Mandrakes and Kheradruakh an Elite-ish review

Mandrakes were once the worst unit in the Dark Eldar codex. Then they got their new codex, and the Mandrake unit received a much needed revision in rules and models (as did the whole army I know). How do they fare now? What are they good for? Who is their special HQ character? Let us look and see.

not sure if he would be more useful for the Dark Eldar

 The Mandrakes have a descent exposition to get you interested. Then we look to the stats and abilities and this is where I scratch my head. Why? Well we start with mostly Astartes stats and cost ; WS 4, BS 4, S 4, not bad. We then hit toughness 3, standard for space elves. They have a nice initiative of 5 as well. They come with 2 base attacks, not bad at strength 4. Then there is the leadership of 8, not stellar, but on par with the army. Last is the 5+ invulnerable save, which is all they have. I cringe at this; since we all know I have zero faith in a 5+ save (playing demons taught me this). They fall into the marine point cost as well and can be run in squads of 3-10. So there are their stats, which aren’t awful, but then we look at their rules.

They may spend a few points get a unit upgrade that comes with +1 attack and +1 leadership, the Nightfiend. It is cheap enough that if one is running Mandrakes, they should upgrade for the leadership bump. These are assault guys and every little bit helps if you lose combat.

They have the standard night vision, power from pain and fleet like most of the Dark Eldar. We then pile on; stealth, infiltrate and move through cover. So this adds some tactical uses for them. Right? Last is their Baneblast ability. It is a shooting attack that is 18” range, strength 4, AP 4, Assault 2 with pinning. So, this is not an awful weapon/ability. Wait, the unit needs a pain token to use it. Here lies my problem with the Mandrake.

This unit needs a pain token to shoot and help survive close combat (much like the rest of the army I know). This is not easy to attain as their hand-to-hand attacks don’t ignore armor, and they can’t shoot units prior to assault to soften them. So wiping out a unit is no easy task for them. So, how do Mandrakes get a pain token?

Well a Heamonculus can be added to get the token he grants a unit. This does take away the Mandrake’s infiltrate/ scout and fleet abilities as the Heamonculus does not have these rules (hey, but the Heamonculus gets stealth so that is a bonus). This will hamstring the Mandrakes ability to get into combat faster and easier. I think they need to outflank/infiltrate to be effective. The Heamonculus is an option, but not a super great one.

So without the pain token they will suffer a bit, as will their assaults. The Mandrakes also have no grenades. This will hamper their initiative 5; the chance to strike first is huge for a toughness 3 and 5+ invulnerable save unit. Mandrakes would be idea for hitting backfield sitting heavy weapon teams, long fangs, lootas, war walkers, etc. However, the lack of grenades makes assaults against dug in units a bad choice for Mandrakes as the losses the can take from going at initiative 1 can potentially/ really hamper their assault (maybe the dice are with you and you hit the 5+ saves who knows?)

What is this unit for then? Well it has assault potential, just not against units in cover. It has a descent shooting ability (S 4, AP 4, Assault 2 and pinning), but it is not easy to unlock it.  They can get better with pain tokens, which they will have trouble getting. They have stealth which makes them better in cover verse shooting and sitting there for some reason. They can fleet and infiltrate/ outflank, which can help get them into position faster (unless your outflank roll is for the edge side).  It just looks like Mandrakes do not make much sense; much like they did last codex.

Mandrakes also have the problem of being Elite, which pits them against much better assault units, like Wracks, Grotesques, and Hekatrix Bloodbrides. The question is how or if players will use Mandrakes? I just see better choices in the Elite slot besides them, unfortunately just like the last codex.

There is also a Mandrake HQ choice! I might as well review him since it is Mandrake review day.



Kheradruakh is not this guy



Kheradruakh is the old edition Decapitator. He is a Mandrake with, once again, some descent exposition. He rolls in at 70 x 2 points (listing points is bad! G.W. will get me), which is middle ground for most special characters in the 5^th edition 40K universe. Ok, so let us dive into this guy and see what he is and does.

