Detachment Focus: Coterie of the Conceited

Codex Emperor’s Children gives the devotees of Slaanesh an excessive six Detachments to choose from. In today’s articles, we take a look at each of them to see which will allow you to live the most deliciously.

The Coterie of the Conceited is all about calling your shots, pointing at various threats and letting everyone know you’re going to be taking them down in the next turn. The good news is that Slaanesh is a big fan of that kind of thing, and will absolutely reward you if you can follow through on your kill promises. If you’re up for that kind of planning and don’t mind putting in the work to make it happen, then you can reap some big rewards.

Detachment Overview

This Detachment is all about making pledges to the Dark Prince. Each round your Warlord is on the table you’ll call out a number of units that you’ll be destroying over the next round and if you can hit that quota, you’ll increment your Pact points and gain powerful army-wide bonuses. Fail, and your Warlord takes mortal wounds. The bonuses here are pretty great, and destroying units is already what you want to do, but getting to that coveted 7+ spot is going to be very difficult, and it’s going to feel like some of this Detachment’s rules are a bit too “win more.”

The Video Version

If you’d rather watch than read about this Detachment, we’ve got you covered with the video version, here:

Detachment Rule – Pledges to the Dark Prince

At the start of the battle round, if your Warlord is on the table, you must pledge a number to Slaanesh. This is basically calling how many enemy units you’re going to destroy during the battle round. At the end of the round, if you meet or beat that number. You gain that many Pact Points. Fall short, and your Warlord takes D3 mortal wounds.

Your army gains a bonus depending on how many Pact Points you’ve gained so far, as follows:

• 1+ Points: Your units re-roll hit rolls of 1.
• 3+ Points: Your units re-roll wound rolls of 1.
• 5+ Points: Your units’ melee weapons gain [LETHAL HITS] and [SUSTAINED HITS 1]
• 7+ Points: Each time your units make an attack, you score a Critical Hit on a 5+. 

These are some very good army-wide buffs but we’ve got to start with the elephant in the room: Calling the number of units you plan to kill is easier said than done, and gives your opponent a lot of control over your ability to proc your bonuses. It’s also worth noting that the “Warlord on the table” Requirement can really cause problems for you, as it both means that your Warlord can’t hang out in a transport and if they die you just lose the ability to make new Pledges. The other thing is that this is a slow ability – In a best case scenario your best chance of hitting 7+ points is likely to be the end of round 3, meaning you’ll be waiting until turn 4 to get your full power – and by that point you may have already won anyways.

Enhancements

The options here are fine. Pledge of Unholy Fortitude is the best, though without a Devastating Wounds target to put it on it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity.

• Pledge of Eternal Servitude: The first time the bearer dies, make a Leadership test for them at the end of the phase and if they pass, you can set them back up on the table with D6 wounds remaining. This is particularly great on a Winged Daemon Prince, where those wounds go a lot further. Your odds of getting back up here are about 72%.

• Pledge of Dark Glory: While the bearer is leading a unit they get +1 Leadership and +1 OC. This is OK but it’s a third pickup at best.

• Pledge of Mortal Pain: At the start of your Shooting phase, pick a visible enemy unit within 12” of the bearer. They have to take a Leadership test, taking -2 if they’re Battle-shocked. If they fail they take 3 mortal wounds. This is OK but you don’t really have enough Leadership modifying effects to make it reliable. Normally I’d suggest that you combo this with Noise Marines, but this effect happens at the start of your Shooting phase and their -1 Leadership debuff only lasts until the start of your next Shooting phase, so it goes on after the effect fires off and falls off before you get it. Lame!

• Pledge of Unholy Fortune: Once per turn, after making a Hit, Wound, or or Save roll for a model in the bearer’s unit, if the bearer isn’t Battle-shocked, you can use this Enhancement to change that roll to an unmodified 6. This effect is always great but where you really want it is on a model with Devastating Wounds. Your only real option in that regard is a Sorcerer, though I’d suggest that Daemon Princes and Lords Exultant are better options. The former because he’s a bruiser and the latter because he can lend the ability to a meltagun in a unit of Tormentors he’s leading – you can use the 6 to hit, which will mean automatically wounding with his LETHAL HITS ability.

Stratagems

All six of the Stratagems on offer here will cost you 1 CP, meaning they’re priced to move, and there are some really solid entries, barring Armour of Abhorrence, which is a casualty of the December dataslate change to AP modifying Stratagems.

