Detachment Focus: Spectacle of Spite

In this series of articles we take a deep dive into a specific Detachment for a faction, covering the faction’s rules and upgrades and talking about how to build around that faction for competitive play. In this article, we’re covering the Spectacle of Spite Detachment for Drukhari.

The True Kin are back with Codex Drukhari, and while they may be last, they certainly aren’t least: you’ll have five Detachments to choose from (six, if you count Reaper’s Wager), each of which pushes the limited options available in the army toward unique playstyles, letting you make the most of what you’re able to bring. In this series, we’ll be looking at each of the new Detachments, their rules, and how best to play them.

Before we dive in we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy of the Codex and the new models included in this article. We have also been provided with a provisional Munitorum Field Manual for the army to use when writing the review, but please note that these points are subject to change until they are published on Warhammer Community.

Detachment Overview

There are few aspects of the Drukhari faction quite as eye-catching as the acrobatic, spike toting mercenaries of the gladiatorial arenas. Historically the Wyches, Succubi, and the flying gangers that comprise the Hellions and Reavers constitute the culmination of the Drukhari principles – incredibly fast, and incredibly fragile. On the tabletop they are often among the hardest units to use, but boast incredible upside if they get to perform the specialised roles for which they are created.

The great news for Drukhari players is, after a year or two of having something of a bit-part role in the Detachments available to us, Spectacle of Spite brings us a dedicated Wych Cults Detachment that REALLY gets the vibe right. Spite is a Detachment predicated on counter-melee, combat buffs and old-fashioned treachery, with a few unique suckerpunches in its locker. Combine that with the improved datasheets for Hellions and Wyches and you’re looking at something very fun to play, and extremely dangerous. Let’s look at the rules!

Detachment Rule: Combat Drugs

If you’ve played Drukhari in previous editions, you could probably guess this rule more or less verbatim. There are six different drugs your WYCH CULT units can use, and at the start of your Command phase you’ll either choose one to hand out, or roll twice and hope for the best. One catch, though: you can’t choose the same option more than once a game. If you roll, you get what you get, but duplicates don’t re-roll or stack. Basically, you can only be certain of having a particular drug active once.

Your six options are: Adrenalight for +1 attacks in melee, Hypex for +2” move, Serpentin to improve WS by 1, Painbringer for +1 toughness, Grave Lotus for +1 strength in melee, and Splintermind to improve Ld and BS by 1 each. Adrenalight, Grave Lotus, and Hypex are the standouts, though Painbringer can be a solid option in the right situation, and Serpentin is there if you need a third round of improved output. You’ll rarely pick Splintermind, and the 1-in-6 chance that you get it as one of your options is a strong argument against rolling if you have any inkling you might get use out of one of the other drugs.

At the end of the day, this offers a slick set of bonuses you can choose to activate when you need them, while still having some potential upside on turns when you don’t want to fully commit.

Enhancements

These all go on Succubi, in case you were wondering if any Archons or Haemonculi defected to the Cult of Strife. That said, maybe they should consider it given some of these effects.

• Pharmacophex (15 points): Right after you choose (whether deliberately or randomly) the drugs your army’s on each round, you’ll roll one extra d6 on the table to hand out a little something extra to this model’s unit. There’s no way to control it, and if you roll a result that’s already active for your army it does nothing, but it could be fun if you’ve got the points. Unfortunately for this enhancement, the other three options are all pretty damn good.
• Chronoshard (10 points): A once-per-game Fights First for the bearer’s entire unit. The downside is that the only unit that your Succubus can join is Wyches, who were pretty anemic in the Index. The upside is that Wyches are a lot better with their new melee profiles in the Codex, so the threat of Fights First might actually mean something, especially when combined with the other rules in this Detachment. And it’s priced to move, so you’ll probably find room for it.
• Periapt of Torments (20 points): The bearer’s unit can’t be overwatched. This combined with the sheer speed that Wyches can achieve between their datasheet and the other rules in this Detachment can make for a nasty surprise for a unit with a bunch of [Torrent] weapons.
• Morghenna’s Curse (20 points): One of the biggest weaknesses your Succubus has right now is that her weapon is damage 1. This solves that for you, pushing it to 2 damage and AP-3 in the bargain. Solid in general, and if you had designs on taking a solo Succubus, this might make one worth trying.

Stratagems

The stratagems here are almost entirely focused on the Fight phase, or ways to get to the Fight phase, which is exactly what you’d expect from a Wych Cult force. And while most of the stratagems only work on your Cult units, two key stratagems are open to any DRUKHARI unit, making room for Ravagers, Scourges, and potentially Incubi if you want to bring them along.

