The Drukhari Skysplinter Assault Detachment – The Goonhammer Review

There was a time, not so long ago. The mortals feared us, feared the sudden descent of our craft, the explosive assault of our warriors, cried out as we cut them down in droves… and that time may have come once again. 

It’s been a ride, Drukhari players. From obscurity to infamy and back again in 9th edition, the 10th edition Drukhari index initially appeared in line with the stated goals of the new edition, with drastically reduced damage output, especially in melee, and a generally pared down set of tricks and tools. Drukhari could shoot, sure, but what else could they do? It wasn’t a bad set of rules by any means, but neither was it exciting, and in a world where it seemed like other factions hadn’t gotten the memo about reducing their damage output, it didn’t seem like Drukhari were troubling anybody, with one of the lowest win rates in the game and a scarce handful of top 4 appearances to show for themselves.

That is all about to change, however. We have such sights to show you. Let us introduce the Skysplinter Assault, an entirely new detachment for the Dark Kin that will radically shake up the way the army plays on the tabletop. We don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this is the most comprehensive balance update to a faction in 10th outside of a full codex release,, and in a great many ways this detachment is everything that its predecessor isn’t. If you’ve missed hard-hitting melee scalpels, tricksy movement shenanigans, and incredible, targeted ‘Go Turns’, then buckle up. The cooler, stabbier, and all-around nastier elves are back. Thanks very much to Games Workshop for providing us with a review copy – the prey are in sight, and let the hunt begin.

The Detachment Rule: Rain of Cruelty

Skysplinter kicks off with a fantastic new detachment rule focused explicitly on doing harm as you sally forth to commence your raids. Trouble yourself no more with weakling “alliances” giving out a handful of Pain tokens; with Rain of Cruelty, units disembarking from transports gain [IGNORES COVER] on ranged weapons, and [LANCE] on their melee weapons.

The ranged boost certainly isn’t nothing, and combos with another stratagem in the new detachment, but Drukhari generals know that shooting units don’t typically want to expose themselves from their craft until the enemy is already vulnerable. The real sauce here is in the combat buff, which takes the many low-Strength combat weapons Drukhari units have been lumbered with in 10th edition up a gear on the turn they most need it. This combines neatly with a further buff to the Power from Pain rule, as Pain tokens now grant an extra point of AP in the Fight phase; on your go turn you are going to hit hard and true once more, after several months of tepidly caressing enemy armour before being murdered in response.. It is a simple, focused boost to the area of output the Index was weakest in, and it is extremely welcome. Importantly, it’s a buff that does absolutely nothing to help Ynnari – if you want this stuff, you need to be playing Drukhari for real.

Astute Archons will note that Pain token generation is going to be a little more precarious without the oft-maligned (including in this very article) additional ones offered in the Realspace Raid detachment. You will need to confirm your kills and use your tokens to maximise results, or you will find yourself running dry and your raid faltering. That makes Drukhari vulnerable into hyper elite and durable armies (as they should be), and it means this potent faction specific resource will be your lifeblood – utilise it with care.

Enhancements

There are four brand new enhancements, which offer you a toolkit for amping up your units as you set sail on your sinister quests into realspace. 

The immediate standout is the Nightmare Shroud, which makes the bearer’s unit immune to the Overwatch stratagem in the turn they disembark from a transport. Incredibly powerful, and you can see once again how the detachment is really setting you up for a pivotal ‘go’ moment with units from their Raiders or Venoms. I’ve lost an awful lot of pointy elves to overwatch since this edition came out, and this feels like a must take. It might just bring the Succubus out of retirement, too.

A solid all-rounder is the Spiteful Raider enhancement, which allows the bearer’s unit to generate one additional Pain token if they destroy an enemy unit that was holding an objective in the Fight phase. More fuel for the murderfire, and another way to keep the assault rolling even after committing a key unit.

Next up is the Sadistic Fulcrum, which allows the bearer’s unit to apply a Pain token to a transport within 3 inches as well as to themselves in the Shooting phase. A possible include to help an Archon or Haemonculus buff a Kabalite loaded Raider at the same time as enhancing their own unit, this may well have value in a world of slightly stingier Pain token generation, but I’ll need to test actual set up on this to determine its effectiveness. We all know a dark elf outside his boat isn’t typically long for this world unless they’re delivering the killing blow…

Finally, Phantasmal Smoke. While the bearer’s unit is wholly within 6 inches of a transport, that unit has [STEALTH] and the [BENEFIT OF COVER]. A nice little durability boost, I think the main issue with this is that most Drukhari units in the open will melt, and a bit of cover and smokescreening probably won’t help with that. Better loading up on output and focusing on killing the enemy as and when you decide to commit than losing sleep over the clap back. The Drukhari life is killing and then being killed, in the hope that your trades are efficient enough that you win the game at the end.. Make peace with that and you’re halfway there.

Some cool ideas here, and I really like the emphasis on the relationship between units and their transports – this is the fundamental feature of Drukhari, and part of what makes them appealing. The Shroud and Spiteful Raider feel like the obvious places to start, but I’m excited to see what else people come up with!

Stratagems

This is where it gets fun. Real fun. For the Drukhari, that is, not for the prey. Everything in here is 1 CP, and managing your Command Points to use them will be crucial henceforth.

Pounce on the Prey will have a lot of Drukhari fans celebrating, as it gives you the ability to charge with an infantry unit after disembarking even if their transport has moved. Assault ramp on tap? Absolutely, sign me up. Getting those fragile combat units into melee just got that little bit easier.

