Lelith Hesperax: Sweet Mercy!

[MaltonNecromancer]

I just played a rather mad game of 40K. Dark Eldar won; however, what made it remarkable was how Lelith Hesperax won it for them almost single-handedly. Over a three turn tarpit of an assault, she took out four Grey Knight Terminators, seven Grey Knight Purifiers, a Brotherhood Champion, a Squad of Sanguinary Guard, and Commander Dante. It literally took a Nemesis Dreadknight with sword to get her in the end. I kid you not, it was brutal, and no player was rolling particularly badly.

I don't care what anyone says about her, strength 3 or not, she is a frakking beast in assault and I now know a Grey Knight player and Blood Angel player who agree with me.

[eldargal]

Yup, every time I've seen her and the once I've taken her in an Apocalypse game she outperformed all expectations.

[LordGrise]

I have a buddy who fields her sometimes - I play Tau. She recieves full faith and credence of anything and everything I can bring to bear until she goes down - area effect stuff first to get around the rest of her unit. IMHO, Lilith is a true 'Arclight special' - she goes down quickly or you lose, I don't care what you're playing.

[Uncle Nutsy]

hmm, sounds like I should give her a try in the next game of Hero Hammer. What's hero hammer, you say? I'll tell you later, once the group has all the rules fleshed out (and WRITTEN DOWN!).

I wonder how brutal and broken it would be when Lelith and Drazhar are working together.

[Emerald Rose Widow]

Just read the stats on her and all the rules for Lileth, and holy frelling hell is she insane.

[Mystery.Shadow]

She makes Hive Tyrants cry....

It's been a sad year to be a Tyranid.

[Wolf Brother Hellstrom]

i have the model but never fielded her. i shall give her a shot next time

[Wolfshade]

She makes Hive Tyrants cry....

It's been a sad year to be a Tyranid.

But wouldn't she need 6s to wound? and that's assuming that she isn't suffereing Paroxysm. Or am I missing something

[AbusePuppy]

Lelith's main weakness is her Strength of 3, which is a rather low number for an assault specialist; unless she is facing other Space Elfs or has gotten Furious Charge, she will have some trouble wounding most enemy models. However, he generally-absurd number of attacks and the fact that she pretty much always hits on 3s let her do pretty decent damage, and her 3++ along with being hit on 5s by virtually everything make her pretty reasonable defensively. She isn't amazing for her points, but she's better than many people give her credit for.

Other than S3, her other notable issue is that she doesn't do anything but punch enemies to death; most all of the other DE HQs can bring some kind of utility to the field, or at the very least have some useful tricks up their sleeve. Lelith is a combat machine, nothing more, and for that she suffers a bit, just like any such HQ unit. For her price you could instead buy yourself about seven Incubi, who will deal out far more damage and be similar or better survivability. In 5th Edition, HQs that just kill stuff generally aren't worth their price, at least from a competitive standpoint.

[MaltonNecromancer]

Her strength is mitigated when she gets Furious Charge.


For her price you could instead buy yourself about seven Incubi, who will deal out far more damage and be similar or better survivability

Believe me when I say that she's way better than seven Incubi.

They have no invulnerable 3++. She does. She strikes at I9. Other than Greater Daemons and a few Psykers, that's pretty much first. If she's got the Furious Charge, she's wounding on 4+ a lot of the time. Seriously, if she charges a Special Character, she's a tarpit, but if she charges any infantry squad, she's a one-woman massacre. I was totally expecting the Sanguinary Guard to destroy her, but she killed them all without blinking. Horrifying stuff.

As far as I can see, her real weakness is that she takes up an HQ slot without providing any whole-army benefit. Other than that, I genuinely do not believe there is a better point-for-point assault specialist in game. Yeah, there are things that'll beat her, that's not what I'm saying. What I mean is that nothing kills standard infantry harder, faster, or more reliably in assault than she does.

[Caldera02]

How did she not get force weaponed through all that?

[DarkLink]

Why would you expect Sanguary Guard to kill her? She is at her best killing low model count high armor save units, like Sanguary Guard. They're about the worst thing to try and kill her, other than a unit of Guardsman.


And she avoided getting force weaponed through a bit of luck. Going off her averages , she would need 27 attacks to kill 4 GKT (+5 attacks, 3s to hit, 5s to wound and a 5+ invulnerable save), 31.5 attacks to kill 7 Purifiers (+5 attacks, 3s to hit and 5s to wound), 22.5 to kill the Sanguary Guard, 9 to kill the Brotherhood Champion and 27 to kill Dante. That's 117 attacks total. Assuming about 9 attacks per round of combat, that's 13 rounds of combat.

So, 50% of the time it would take Lelith 13 rounds of combat to kill what she did in that game.

