Lelith Hesperax

[Dragoons]

Hey i'm very new to 40k and got the Dark Eldar for my first army. I was wondering what everyone thinks about Lelith Hesperax. Is she a worthy HQ or not? I was thinking about using her attached to a squad of Wyches

[PyroSikTh]

She's great against Hordes, but at S3 and without a power weapon she ain't too hot against anything else.

[Omega1907]

I thought all attacks by Lelith are considered as power weapon attacks But I don't have my codex at hand to prove it ...

But S3 is something you should always keep in mind. She won't kill something that's thougher than a space marine easyly.

[Dragoons]

According to the Codex she has The Penitrating Blade which lets her ignore armor saves, so basically a power weapon, right?

[Durandal]

According to the Codex she has The Penitrating Blade which lets her ignore armor saves, so basically a power weapon, right?

Yes.
However, she suffers from Howling Banshee syndrome, where on their own, you just are not causing enough wounds even without armor saves, and the game is absolutely flooded with t4 3+, in design and meta, but…five t3 3+ units total? She works better once you've got 2 pain tokens on her, but that still only lasts one round and you need to be charging.

[PyroSikTh]

I never use her so I will gladly be proved wrong on that point.

But she's still S3 which, power weapon or not, sucks arse.

[Morollan]

Personally I think she is worth taking if you have a list that supports assault units. At an average of 10 attacks, hitting on 3's, wounding on 5's she still kills a couple of MEQ each turn before they can strike back plus she removes 1 attack from every model in base contact. IF (big IF) you can manage to get 2 pain tokens on her unit for Furious Charge she becomes that much deadlier. If playing against MSU armies she can be quite deadly but she still has the fragility of most DE characters (T3), even with a 3++ save in close combat.

[Yukki]

The thing is for her points you get a whole unit with transport, that does more in most cases.

[Dragoons]

So i have her and Haemonculus. Which one should i use? Sounds like i should drop her and go with Haemy.

[edmundblack]

If you like her, use her. She's got a very nice miniature, so why not? Haemis however are dirt cheap, so you can easily take both (and then another two more Haemis). Wyches generally work by throwing out so many attacks that armour saves fail eventually, Lelith is no exception ... apart from when she rolls high.

[Sinister]

I find her effectiveness goes WAY up with a unit of wyches with shardnets/impalersx2 or bloodbrides with shardnet/impalerx3. With the bloodbrides, you have FOUR models that are taking away 1 attack per unit in b2b, if they are in the front (which they should be) you will likely be taking 8-10 less attacks. Lelith has the potential to tarpit alot of nasty IC's since :
A: Non dedicated assault units with WS4 will be hitting on 5's, All IC's will be hitting with 4's (and most likely losing 3 attacks) most people will only have 2 attacks left maybe 3.
B: wounding sucks lets not talk about that disaster ;d
C: 3++ pretty awesome, if they aren't threatening ID you can tango with that guy all day allowing you to break the T4 barrier.

She's awesome, she definately needs some babysitting to get those pain tokens flowing. Maybe try her out of a wwp?

I don't take her because my friends aren't big fans of taking sc's they think they are cheesy, but ontop of that she is pretty damn expensive. But she is my favorite model ;d (the old lelith not the new lelith)

[Dragoons]

Ok, thanks for all the infomation. One more question: Should i get a Talos Pain Engine? I was reading up on them and they look like they could help me alot. What do you guys think? So far all i have is: 10 Kabalite Warriors, 10 Wyches, 5 Wracks, 3 Reavers, 2 Raiders, Lelith, and Haemy

[PyroSikTh]

I'd say Ravagers next. I like my Talos a lot, but more for it's fluff and flavour than because it's any good. It's a T7 Monstrous Creature which can put out a lot of attacks, which is great, but in an army that relies on speed to get things done, it often gets left behind and arrives to the fight late.

[Sinister]

Most people say only use talos if your going for a webway portal army, otherwise they get stuck to far behind your fast raiders!

[PyroSikTh]

While they do get left behind, I have had some good success with one in a non-portal army, because all the Raiders and Venoms end up providing cover for it.

[Dark3ldar]

If I use Lelith, which to be honest most small (1000) games include her, I will have her in a Raider with 4 Grotesques they tend to destroy anything and are quite hard to kill.