Vicious Blades is a fun tech piece to add to the arsenal, letting a transport do some additional mortal wounds after fighting in the Fight phase (one for each roll of a 5+, with a dice for each model embarked in said transport at the time – and +1 if the roll is for a WRACK model). You aren’t super likely to be bussing around 10 Wracks in a Raider to take advantage of this, but you’re likely to have Raiders full of something on the table and now they can rove around bullying and finishing off damaged units, with the option of comboing this with Tank Shock to get the job done. I know an occasionally used clutch play when I see one, and this is it!

Skyborne Annihilation gives a disembarking unit [SUSTAINED HITS 1] in shooting, and [SUSTAINED HITS 2] if that unit is Kabalites. This combos with the new detachment rule for shooting to give you the option of dropping from your boat to really put the hurt on at a key moment. Will you roll a 6 on your Dark Lances and Blasters very often? Absolutely not. But my word when you do it’s gonna be funny, and with Pain token rerolls it’s more plausible than you might think…

Wraithlike Retreat gets my vote for the coolest piece of nonsense in this new detachment, and people will have things to say about it very quickly, for good and for ill. At the end of the Fight phase, a Drukhari infantry unit that has fought can make a Normal move or Fall Back move. It can, and indeed must, end the move embarked in a Drukhari transport UNLESS it is a Wyches unit, in which case it can go wherever it damn well pleases. Wyches gain an absolute ton of mission play potential with this Stratagem, while anything you want jumping out of a transport now has a much better chance of surviving for a second go at it – a rarity for Drukhari units who usually get to hit the table for the exact length of time it takes between your Movement phase and your opponent’s next Shooting phase.

Next up, Swooping Mockery. This is your now well known ‘move 6” when an enemy ends a move within 9” of you’ stratagem, but locked specifically to Drukhari transports. Extremely useful for throwing the enemy off in key moments and repositioning your boats for the counterassault.

Finally, Night Shield. When a Drukhari Vehicle is targeted by a shooting attack, it can gain a 4+ invulnerable save for the remainder of the phase. This is going to catch a lot of people out, and it can ensure that a Raider, Venom, or Ravager survives just that little bit longer in a key moment in the game. This is probably the Stratagem most in need of a word of caution – it’s a powerful effect but this detachment hungers for CP; if you’re thinking of slamming the Night Shield button, take a moment to stop and think about whether it’s likely to make a material difference to something that matters surviving. If your opponent has a single lascannon lined up on a transport that must survive, great, this increases your survivability significantly – if they’ve got ten of the things you’re likely to run out of coin flips before they run out of guns.

Army Lists

++ Liam's Skysplinter Assault List - Click to Expand ++

Liam: My list aims to bring back all the old melee punch of the previous edition, with a pair of Wych units and a block of 10 Incubi and accompaying Archon (a thing now allowed by the slate changes, praise Khaine) coming out of Raiders to give a good kicking to, well, pretty much anything they want to thanks to Pounce on the Prey. The goal here is to be able to apply consistent waves of pressure, and keep your opponent on guard as your faster, more maneouvreable, and now very destructive melee units threaten large areas of the board.  My current thinking is that the most valuable unit is the Incubi, and therefore the Nightmare Shroud goes on them to protect them from Overwatch, while the regular Succubus and her unit are likely to be the first ones pushed out of the boat to take advantage of their newfound speed (enhanced by Wraithlike Retreat) to flip objectives and therefore they are the most likely to be able to bank some early Pain tokens to deploy in later turns. The supporting cast consists of the units you’d expect – Cronos to help keep those Pain tokens flowing, and the mix of half-squads of Kabalites, Reaver, Jetbikes and Mandrakes to blip about the table for mission play.

An alternate spin on this list might add a second squad of Incubi and another Archon for maximum destruction (probably being forced to drop either some Mandrakes or the Reavers to fit it in), and/or swap out some of the Kabalites and their Venoms for Scourges and/or Talos – but the Kabalites feel like they get the most out of what there is to offer here, since they interact with the transports so well.

Final Thoughts

If you’re a Drukhari player, you should be excited by this new detachment. Compared to Realspace Raiders, everything here is an enormous quality of life improvement; every single Stratagem and enhancement here feels thematic as hell, almost all of it has a place in any game you might choose to play, and it just works on more or less anything in your army. There’s some obvious limitations, and a focus on infantry and transports and the interactions between them, but a) that is most of your unit choices and b) even the stuff that isn’t that gets a straightforward buff from the Power from Pain AP effect, and there’s still plenty of room in your army for the MOUNTED and MONSTER units to play supporting roles. It’s night and day compared to the strict divisions between Kabal, Wych Cult, and Covens in the Realspace Raiders detachment (with the nice boost to Wyches via Wraithlike Retreat retaining some of that ‘faction within a faction’ flavour without just exempting 90% of the datasheets from utilising parts of the Stratagem set).

One thing you will need to keep an eye on is that Drukhari don’t have additional ways to boost CP generation, so saving up and utilising these carefully is going to be crucial to victory. I think in general Kabal, Wych Cult, and Incubi and the nasty folk that lead them benefit the most from the tools on offer here, and in the detachment more broadly. The Archon being able to lead Incubi really opens up the offensive possibilities when combined with these stratagems and enhancements. 

There’s lots to be excited about, and our Drukhari players are champing at the bit to get raiding forces back out of the webway and onto their nearest gaming table.