In this article series we’re taking a look at the leader options available to each faction, looking at what units they pair with, and talking about the combos available to those units as well as tips for running them solo. You can find our Start Competing page for Drukhari here.
Drukhari have one of the thinner ranges in 40k, and that extends to their leaders – essentially a generic and named option for each of the Kabals, Cults, and Covens, if you squint a bit and count Drazhar as a kind of Archon. Let’s take a look at what they each do and how they impact the army.
Changelog
- Published:Â 2025-08-19
It doesn’t really require a graphic to set out what each of them can join. Drazhar can join Incubi, the Succubus and Lelith Hesperax can join Wyches, and Urien Rakarth and Haemonculi can join Wracks. The only one with options is the Archon, who can join Kabalite Warriors, the Court of the Archon, and Incubi.
Note: If you’re wondering where the Beastmaster is, they are characters but not Leaders, so they don’t appear in this article.
Archon
The Archon is the only one of these with real options – he can join either the Court of the Archon or Kabalite Warriors, and gained the ability to join Incubi in a dataslate. The Archon’s melee is okay, and his ranged output at least exists when given a blast pistol though it’s very short-ranged. His two key abilities are to hand out Wound re-rolls of 1 to his unit for any attack, upgraded to full Wound re-rolls when Empowered, and the Devious Mastermind ability which increases CP costs by 1 for any Stratagem used on a unit within 12″. Importantly only the Warlord gets this, so a second Archon gets absolutely nothing from it, which is very weird compared to basically every other datasheet ability in the game. Speaking of weird abilities, the Archon’s invulnerable save is 2+, but only until you fail one – which will always happen at the worst time. You have no other invulnerable save and only 4 Wounds, so once it’s gone the Archon is in trouble.
A common way to use Archons is to give them the Archraider enhancement in the Reaper’s Wager detachment, and use the Scout ability it gives you to zoom some Kabalite Warriors up the table in a Venom for an early objective grab. They fight okay, they shoot okay (and buff the shooting of your other models, as long as they’re on the deck); an Archon is a reasonable pick for most lists.
Drazhar
Drazhar is the champion of the Incubi order, and unsurprisingly that means he can only join units of Incubi. He comes with the best armour save in the faction (2+) and a respectable 4+ invulnerable save as well, which is tough for an elf. You don’t really want him taking hits, however – you’d much rather he was dishing them out. His weapon profiles are respectable – either 5 attacks at S6 AP-2 D3 with DEVASTATING WOUNDS, or 7 at S5 AP-2 D2 with TWIN-LINKED, and he gives his unit +1 to Wound rolls in melee as well so he can punch up nicely. His once per game ability also gives him PRECISION, and allows you to pop d3 Pain tokens for killing an enemy CHARACTER model or a flat 3 if you get the Warlord.
At 85pts, he’s reasonably priced, and allows a unit of Incubi to punch up and overcome their otherwise pretty pedestrian S4. However, he doesn’t do much for you in Skysplinter Assault, and has to compete against the Archon’s ability to dish out re-rolls to Wound in other detachments. His personal melee profile is a lot better than an Archon’s, and his once per game ability can be clutch for assassinating out a key character, so he’s very much worth considering and shows up in lists at a decent rate.
Succubus
Succubi in tenth edition are cheap and cheerful, but unfortunately that’s because they’re not very good. Wyches aren’t a great unit anyway and really need help to punch up, and while she does hand out SUSTAINED HITS 1 to them that’s still only triggering some S3 AP-1 hits which isn’t really that scary. Her personal melee is mediocre, too – 6 attacks, but only S3 AP-2 D1 with ANTI-INFANTRY 3+, which means that a good outcome is her killing two Intercessors. Her other ability to give out Fights First when her unit is Empowered is neat, but Lelith just does that, and that’s really the problem for Succubi – you probably only want one unit of Wyches to begin with, and if you’re bringing one you get way more value out of Lelith even if she’s more than double the cost. Speaking of…
Lelith Hesperax
Now this is a bit more like it. Lelith has a relatively unusual melee profile – 8 Attacks, which are only S3 AP-2 D1 but do come with ANTI-INFANTRY 2+ and SUSTAINED HITS 2. That’s a bit of a false profile because her ability when attached to a unit is to give them +1 Strength, +1 AP, and Fights First as well – so unless she’s on her own her swings are really at AP-3. Once per game, she can also up her attack count to 12 and improve her Invulnerable save to 3+. You will almost certainly be dropping a Pain token on her unit when you do this, so it’s worth fishing for those Sustained Hits to try and get a monstrous turn out of her and remove a key infantry unit. She also makes the Wych melee a bit more respectable too, pushing them to S4 and AP-2, which is still not great but is at least meaningful. If you’re going to run a Wych unit, take Lelith too.
Haemonculus
The Haemonculus datasheet, when you look at it, is pretty decent. He gives his unit a 4+ Feel No Pain, and makes enemy units within 6″ take Battle-shock and Leadership tests at -1, which isn’t thrilling but is fine. His melee is okay, his gun is okay, and he has PRECISION on everything. Unfortunately all he really does is buff a unit of Wracks, and you just don’t care about that at all. They already have a 5+ Feel No Pain, so the 4+ isn’t as big of a jump as it looks, and they have no real melee of their own since they lost all their special weapons in tenth edition. You’re bringing them as your cheapest unit to sit on an objective, and because their shooting is pretty ok if weird, and for the cost you might as well just bring another unit of Wracks – you’ll get more out of it.
Urien Rakarth
On paper, Urien isn’t much different to his generic kin. He does at least have a real invulnerable save (4+) and his own native 4+ Feel No Pain. His Fleshcraft datasheet ability allows him to repair a CRONOS, TALOS, GROTESQUES, or WRACKS unit within 6″ – either restoring 3 Wounds to the big guys, or returning 3 models to the unit for Wracks.
His melee and shooting are only okay, but it’s really his cost-efficiency you’re interested in – for 80pts he has 5 Wounds at T4 with a 4+ Invulnerable and 4+ Feel No Pain, and once per game his Horrific Regeneration ability allows him to stand up again at full wounds when destroyed. He’s basically the toughest thing you can put in a list for the points, and even for indirect he’s annoying to remove because he’s likely to just stand back up again at the end of the phase so you have to put another round of shooting into him to actually kill him, which is more than most people are going to want to invest. He can be used more aggressively too, pushing out with a unit or two of Talos and keeping them ticking.
One personal peeve here – why does the Casket of Flensing still have ONE SHOT? It’s only okay, and just because it was a once per game thing in third edition doesn’t mean it has to be now!
Final Thoughts
Let’s face it – Drukhari don’t have the most exciting offering of leaders. Two of them might as well not exist, so really it’s three named characters and the Archon. It’s a far cry from when Succubi were pumping out infinite attacks or Drazhar was clearing out whole units by himself. That said, there’s still some fun to be had here, and we hope this article helps you think about how to get the best out of the leaders you do have.
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