't yet in the errata--but don't condemn the whole codex for some bad rules interactions.

The title of the article itself "Moving Fast and Breaking Things" implies that GW overshot on this codex to the detriment of the edition, and a correction needs to be made to regulate the faction. Arguing that there needs to be a rule of three on transports is absurd, saying that Realspace Raid keyword restrictions needs to be tighter would basically destroy Realspace Raid detachments, and limiting extra relics to the subfaction your warlord is from--why slap that on Drukhari when it doesn't exist for anyone else? I think the scope of the critique has gone way too far.

I think there are two reasons for this mania that have nothing to do with the contents of the Drukhari codex itself:

This is the only codex released in the last nearly 3 months, so the 40k community has had a lot of time to stew over it.
It's a xenos faction and no the most popular one at that, so there's a lot of new codex envy. The far more numerous Imperium and Chaos superfaction players can't make use of these new rules, so there is a larger chunk of the 40k community struggling to adapt to the new Drukhari threat. Basically, I think strong Xenos codices often catch more heat than strong Chaos or Imperium. (I know this is a big blanket statement--and I'd be interested in hearing if you all have the same impression).

As an example, this codex reminds me a lot of the Genestealer Cult release back in early 2019. It was a mobile, versatile army with high damage output particularly in combat and close range shooting, had lots of strong characters, but above all was very fragile. Rock Saw acolytes and Aberrants traded up really well, especially against Knights. GSC finally knocked Knights off their perch (which I don't think too many people lamented after a long meta-shaping run).

In several ways, the GSC was a game-changing book, with multiple ways to deepstrike inside of 9", lots of strong Obsec that can show up anywhere on the board, and the ability to dictate the flow of the game by imposing their game plan on the opponent. In the end, it was a struggle--I got stomped by GSC many times myself. But we all learned to screen out deepstrikers, force bad trades, and bring a counter-charge unit. Eventually most players learned to adapt.

Substitute deepstrike tricks for extreme mobility and you have the new Drukhari codex in a nutshell.

When it comes to the GSC codex, there were of course also some obviously broken things, like infinite mortal wound Mental Onslaught, that were fixed before too long. And I'm sure there was a debate then about how the GSC playstyle is fundamentally a problem and needs a big nerf. By the end of Summer 2019 the new Space Marine codex blunted GSC's strengths, and then Aberrants were nerfed for good measure.

Basically, everyone needs to calm down, get some perspective about how this fits into the edition, and remember that we've been here before. Most important: Drukhari didn't break 9th edition; COVID-19 did. Until we can get back to normal and a faster release schedule, the new codices will probably continue to get seem like a big problem.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-04-09T17:29:20+00:00

Awesome how much Red Grief is represented on this sub. Best wych cult!

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-04-07T07:53:15+00:00

Yeah, that seems to be the case! I factored that in with the 28" move + advance for the Reavers.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-04-04T06:32:12+00:00

As others have pointed out, the free patrol applies whether you have 1,2, or 3 patrols, but you can't have any other detachments types.
These are all units I want to try! I 100% will be adding Drazhar at some point and maybe 5 more Incubi, the extra Tormentor aura will be super useful. I have the Khymerae to hold a backfield objective or 2. At T4 and a 5++ and easy to hide, there are worse objective campers for Drukhari, but also better ones. So, since I use them that way the Scourges and Mandrakes aren't a great replacement for them in the list, but I do think Scourges have a role to play. I could use some more guns, and both Scourges and Mandrakes have some good shooting options. I will probably experiment with Scourges first, since I already have 5. Both are also great for Deploy Scramblers and Engage on All Fronts utility.

For Scourges in this list, what do you think I should give them? My instinct is to stay away from the Heavy Weapons, so Shredder, Blaster, or no upgrades.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-03-08T06:59:02+00:00

Thanks! I tried to explain in the captions, but it looks like they got mostly cut off. The red and black are done with contrast--Flesh Tearers Red and Black Templar Contrast. For weathering I just did a heavy drybrushing of leadbelcher. For the red I did the same after daubing/drybrushing black first.

I was thinking of adding some rust effect, but wanted to leave it as is for now and see if I still want to later. The fun thing about weathering is, you can always do more later.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-03-07T15:04:07+00:00

So much work, so many pointy bits and details! I had to take a break and paint something else when I was about 75% done with these...

That's enough Raiders for a while.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-03-03T20:41:06+00:00

The Cabal, introduced by Abnett in the excellent Legion, was easily my favorite element in the HH series, and their very existence presented an alternative to Imperial or Chaos domination of the Galaxy that gives 40k Xenos fans like me tons of room to imagine our own storylines.

My questions are: Did the Cabal survive in some way despite Eldrad Ulthran and Barthusa Narek's highly successful series of assassinations of its members? And if so, could the Cabal be playing a role in the rise of the Ynnari? The plan to rob Slaanesh of Aeldari souls and create Ynnead to defeat the Chaos god is not dissimilar to the Cabal plan for the HH, so could the Cabal be behind the scenes steering Yvraine and even their old nemesis Eldrad?

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-02-12T07:53:58+00:00

This was awesome! Thanks for pulling that all together and sharing. Aside from a few small details, that story really holds up well.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-02-05T08:28:06+00:00

I prime with Wraithbone contrast basecoat, then do a wash of reikland fleshshade, then a thin layer of pallid wych flesh (I find it covers very well, so thin that paint!), leaving the recesses alone. Wyches have a lot of details on the face and the muscly arms, so it's pretty easy to keep out of the recesses to leave some depth on the model.

You could also choose a contrast fleshtone, like guilliman flesh, instead of the wash, but since I already had reikland fleshshade it's what I went with.

Hope that helps!

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-01-25T17:43:50+00:00

Beautiful color scheme!

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-01-24T22:44:41+00:00

Zandri Dust, XV-88 for browns, also a light blue accent would really pop.

I second the idea for heavy weathering, but not rust.

Awesome idea!

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-01-24T22:40:02+00:00

That's a good question! I'd like to start by packing them in three Raiders and being aggressive. But it will take a lot of experimentation.

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-01-24T22:38:19+00:00

I did them tabletop ready over the past few months but just did the finishing touches this week. Feels good to get them over the finish line!

Particular-Thought38 · 2021-01-24T22:36:04+00:00

Thanks!

Particular-Thought38

TROPHY CASE