Why I think Incubi are a great option

Hi guys,
I thought I'd share some thoughts on why I think Incubi are a good choice in any Dark Eldar list that is aiming into close combat. Incubi are good beater units on their own, but to get the most out of them, you have to use them together with other units, such as whyches.

The raider rush list that I used as a base for my own list was Ben Mohlie's from the ATC. It originally had a Court of the Archon in it, but I decided to swap it out for incubi. This was because I felt that the list lacked power weapons. Disintegrators and dark lances can make up for this, but in the case of the raider rush list, it was already very low on lances, and so I decided I needed something to punch through heavy armour in CC. The incubi are just simply better at this.

Incubi have a nice ws5 which means they'll be hitting most opponents on a 3+. They have an ok amount of attacks (3 on the charge) and str4 so you should be forcing those armour save ignoring wounds on your opponents. They also have I5, but this is largely countered by their lack of grenades. You can use Archons with phantasm launchers, but although I also originally used an archon (see last post) I personally feel you need all the points you can get.

Most CC characters don't bring enough to the army outside of CC. This is why you don't see Captains in vanilla armies, but you see a librarian. Similarly, lately I've been thinking of dropping the archon in favour of lance trueborn.

One of the problems of incubi is t3 and no invulnerable. As you lose your I5 when charging through cover, you don't get to kill off your enemies before they swing at you. Especially sergeants with armour save ignoring weapons are a pain to incubi. This is where whyches come in.

This is a tactic I originally learned from the Finnish ETC team's captain when we were talking about mega nobz (he is a long time Ork player). My wagon list featured four units of 3 meganobz and one 20-man slugga boy mob. He encouraged me to drop some meganobz and take a second boy mob. Similarly to incubi, mega nobz can deal out a lot of armour save ignoring wounds in CC, but suffer from the lack of an invulnerable save.

The philosophy with meganobz+sluggaboyz is to first charge in with the sluggaboy, moving into B2B with most of the opponents unit (in the case of a 20-man mob probably the entire unit). This will tie in the power fist and power weapons. After that you can charge in the mega nobz, moving into CC with 3 models from the unit and safe from the sergeant.

This same tactic should be applied to incubi. When charging an enemy unit, you can make good use of the 4++ and FNP of whyches in CC, and move the whyches first (tying the deadly CC models) and then bring in the incubi. For example:

You have a tactical squad with power fist sarge standing beside a razorback (they probably disembarked to melta your raiders the last turn) and you have a squad of incubi and whyches nearby. The whyches first charge the razorback (with haywire grenades) and move the hekatrix into B2B with the power fist sarge. You ensure that the incubi are not within range to charge the power fist sarge and they move into B2B with the regular tactical marines. This way you get 8 haywire grenades into the razorback, one agoniser and the incubi into the tac marines, and your incubi will only need to survive the regular attacks of the tac marines in CC.

This is the reason why I think Incubi best fit an army that is already heavily geared towards CC. That way you have the best chances to use the incubi in tandem with the other units (protecting the incubi and getting combat resolution in combats that the whyches need help in). Similarly, I think that the incubi fill a vacuum in CC dark eldar armies, armour save ignoring wounds. One agoniser per a unit might not be enough against some opponents (and wound allocation can spoil it), so it is good to have a large unit of power weapon armed space elves nearby, to help turn the tide.

Here's also the latest 1750 list, without the archon (feel free to comment):

3 Haemonculi @ 150pts.

3 Trueborn with 2 dark lances @ 86pts.

3 Trueborn with 2 dark lances @ 86pts.

8 Incubi @ 176pts.
Raider @ 60pts.

9 Whyches with haywire grenades incl hekatrix with agoniser @ 138pts.
Raider with enhanced aethersails @ 65pts.

9 Whyches with haywire grenades incl hekatrix with agoniser @ 138pts.
Raider with enhanced aethersails @ 65pts.

9 Whyches incl hekatrix with agoniser @ 120pts.
Raider with enhanced aethersails @ 65pts.

3 Wracks @ 30pts.
Venom with 2x cannons @ 65pts.

3 Wracks @ 30pts.
Venom with 2x cannons @ 65pts.

3 Wracks @ 30pts.
Venom with 2x cannons @ 65pts.

Ravager @ 105pts.

Ravager @ 105pts.

Ravager @ 105pts.