He has a nice stat line with WS 6, BS 5, S 5, W 3, A 4, I 6 and Ld 9. Then we add the mostly army wide tough 3 and Mandrake 5+ invulnerable. So far he is not awful. He is a HQ so he might be able to join, help or do some cool unlocking ability for Mandrakes right? Wrong. He is a one man unit so he can not join his weird skinned brothers or any other unit. He also brings nothing to the table for Mandrakes either. It would have been nice to give Mandrakes a pain token if Kheradruakh is your HQ or some other silliness, but no.

Well, maybe he has some cool things he can do as a one man gang. He has the Mandrake abilities of; fleet, stealth, power from pain, move through cover, and baneblast. He also has shadestalker, hunter of heads and altered physique. He is also armed with the Decapitator. Wow these sound cool what are they?!

Shadestalker is much like the ability of Marbo and Deathleaper. He comes in from reserve and is placed anywhere on the board (1” away from models). This will definitely get him to the position you want, it is only a matter of when.

Hunter of Heads gives you preferred enemy against one independent character nominated by the Dark Eldar player. This can be good or bad depending on the character and if you want to attack him. Some independent characters are softer than others.

Altered Physique gives Kheradruakh a pain token to start the game. This is truly helpful as he starts with feel no pain and can fire off his baneblast.

Last is the Decapitator. It is power weapon that will cause instant death on a wound roll of 6 regardless of toughness. This means if the goes after a Wraithlord, he will kill it outright if you can roll a 6 to wound. This is not great, but for people that think rending is good, they will go crazy about this. The best part is that this is a strength 5 power weapon. The instant death is just an afterthought.

So his abilities help him a bit that is for sure. The problem lies with his deployment and toughness. Sure he can drop in where you want him, but it falls into the dice as to when your reserves appear. He also cannot do anything but shoot or run after appearing from the shadows (as his ability states). This leaves him open to a round of incoming fire before he can do anything cool. With the weapons most armies can bring to the field, I see Kheradruakh eating a melta gun, plasma gun, auto cannon or missile before he gets to do anything. Sure he has feel no pain, stealth and a 5+ invulnerable save but his toughness is where this fails him. He gets one roll to save vs. double tough and AP 1-2 (which most AP 1-2 will double tough him and wound on 2+) or he is gone. Heck even a descent sized squad of bolters can take this guy down as they will have an easier time wounding him. So he cannot easily weather any kind of ballistic assault and I imagine if he is used he will be shot to ribbons before he can get to his prey.

Then there is the problem of being an assault oriented guy, which he is do not let his shooting attack distract you, with no grenades. Just like his Mandrake brothers, he will waste his initiative on units in cover. I don’t care how cool he looks or his stats a one man toughness 3 unit going into cover and going at initiative 1 is a bad idea. I don’t care what his abilities are.  He is another ideal unit for hitting soft targets like the ones I listed for Mandrakes. He might be a cool headhunter of other one man HQ units like Sanquinor, Mephiston, the Swarmlord, and the like. However, I think he is not tough enough to take them down consistently. A lucky 6 to wound is all it takes, but you need a lucky 6 or Kheradruakh will fall to the other one man HQ units.

He also has the problem of competing with all the other HQ choices. I think most of them are better for an army than him, both in cost and use. So how could we fix Kheradruakh? Well, he could have just been an Elite choice. Why not? He seems to fit there instead of HQ. He could let you open the door to let Mandrakes as troops. Why not? They do not appear that overpowered. If they were open as troops and Kheradruakh was at the helm, it could be fun. They could have pulled the teeth from him a bit and just made him a Mandrake upgrade. Make him their Snikrot, Vulcha, Telion or numerous Imperial Guard leaders. If this was the case, maybe people would use him and Mandrakes more often. Sure they would have to tool him down a bit, but it would have made more sense than having him be a (what appears to me as a sub) HQ choice for the points associated. Hopefully, they get a kick’n model for him. That will at least get people excited and generate some sales.