Today I want to talk about Incubi! I just participated in The Portal 40k Spring GT and managed to go 4-1 with my Drukhari (the secret is to get super lucky and not pair up against Harlies, Tau or Custodes)!
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I finally got my Incubi painted and was able to take them for a spin and I loved it! I’m definitely late to the game here, but I felt compelled to do a small write up to highlight how deadly they are before we start the inevitable dive into Aeldari, Harlequins and Tyranids units.
Guest Writer: Dan Meyer
While playing test games is the best way to understand your options, it’s hard to get in enough games to understand all the variables at play and arrive at a reasonable set of expectations. Have no fear though! I am here to help by giving you an in depth look at what you should really expect out of a unit or piece of wargear.
My Shtick
I will look at a unit and their wargear options and help you understand what is the best choice for a given situation or at least help you figure out what you can truly expect from your units. I achieve this by simulating 1,000,000 iterations of that unit attacking a set of common targets that are representative of things you will see in the meta and get a true sample population so we can not only understand the mean of the expected outcome, but also how the variance shapes the outcome distribution. This will give you a much better appreciation for the variability in your game. If you have any questions on my process, ask away!
How effective are Incubi?
Incubi have been a key part of Drukhari lists for some time now, but it’s nice to see some numbers to see what they are capable of typically. For simplicity, we will consider a single weapon profile that is consistent across all members of the unit: the Klaive.
| 5x Incubi | |||||
| Weapon | Attacks | Strength | AP | Damage | Abilities |
| Klaive | 16 | 5 | 3 | 2 | – |
The klaive is a great weapon, giving Incubi +2 to strength and a solid AP3 with 2 damage. The other thing to recall is that Incubi have Blade Artists, which means a 6 to wound grants an additional AP. But wait there’s more! That same 6 to wound also increases the damage profile to 3 damage thank to the Klaivex ability: Lethal Precision! This great weapon stacked with a fantastic WS2 means that Incubi can deal serious damage. On top of all of this, Incubi have access to reroll hits of 1 from Archons and +1 to wound from the infamous Drazhar!
For these quick analyses, we will consider a five man squad. Here we will consider three conditions for the unit:
- Baseline
- Reroll 1’s to hit from Archon aura
- +1 wound from Drazhar aura plus Archon Reroll
We will examine this into Marines, a Redemptor Dreadnought, Custodian Guard and Vertus Praetors. I choose the dreadnought because in a game against pure Knights, I had great success butchering Armigers and wanted to see how they fared against a slightly hardier version of it.
Let the Simulation Begin…
First, let’s take a look at the baseline squad output with no inherent external buffs. Recall that Blade Artists and Lethal Precision is included in all results.
Figure 1: 5x Incubi with Klaives vs. Variety of Units
A base unit of 5 Incubi does amazing work against Marines, quickly making mincemeat of our power armored friends with good AP and solid 2 damage (no surprise here). Against the Redemptor, the +1 damage from 6s to wound really helps get some more damage through yielding a great average of 6.3 wounds with lots of upside with some decent luck. Up against Custodes, they do ok. On average they are killing roughly two custodian guard while almost killing a full bike from a Vertus Praetor squad.
Next we consider adding the reroll 1’s to hit from the Archon aura.
Figure 2: 5x Incubi with Klaives and Archon Boost vs. Variety of Units
Adding the rerolls to hit helps kill an additional 1.5 marines while solidly pushing you to a Vertus Praetor kill over 50% of the time. I expect Drazhar along with our Archon buff will make us a little bit more excited with his +1 to wound aura…
Figure 3: 5x Incubi with Klaives and Archon + Drazhar Boost vs. Variety of Units
Drazhar’s buff is truly killer and important to utilize when you can appropriately. On average you are wiping out a 10 man marine squad and dropping a Redemptor down to a few wounds (with decent odds to just kill it completely). The Custodes prove a difficult match up. The invulnerable save just makes dealing with them difficult. Almost 50% of the time you are killing 3 or more Custodian Guard while ensuring a bike kill or more 80% of the time.
Well there you have it! Incubi are a fantastic unit (no surprise to most!) and with Drazhar in tow (why wouldn’t you take him…) you will easily dispatch many units out there with only the toughest units in the game posing a true challenge. Thankfully, Incubi are truly quite cheap for what they do albeit very fragile. If you can get them to land it will be a rewarding experience for you, much to your opponents chagrin!
Let me know if you have any questions, comments or concerns with any of the results you have seen here! And of course, I welcome all suggestions for future simulations!
The Emperor Protects,
Dan
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