Since even Lelith doesn't generate that many attacks, we can tell roughly how lucky she was, though we won't get exact numbers. Over 3 rounds of combat, two in base with WS4 models and one in base with a WS 7 model (brotherhood champion), and assuming she got the charge, she'll generate 26 attacks total. According to the OP, she managed to hit, wound, and get past any invulnerable saves with ~20 of them. And, of course, I'm completely ignoring the attacks back at her, as she would likely have to make quite a few saves along the way, or at least hope a lot of enemies failed to hit or wound.

Yeah. She got lucky. Really lucky. She may or may not be good on average, but this is absolutely far above average performance for her.

[Necron2.0]

I've taken her about three times, always in a Raider and always leading 9 Wyches with an Agonizer/Blast Pistol armed Hekatrix at her side. In one battle her group slaughtered everything her group came into contact with. In another battle she was the sole survivor to reach her appointed target, and she died, although she tore the unit up, leaving only the special character alive. In the last battle I used her in, she and her entire unit were slaughtered by template weapons without so much as leaving a scratch on the enemy.

Lelith will be absolutely lethal if you can get her into close combat ... IF. She's completely vulnerable otherwise. Since I first started using her, my opponents always position themselves so that the round after she destroys a unit, she and her wyches are destroyed either by massed direct fire or else by template weapons.

[Necron_Lord]

I would think that her biggest weakness would be being in the open to get shot at after wiping out a unit, especially if she was accompanied by Wyches. Autocannon and Krak Missiles would both negate FNP leaving her with only a 4++ save. If she failed just one in that case she would suffer instant death.

@Necron2.0 How can Lelith be with 10 Wyches in a Raider when its Transport Capacity is 10? I guess you mean 9 others with Lelith making 10.

[Caldera02]

Why would you expect Sanguary Guard to kill her? She is at her best killing low model count high armor save units, like Sanguary Guard. They're about the worst thing to try and kill her, other than a unit of Guardsman.


And she avoided getting force weaponed through a bit of luck. Going off her averages , she would need 27 attacks to kill 4 GKT (+5 attacks, 3s to hit, 5s to wound and a 5+ invulnerable save), 31.5 attacks to kill 7 Purifiers (+5 attacks, 3s to hit and 5s to wound), 22.5 to kill the Sanguary Guard, 9 to kill the Brotherhood Champion and 27 to kill Dante. That's 117 attacks total. Assuming about 9 attacks per round of combat, that's 13 rounds of combat.

So, 50% of the time it would take Lelith 13 rounds of combat to kill what she did in that game.

Since even Lelith doesn't generate that many attacks, we can tell roughly how lucky she was, though we won't get exact numbers. Over 3 rounds of combat, two in base with WS4 models and one in base with a WS 7 model (brotherhood champion), and assuming she got the charge, she'll generate 26 attacks total. According to the OP, she managed to hit, wound, and get past any invulnerable saves with ~20 of them. And, of course, I'm completely ignoring the attacks back at her, as she would likely have to make quite a few saves along the way, or at least hope a lot of enemies failed to hit or wound.

Yeah. She got lucky. Really lucky. She may or may not be good on average, but this is absolutely far above average performance for her.

Thank you Darklink, you have proved my point flawlessly. I love how someone can take this absurd example and say, oh this special character is just fine! lol

[DarkLink]

Yeah, I don't want to say that she's bad, but she was definitely lucky in that particular fight and compared to some of the other HQs she just doesn't bring all that much to the army aside from making one unit of wyches nastier. I'm not a DE expert, but in a competitive list I'd probably go for one of the other HQs.

[wittdooley]

Um... We are forgetting that she's absolutely one of the best looking models in all of GWs lines. That has to count for something, right?

[Caldera02]

Um... We are forgetting that she's absolutely one of the best looking models in all of GWs lines. That has to count for something, right?

Oh by far! I'm guilty of using her as a succubus or archon in every list I play. I don't think I've played a game with my DE where her model wasn't used in it. Her actual rules are very lacking though. Combat drugs would make her worth her points. And if anyone says she would then be broken needs a knock on the head. There are far worse characters in the game, combat drugs would just make her even with them! Now if she was also was given Eternal warrior, that would be broken. So yea, give her Eternal warrior or combat drugs and she would be fantastic.

[Necron2.0]

@Necron2.0 How can Lelith be with 10 Wyches in a Raider when its Transport Capacity is 10? I guess you mean 9 others with Lelith making 10.

Umm ... right. Yep, that's what I said, all along and right from the beginning, with no modifications or editing involved. Nope, no siree bob.
<* looks around shiftily to see who's paying attention *>

[daboarder]

just chiming in on the tyrant question. She should never be in a position to even have a shot at killing a tyrant because odds are the tyrant will pulp her, he ID her and her high I and number of attacks don't matter because of lash whips and T6. she murders pretty much everything else in the nid codex though.