• Berserk Fugue (Strategic Ploy, 2 CP): A guaranteed fight-on-death for one of your WYCH CULT units. Given how heavily a Wych Cult-focused army will lean on the Fight phase to get stuff done, having an answer to Fights First or Counter-Offensive locked and loaded will frequently come in clutch. And while it’s expensive, the fact that you don’t have to roll to see if your unit fights can make it worth the cost, especially with the glow-up several of your Cult units have gotten. One important thing to keep in mind, though: the changes to the timing on when you spend Pain tokens means that, barring some extremely weird edge cases, you won’t be able to benefit from Lelith’s or Hellions’ Pain abilities when you use this stratagem. But Wyches with a generic Succubus (who might be equipped with Morghenna’s Curse) are at full combat efficiency even without a token, making them the most likely target for this stratagem.
• Deadly Debut (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): All that said, you might have trouble keeping 2CP in the bank to use Berserk Fugue thanks to this little number. Not only does it give a DRUKHARI unit that charged this turn [Lethal Hits] in the Fight phase, but if you use this on a unit of Wyches, they pick up an extra point of AP in the bargain. The fluff blurb on this stratagem claims it’s meant to represent Wyches “imitating Lelith Hesperax,” which is directly on point since this stratagem will turn a Lelith-led squad of Wyches from a serious problem into an outright catastrophe, especially if you line up their charge with your Adrenalight turn. And using it on Wyches with a generic Succubus attached or Hellions is great as well: this strat combines nicely with both units’ [Sustained Hits 1] and their volume of attacks to let them hit hard.
• Feigned Weakness (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): A DRUKHARI unit from your army can fall back and still shoot or charge. This is a great stratagem for your Wych Cult units, allowing them to fall back and charge a unit to keep the charge bonus in subsequent turns. It’s even nastier on Reavers and Hellions who can combine their absurd move characteristics with the [Lance] keyword to bounce between targets at +1 to wound. But it’s also useful for any other units you might want to bring along as well. You’re probably still bringing Ravagers and Scourges to deal with heavier threats at range, and having the ability to get them out of combat while still firing their big guns can be game-changing.
• Preternatural Agility (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Use this in your movement or charge phase to let a Wych Cult unit ignore modifiers to its move characteristic and advance and charge rolls for the phase. But we don’t stop there: until the end of the turn, the unit can move through models as though they weren’t there. This will not only help shut down nonsense like Night Spinners that slows down your melee threats, it lets your Wyches ignore loose screens and go right through them to the units they actually want to kill. Use this to slam Lelith and her squad directly into one of your opponent’s key units a turn earlier than they were “supposed to” be able to get there.
• A Challenge Met (Battle Tactic, 2 CP): I am going to be honest here: this might be my favorite stratagem in the entire game right now. At the end of your opponent’s movement phase, you choose a Wych Cult unit that would be eligible to declare a charge if it were your Charge phase. Then, it gets to charge an enemy unit that ended a move within 9” of it. This is incredibly sick, and only gets sicker when you remember that Hellions have a d6” reactive move, so if some poor sap is foolish enough to stop within 9” of your skateboard idiots, you can use that to move them out of a building they were hiding in and potentially nail your opponent with a near-guaranteed charge in their own movement phase. Sure, you don’t get a charge bonus from it, but since you’re doing it in your opponent’s turn, they’ll have to either have a source of Fights First, spend 2CP for Counter-Offensive, or bring in a third unit if they want to punch you first. Just the threat of this stratagem will likely change how your opponent plays around your army.
• Acrobatic Display (Battle Tactic, 1 CP) – Give a Wych Cult unit a 5+ invulnerable save in your opponent’s shooting phase. Simple, straightforward, solid.

Playing This Detachment

The changes to your datasheets already let your Wych Cults units move faster and hit harder than they have all edition, and the rules in this Detachment let you lean even harder into that. You’ll still want to bring some Scourges, Ravagers, and maybe a Talos or two to deal with harder targets, but Wyches, Reavers, and Hellions are all now solid units who move blindingly fast, and the rules on offer here will let them hit like a truck if you line them up right.

Identifying your “go-turn” and managing your resources to make it pay off is going to be key here: not only will you need to make sure that the right units are in the right places to make the charges you need, you’ll also need to make sure that you can have the right Combat Drug on deck to squeeze every Pain token out of your opponent’s list that you can. And while your Wyches and Reavers are less reliant on Pain tokens to actually kill things than their cousins in the Kabals or Covens, Hellions still need them to be really scary, and a Pain-starved Wych Cult has a dramatically reduced threat range.

Adrenalight and Grave Lotus are your go-to combat drugs when you need something dead, but don’t count out Serpentin if you need a third combat boost. And while it might be tempting to use Hypex round 1 to pick up some early movement, consider holding onto it if your opponent hasn’t presented you with a meaningful turn 1 charge.

Sky Serpent: This Detachment brings back the Drukhari ethos of ‘Faster and Deadlier’ and while not at Book of Rust levels, can deliver a serious punch across the board. None of your opponent’s objectives are safe while you can change your playstyle based on your opponent’s reactions to the game with either a death by a thousand cuts from Hekatarii Blades while your Hellions punch up with their Hellglaives.

A Sample List

Lowest of Men: I had a first nibble at this Detachment this week, using the following:

But Will it Blend?

This list is very much a denial / counterattacking list. You can throw out spare Wych 5s (split from the venoms) or Reavers in the early game whilst harassing non-interactively with the Scourge and Archon Kabalite unit. Hellions act as a Rapid Ingress hammer that draws the opponent towards you as they bid to screen them out.

You want to save up CP quite aggressively for the combat elements of the list so that you can intervene, interrupt, fight on death, and disrupt enemy movement with A Challenge Met as often as you can. If the opponent sits off you, once you have enough CP you can launch a Go-turn in conjunction with the arriving Hellions. If the opponent pushes, you make their life living hell with the anti-melee tricks and then launch your retaliatory strike.

I really liked keeping the non-Wych support contingent of Malys / Archon / Draz and Incubi / Kabalites alongside the Wych Cult elements in this list- they all offer something useful, and this I think highlights how well GW has managed to write the book in a way that doesn’t write units off when swapping across different Detachments. That said, you absolutely can cut these units back in favour of even more Wych Cults and not be disappointed!

Final Thoughts

Lowest of Men: Spectacle of Spite is a massive breath of fresh air after a couple of years focusing heavily on Kabal and Coven units in competitive play. Seeing the Wych Cults brought up a level in terms of damage, trickery and threat ranges is massive for the faction, and this Detachment lets you go toe-to-toe with other combat armies and tie up and shut down shooting ones with some ruinous combinations and counterplays. I think it will be very popular out the gate! The play patterns will take a little while to master, but it is extremely rewarding.

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