I recently put together a Wych Cult deck and I’ve been having quite a bit of fun with it. Wych Cult plays a little differently than other races, although many aspects of its gameplay feel familiar. First, let’s take a look at the Wych Cult fleet card:
This fleet card ability is a little trippy but it opens up some very interesting possibilities:
- Bait your opponent into over-committing at a sector
- Deny keyword abilities to your opponent, or enable your own (e.g., swapping out sectors that disallow rallying)
- Swap sectors with different flag requirements, denying your opponent sectors or allowing you to take one
In conjunction with this fleet ability, Dark Eldar have a wide range of ways to move between sectors, bringing its inter-sector movement abilities on par with with their Craftworld brethren.
But what makes Wych Cult really unique?
Fighting! As to be expected for Commoragh’s gladiators, the majority of your damage will be done by assault units. Every Wych unit is more than capable of doing serious damage in assault.
For example, Dhakara pulls double duty as a decent assault unit that can also shoot opposing assault units or force them to trade when assaulting you. The die roll and command line are quite serviceable as well.
However, many of your assault units are rather frail with 2 meager armor. How do you get around this?
Blocking. Lots and lots of blocking.
Warp Beasts are valuable allies to Wych Cult, offering options for both assault units and blockers. Flesh Reapers, however, are premium blockers with a hefty speed value of 4 which virtually guarantees counterattacking firepower.
Raider units such as The Broken Will will (ha ha) also play a critical role in blocking for your Wyches, as well as enabling multi-unit charges. Charging multiple units is key to gaining tempo against armies that favour more shooting, and Wyches have additional ways to do so:
For example, Nylreth is a common character that acts as a Troop Capacity unit, but perhaps more importantly, enables counterattack for virtually all your units. Counterattack is a vital keyword to dissuade opposing units from shooting your entire battle force off the table.
However, when all else fails, you can rely on Mon-Keigh meat shields to protect your Wyches. Like Gretchin units, Sacrificial Slaves doesn’t look very impressive on paper, but has the ability to save any of your Wych units. The die roll and command line are excellent supporting factors as well.
Malogrim Hive brought some excellent supporting Wyches such as Jamila, which can piggyback an additional charging unit into a BA. This synergizes very well with Troop Capacity units, as well as these Warp doggos:
And on the less Wych-y side of Dark Eldar, you still have access to valuable supporting units such as Sect of Tainted Blood and Kainaq – Warrior Squad:
I wanted to talk about even more Dark Eldar units but I think I’ve posted enough card images for one article. Next time, I’ll post my current deck list and talk about some more key players in Wych Cult.