[Xas]

just chiming in on the tyrant question. She should never be in a position to even have a shot at killing a tyrant because odds are the tyrant will pulp her, he ID her and her high I and number of attacks don't matter because of lash whips and T6. she murders pretty much everything else in the nid codex though.

everything else?

I'd say the nids have the least to fear from Lilith...
warrior genus boast a high number of wounds & attacks. gaunt genus is cheap as hell (how many gaunts for lelith? 40? xD) and the monsters both ID her, dont care much for -1A and are only wounded on 6s.


not saying Lith is bad... just not THAT good vs nids

[Uncle Nutsy]

man, every time I read her stats I end up thinking she does this ingame...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET6D2a_tJdM

[Drunkencorgimaster]

I have not been this drunk since, like, April. So I have pretty much no idea what any of you people are talking about.

[eldargal]

Her rules are not lackingt, on paper she is superb against T3 armies, of which there are many, and decent against T4. In reality she performs exceptionally well, she is durable and killy, she reduced incoming attacks, she has a 66% chance of ignoring melee attacks, assuming they hit her, a 50% chance of ignoring shooting attacks and if you get her furious charge she eats through T4 as well. Put her in with some Wyches, or even Incubi, and you will eat through whatever you throw them at so long as you get them into combat safely.

You can't join seven Incubi to a squad of bloodbrides, wyches or Incubi. You can join Lelith to them, however. This is one of the key things people seem to overlook.

I don't need to compensate for my own lack of skill by taking Duke, Baron or Malys so I would rather take someone I can rely to kill things while stopping killy things from killing large swathes of my army. Someone who won't fail their shadowfield save to a being pistol whipped by a guardsman and then get clubbed to death by them.


Oh by far! I'm guilty of using her as a succubus or archon in every list I play. I don't think I've played a game with my DE where her model wasn't used in it. Her actual rules are very lacking though. Combat drugs would make her worth her points. And if anyone says she would then be broken needs a knock on the head. There are far worse characters in the game, combat drugs would just make her even with them! Now if she was also was given Eternal warrior, that would be broken. So yea, give her Eternal warrior or combat drugs and she would be fantastic.

[AbusePuppy]

Very few T3 armies are actually combat-oriented, and against non-melee armies Lelith ends up being sort of overkill (in the same way that Tau don't care whether you're Terminators or Tacticals, as both will massacre them in CC.) Furious charge helps, but if you roll poorly on the initial charge, get stuck in an ongoing combat due to countercharges, don't have those two Pain Tokens yet, are facing T5/6 models, etc, her performance drops a lot.

As I said before, she's hardly bad, but just being a punching machine is pretty limiting. I'd like her a lot more if she ha Combat Drugs, since that gives her a good chance of getting +1Str, reroll wounds, or a pain token to build towards getting her wound rate up. She's still way better than her previous codex version and I like her fluff, model, and the way her rules work, she's just a little bit underwhelming in the end.

Also, hidden Fists have a not-unreasonable chance of IDing her, as do Relic Blades, Frost Blades, etc. Chances aren't great, since Fists will mostly all hit her on 5s, but they're something to watch out for, and if the enemy can get a Force Weapon to land on her...

[eldargal]

True, but if you do get stuck in combat with T5/6 models she has a better chance of surviving than any other character in the DE book, as she reduces their attacks and has a 3++ save that she can't lose to an unlucky roll.

As I said, it comes down to personal taste and playstyle. I never take SCs in regular games at all, but I do get very annoyed with people who say Lelith isn't worth her points. She may not mesh with how you play the game, but that isn't the same thing. I find Hellions next to useless compared to Reavers but you don't see me saying they aren't worth it, and a lot of people swear by them.

[nijoho]

i've had some some similar experiences having kharn the betrayer, in 3 rounda of serious apocalypse gaming he killed 1250 points, so just over 400 points a round, that pretty insane :)

just for the guys who want to know what he killed:
-cato sicarius
- 1 tactical marine with flamer
- leman russ battle tank
- a deamon prince (it was a mixxed apocalypse battle so there was chaos vs chaos)
- and a stormlord, which went nuclear and killed all 40 IG veterans inside and my own deamon prince( he was not added to the 1250 points ;) )

and he didn't take a wound in that whole game( he was hit by a demolisher canon a hellhammer cannon and a nuclear explosion :D )

so i guess he made khorne very happ ythat day :D

[doom-kitten]

Not a big fan of Lelith myself but I can see how she can be useful against low T and WS opponents, just started playing DE myself. Ended up hooked after buying a unit of Wyches to convert into Death Cult assassins, she's done well as a member of that unitr :D.