Destroyer Lord - The MC who's not an MC

Ah, Destroyer Lords. Last edition, the beatstick that you put with Wraiths to give people fits. Nowadays, that's a bit more difficult since he lacks the movespeed, but he's still quite good. He still passes out Preferred Enemy (Everything!) to any unit he joins, which is a huge boon. He's still a great beatstick and puts the hurt on anything that he can get his hands on.

But I've been thinking about another way to use him: as a pseudo Monstrous Creature. More after the break.

What makes a Monstrous Creature so Monstrous?

Well, it's not just the size, that much is for sure. Just because something's big, doesn't mean it's powerful. And vice versa, small characters can often be the scariest. 

No, for most MCs, the thing that makes them so scary is their ability to take punishment and shrug it off, and then kill things with impunity. It's hard to take down a good MC. They couple high toughness with decent saves and often have some way to get wounds back - be it FNP, Regeneration, IWND, or anything else of that nature. It's one of the things that make the Nightbringer so scary - he shrugs off a lot of fire and can get back Wounds he takes with Gaze of Death.

And when one reaches you, you better be careful. Even without scary Assault weapons with ID or anything like that, a MC can generally crush lots of things just by virtue of having high Strength and baseline AP2. Riptides are especially scary - their damage output doesn't come from being in Assault, they do it from a mile away.

The Destroyer Lord MC

Consider this:

Destroyer Lord

Nightmare Shroud, Phase Shifter, Warscythe, Phylactery

205 Points

(You can consider picking up a Res Orb for added durability)

Here's a statline: T6, 3W, 2+/4++, Reanimation Protocols, IWND, S7, AP2, Armorbane. Aside from a lower Wound pool, that's pretty darn reminiscent of good MC's stats. Even with only 3 wounds, he's bloody difficult to kill. Against non AP2 weapons, he ignores 88% of all wounds, 91% in a Decurion or with a Cryptek. Against AP2 weapons, he ignores 66% of all wounds, 75% in a Decurion or with a Cryptek. And the wounds he does take, he has a 1/3 chance to get back. 

On anyone, that's tough. On a T6 body, that's darn near invincible to anything that's not another MC or something with a Power Fist/Thunder Hammer. And even then, you can't be ID'd without an actual Force weapon or other ID source. Expensive, but durable as anything and able to carve up nearly any enemy in Assault.

The best part though? You can attach him to nearly anything. That sound you hear is Tyranids being mad.

Friends

So what to put him with? Well, the only unit he can join that shares his thrust move is other Destroyers, but that doesn't work since they don't want to be anywhere near combat and his PE(E!) means nothing to them. Sadly, this means his Thrust Move is almost always wasted. 

You can attach him to 12" move units like Wraiths or Praetorians, but you end up having to string them along awkwardly to keep him up with them, and if his Thrust Moves are low, then they're going to outpace him quickly. Still, it's not a terrible idea, since they can escort him across the table rather quickly. 

Putting him in a shooting squad that's moving up the table is probably the best in my eyes. Your Immortals or Warriors suddenly having PE(E!) is great, and he gives them a 2+/4++ tank out front. 

Deathmarks and Flayed Ones work interestingly. Put him with them in Deep Strike Reserve, drop them somewhere. Deathmarks get to reroll 1s on their 2+ wounding first turn, and he synergizes very well with Flayed Ones for the next Assault phase. (You can Deep Strike Praetorians as well, but I feel like the other two are more common to DS and it often doesn't work as well with Praetorians). Deep Striking with 5 Flayed Ones is surprisingly a seriously solid choice - it's cheap (only 65 points, cheapest min squad in the codex aside from Scarabs), even if they die they grant him 5 extra wounds, and then he can stick with them to charge the next turn. Adding more is fine, but be careful that the squad doesn't become too big and mishap easily.

Saving the unit that I always praise for last, you can always attach him to an Orikanstar. With him in front, he has a 2+ rerolling 1s from Orikan and a 4+ RP, so he's basically unkillable. Anything AP2, he can shrug off to a Shieldguard. Marching that up the table will make your opponent try to pull his hair out.

Who needs friends?

Here's a wonderful thing about the Destroyer Lord MC though - He doesn't particularly need to stick with a group to do well. As we talked about with his statline, he's basically a MC. If you get him into Assault, he can do just fine by himself.

One tactic is to escort him across the board in a unit, and then peel him off to charge a juicy target on his own later. Very useful with shooting units, as they'll appreciate the PE(E!), and by the time he goes off to do his own thing, they should be in Rapid Fire range, and he can jet off to hack up an enemy solo.

You can try to get him across the board by himself. It's more risky, but if you know the opponent isn't packing a lot of high strength/low AP weapons, he can shrug most of it off. And with Run + Thrust Moves, he's zipping along at ~15-16" per turn on average. 

There's also always the option of Deep Striking him by himself, where he can show up suddenly and be a nice, scary threat. A single model Deep Striking isn't particularly risky, and Run + Thrust means he should be able to get into a good position even if he Scatters a bit. (Of course, you would want to do this in conjunction with a couple other Assault units, so he doesn't suddenly show up in the enemy's backline by himself and draw 100% of their fire)

There are some things that you're not going to want to charge by yourself. Anything that has AP2 weaponry, you're going to want friends. Assault Tarpit units like Hormagaunts or Boyz you're going to want friends just to clear out the sheer number of bodies and so he doesn't have to take all those wounds by himself. But, small or medium sized units, things that aren't packing special Assault weaponry? He should be able to tear apart by himself quite easily. 

So yeah. The Destroyer Lord is a beast. He was last edition too, but with the way RP works now and the option to buy an Invuln and IWND, he's even more durable than ever before and possibly one of the hardest to kill Generic ICs in the game. Mine has brought low many an enemy, even once his retinue was all but spent. He's nasty and tough, so don't be afraid of running him around and murdering things with him solo. Just be aware of his low number of attacks and only 4++ invuln, so don't let him get tarpitted and don't get him in a challenge with a scary AP2 enemy.