Birthday lictors

[baconslice]

Ok so it was my birthday, and I got bought 2?! Lictors. What the hell do they do?

[Deleted]

Use one for a Deathleaper, the other for a paperweight until a new codex (hopefully) fixes them.

[yoritomo]

They'd make nice bookends.


Lictors are a bit of a sore subject in the current codex. They aren't a bad unit, but they don't work like the fluff describes. Lictors don't excel at anything either, which makes them a sub par choice considering the competition for our elite slots.

But I guess you didn't come here to hear us bash lictors.

To really understand lictors you need to know the four things they can do.

-- They help you with reserve rolls. This one isn't as good as it was in the past, which is one reason you hear people complain about lictors. Also, your hive tyrant can do this, so if you want help with reserves you're usually better off paying a few points to put it on your tyrant than a fair amount of points for a lictor brood

-- They can ambush units. Their special deployment rules allow them to jump out anywhere without scattering and attack units with flesh hooks.

-- They can be hard to get rid of. Popping up in cover and getting a 2++ save make them very stubborn and gives them the ability to take a lot of shooting.

-- They are phenomenal in close combat. S6, Ws 6, I6, with rending? That's a unit I don't want to fight in close combat.


Knowing this, let's look at how we can best employ our lictors. The first point as already been beaten by your tyrant. So unless you really need to stack reserve bonuses you don't need to take them. The second point isn't a good reason to take them either. If I'm going to deep strike somebody then he needs to have a huge impact when he hits the table. 2, S6 Ap- shots are not a huge impact. This effect is better achieved with y-stealer (a function the lictor had in the old codex, another reason people are bitter about lictors)

This leaves us with the last to abilities as ways to play your lictors. I've seen people take advantage of the resiliency the 2++ save gives them by aggressively deploying them (after all, they never scatter) and forcing their opponent to shoot at them even though they know most of the shots will be saved. Anything that takes fire off of my tyrants and tervigons isn't a bad thing.

Since they're also good at close combat you can take a squad of 2-3 and have them back up a squad that doesn't have any real close combat ability, like gaunts or hive guard. Gaunts work really well because you can tie up every model in your opponent's squad with gaunts, then follow up with some lictors. The gaunts prevent your opponent from focusing his attacks on the lictors, and the lictors kill off the squad in short order.

Or you can do both. You can set them up next to something your opponent doesn't want to be in close combat, like a devestator squad. The lictor's 2++ save should keep them alive until the next turn, then you can assault the devestator squad. The idea here is that once you assault that heavy weapon squad your opponent will have to move some kind of assault assets back so they can help out that heavy weapon squad. Whenever your opponent pulls a unit off of the from line like that it creates an opportunity for you. If you can find a way to exploit that then you may find lictors worth playing after all.


That's my two cents on lictors. I hope you found something in there that helps.

[baconslice]

Thanks a lot, is posted while out so now had chance to look at the codex. I think you guys are right, in 5th assault wise they'd be great, but now need to get them in without being shot to pieces. I was a bit shocked at the points value?
So I'm going to give both a go, 2 lictors, or take one as death leaper. See what happens. I do like the idea of DS at the back and hurting the shooty stuff.

[lordofthebrood]

If you're ever playing eldar in a 1500pt+ game then take the deathleaper. His D3 reduction to leadership can be used against Eldrad to diminish his use of psychic powers. Pretty useful.

[tylertt]

Actually tried that tactic today and it worked flawlessly... plus getting 3 on the D3 rolled was a big plus.

We played Emperors will and he was excellent for popping up to clear off that last dire avengers squad on the objective and get the linebreaker.

[Jabberwocky]

Deathleaper definitely has his uses.

If I'm not running him I use my lictor as a Broodlord for my tentacle faced stealer unit.

[rampagingfex]

Dec 23, 2012 12:47:31 GMT lordofthebrood said:

If you're ever playing eldar in a 1500pt+ game then take the deathleaper. His D3 reduction to leadership can be used against Eldrad to diminish his use of psychic powers. Pretty useful.

Does that actually work? Eldrad gets to roll 3 dice and pick the 2 lowest so he should still be near a 90% success rate even with the -3 Ld... and that's assuming he doesn't just jump in with an "embolden" warlock to re-roll failed leadership checks. Add that to the fact that he can attempt up to 3 spells, and can even "recast" a spell that was failed, means that Eldrad shouldn't really care about Deathleaper. Maybe if there was a deathleaper AND a Shadow in the Warp...

Seems like this might work against merely mortal psychers, but with Eldrad it's hardly a bother. I would think the points could be better spent on something else in the case of Eldrad. Now, I can see him being really useful against Mephiston or some other really high strength psycher that wants to force weapon Trygons or Trygon Primes out of the game... that would be nice for sure.

-RF

[lordofthebrood]

It works if his Ld is down to 7, it really does. From personal experience, and the stats (it reduces his chance of passing from 98% to 80% without SOTW). A warlock with embolden can't help his psychic tests either... Plus you can reduce his mobility. Heck, I'm not saying the DL is a viable unit, just that it's useful against Eldrad

[Jabberwocky]

Embolden does work for psychic tests, it has for a long time in the Eldar faq.

It's still good to give you a chance of breaking through fortune though.

[lordofthebrood]

Oh, my bad...

Haven't read the FAQs yet, very behind.

[dragonlheart]

I agree with some of the statements here. I used a Deathleaper against an Imperial Guard army and it destroyed his commands or orders or whatever they're called. I then deployed it near a small unit in the open, with the leaper itself being in ruins. Knowing that most of his shots would miss he ignored the leaper and the next turn Deathleaper forced them to retreat and got them in the advance, then went back into reserve to pop up on a turret squad later on.

Its definitely useful for putting a psyker out of commission or someone who the army relies on for leadership and cutting down ranged units in IG or xeno armies, but against marines who are A LOT tougher to kill the Deathleaper might take one or two out but against a full squad will most likely then get killed

[jhussey]

I dont think anyone really thinks the Lictor is useless, more just not living up to its hype so to speak. I love Lictors and have successfuly used them many times, but do they live up to what they are supposed to be? No. I hope they get some love in a new codex, make it the elite choice it's supposed to be. I say if you have fun with them use them, but dont get your hopes too high for it.

[rampagingfex]

Dec 28, 2012 15:32:01 GMT jhussey said:

I dont think anyone really thinks the Lictor is useless, more just not living up to its hype so to speak. I love Lictors and have successfuly used them many times, but do they live up to what they are supposed to be? No. I hope they get some love in a new codex, make it the elite choice it's supposed to be. I say if you have fun with them use them, but dont get your hopes too high for it.

They aren't worthless... they just aren't worth what you have to pay to put them on the table... both in terms of outright point cost and in terms of opportunity cost (i.e. ELITE slot). If there was a scenario game or something where you didn't have to pay any points or use any force org charts and you got to play with Lictors, then it would be fun to use them. But unfortunately, they just really messed up the rules in this codex.

-RF