• Protection of the Dark Prince (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Used in any phase, after a mortal wound or attack is allocated to one of your units. Until the end of the phase, models in your unit get a 6+ Feel No Pain and a 4+ Feel No Pain against mortal wounds. This is a solid ability, and having the standard 6+ means it’s more than just a very situational play against Thousand Sons and Grey Knights.
• Unshakeable Opponents (Epic Deed, 1CP): Used in your Command phase on one of your units. Until the end of your turn, each time a model in that unit makes an attack, they can ignore any/all modifiers to their BS, WS, hit, and wound rolls. This really needed to include damage modifiers to be the kind of fire pick we’d want to see, but as-is it’s fine for going into heftier units like Deathshroud, who will give you -1 to your WS and -1 to wound.
• Embrace the Pain (Strategic Ploy, 1 CP): Used at the start of the Fight phase on an Infantry unit. Until the end of the phase, each time an enemy model within Engagement range of your unit picks targets, it has to select your unit as the target. This is a weird one because you don’t have Cultists to throw this at and you can’t use it on Chaos Spawn, so the use-case becomes using Infractors to pull attacks away from a bigger threat like Flawless Blades, Fulgrim, or a Daemon Prince. Still useful, but it’s a bit of a nonbo with the army’s Thrill Seekers ability, which stops you from charging the same target with multiple units if you’ve Advanced or Fallen back.
• Martial Perfection (Battle Tactic, 1 CP): Used in the Fight phase. One of your units can re-roll hit rolls. This is amazing, and it’s wild that you can just get full re-rolls to hit for 1 CP… until you remember that 1 glory point will get you re-rolling 1s, and that’s just as good on your characters and Flawless Blades. This will do its best work with 5+ pact points active, as that’ll be when you’re able to effectively fish for Lethal and Sustained Hits.
• Unbound Arrogance (Epic Deed, 1 CP): Once per battle round in your Shooting or the Fight phase, if you kill an enemy unit you can increase your pledge to Slaanesh by one. This is fantastic for addressing one of the major weaknesses of this Detachment, especially if your Warlord is dead. You should be trying to windmill slam this every round – it won’t get you more points necessarily, but it does give you coverage if you undershoot or lowball your number, so you can use it to push to a higher pledge right as you kill one extra unit you weren’t expecting.
• Armour of Abhorrence (Wargear, 1 CP): Your standard Armour of Contempt-esque Stratagem to worsen incoming AP by 1. Note that the balance dataslate will retroactively apply to this so it’s just for the attack sequence. That said, this is still a valuable Stratagem to have in your back pocket.

Playing This Detachment

One of the big things to consider with this Detachment is that you need your Warlord on the table to get the most out of it. For that reason, this Detachment more than any other pushes you to not take Fulgrim, as you’ll ideally want a Warlord option who can be more easily hidden. In that sense, you also can’t use the faction ability if he’s in a Transport, making the ideal choice here something like a Daemon Prince or Lucius, where the ability to get Lone Operative to protect them can be really valuable. Lucius in particular works well for this as in addition to having Lone Operative when he’s by himself, he also has a 5+ Feel No Pain to shrug off failed Pledges. If you’re taking a Daemon Prince then consider Pledge of Eternal Servitude as a way to keep them on the table for an additional round. And remember that even if your Warlord has died, you can still use Unbound Arrogance to up your Pledge to 1 when you kill an enemy unit.

Beyond that, this army wants Noise Marines for their ability to throw out ranged damage, and it’s worth noting that Slaanesh doesn’t care even the slightest who’s getting the kills in your army, so having allied War Dogs score your kills is a solid option here. 

Strengths

• Army-wide Offensive buffs. There are four different buffs you can get here and they’re all pretty good to have.
• Quick Access to Re-rolls. You can get Re-rolls of 1 to hit and wound pretty quickly here, without too much investment. 
• Solid Stratagems. There are some good Stratagems here – ignoring modifiers, the Feel No Pain, and re-rolling all hit rolls give you some great tools to work with, and the ability to increase your Pledge in a pinch can be a godsend if you need to fast track your Pact Points or have lost your Warlord.

Weaknesses

• Warlord Reliance. Having a Detachment ability that can only be used if your Warlord is on the battlefield is a brutal hoop to jump through, and forces you to not only keep your warlord out of reserves but also out of transports, making them incredibly vulnerable.
• Slow Ability Growth. That Detachment rule is good but very slow. It will never do anything for you on the first battle round, and best-case scenario you’ll likely be looking at the benefit of 7+ points in round 4 at the earliest. By that point you may just already be winning anyways.
• No Movement Buffs. This is the only Detachment in the book to not have any Stratagems or buffs for Movement – what you get here are purely offensive and defensive buffs, plus a utility tool for your Pact Points.

A Sample List

The Coterie needs to protect its warlord and handle multiple threats each round. The good news is that Slaanesh doesn’t really care who’s killing the units for your pledge, so you can absolutely get away with using Brigands to supplement your ranged output.

Coterie Sample List - Click to Expand

I’m going hard on good units here, maxing out Brigands, Maulerfiends, and Winged Daemon Princes. Winged DPs get immediate benefits out of re-rolling 1s to hit, and that starts the train rolling, while the foot Daemon Prince acts as your warlord who’s relatively easy to hide and keep safe with Lone Operative, but who can also stand back up in a dire situation.

Final Thoughts

The Coterie of the Conceited offers one of the most unique Detachments in the game, and its unpredictable nature makes it harder to evaluate than the other options on here. In our planning discussions around the review, several of the veteran players really liked what was going on here and wanted to test it out and I think that’s really indicative of what this Detachment does – if you’re an experienced player who is good at evaluating risk and planning ahead, this Detachment could be crazy good for you. For the rest of us, it may just be OK.

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