Skysplinter Assault + Kabalite Agonysts: A 3-DP Drukhari Combo

The two rules trigger on different things and pay into the same phase.

Rain of Cruelty (Skysplinter Assault): each time a DRUKHARI unit disembarks from a Transport, until the end of the turn its ranged weapons have Ignores Cover and its melee weapons have Lance.

Contracted Harvest (Kabalite Agonysts): friendly BLADES FOR HIRE and KABAL units' ranged attacks have Sustained Hits 1 against anything that is not a Monster or Vehicle.

A Kabalite Warriors squad that gets out of a Raider is therefore shooting with Ignores Cover and Sustained Hits 1 at once, with no command points spent and no setup beyond driving forward. Cover was the thing that made massed splinter fire feel bad; volume was the thing that made it feel good. You now have both.

Then the stratagem stacks on top. Skyborne Annihilation (1CP) gives a unit that disembarked this turn Sustained Hits 1, upgraded to Sustained Hits 2 if it is a Kabalite Warriors or Hand of the Archon unit. Those are exactly the two units you were putting in the transport, so for one command point that squad is firing with Ignores Cover and Sustained Hits 2.

The pairing is honest in the other direction too. Kabalite Agonysts on its own has no delivery, and a static Kabal gun line is a fragile thing that an opponent can simply walk past on the objectives. Skysplinter Assault on its own has no keyword focus, so its rule is spread thin across whatever happens to be riding in the vehicle.

Drukhari have three Unique Tags, and no two detachments in your army may share one. The relevant one here is KABAL, carried by Kabalite Agonysts (1 DP) and Kabalite Cartel (2 DP).

Those two can never be fielded together, and that is unusually easy to trip over, because 1 + 2 = 3 is exactly a 2,000-point budget and both detachments buff the same units. Sow Fear and Terror, the Kabalite Cartel contract, grants Sustained Hits 1 against Infantry and Mounted units; Contracted Harvest grants Sustained Hits 1 against anything that is not a Monster or Vehicle. They look designed for each other. They are, in the sense that they are designed to be alternatives.

The evidence is first-party: the pack prints the UNIQUE: KABAL banner above Kabalite Agonysts and restates the restriction inside the Contracted Harvest rule text, and the Munitorum Field Manual lists the tag on both detachments.

Skysplinter Assault carries no Unique Tag, which is the entire reason this combo exists. You give up the Contract mechanic and the deeper Kabal enhancement list, and you get a legal army that shoots harder.

Build around two or three Raiders, not one. Rain of Cruelty pays per unit that disembarks, so three squads getting out on the same turn is three units with Ignores Cover, and it also spreads the risk that one popped transport ends your turn.

Move, disembark, shoot, and use Pounce on the Prey when you need the charge. The detachment's most important stratagem restores charge eligibility to an Infantry unit that disembarked from a Transport that made a Normal move, which is what stops disembarking from costing you a turn of pressure.

Spend Skyborne Annihilation on Kabalites specifically. It is the only stratagem in either detachment that names Kabalite Warriors and Hand of the Archon for an upgrade, and Sustained Hits 2 on a ten-model squad already ignoring cover is where this list's damage actually comes from.

Hold a command point for Night Shield. Your Raiders and Venoms are open-topped and fragile, and a 4+ invulnerable save on the transport your opponent shoots first is often the difference between a functioning list and a foot-slogging one.

Remember your anti-tank is separate. Contracted Harvest explicitly excludes Monsters and Vehicles, so bring Ravagers and lance-armed Scourges and point them at armour while everything else deletes bodies. Scourges are Blades for Hire, so their guns do collect Sustained Hits 1 against infantry targets.

Enhancements: Phantasmal Smoke (Skysplinter Assault, 15 pts) gives the bearer's unit Stealth and the Benefit of Cover while wholly within 6 inches of a friendly Drukhari Transport, which in this list is nearly always. Towering Arrogance (Kabalite Agonysts, 15 pts) is Archon only and adds Objective Control to the block you most want holding a point. They go on different characters, so you can take both.

Run Skysplinter Assault + Kabalite Agonysts when you own Raiders and Venoms with Kabalites inside them, which is the most common shape of an older Drukhari collection, and when you want a list that rewards good driving rather than good charging.

Alternatives for the 1-DP slot on a Skysplinter Assault core:

• Skysplinter Assault + Exhibition of Slaughter stacks the melee side instead: Lance on disembark plus Lethal Hits against non-Monster, non-Vehicle targets makes a Wych squad leaving a Raider hit far above its points.
• Skysplinter Assault + Tools of Torment is the odd pairing, since Pain Engines do not ride in transports, but it gives a mobile list a static anchor to hold home.

Or keep the Kabal splash and change the core:

• Realspace Raiders + Kabalite Agonysts trades the transport rule for up to 6 Pain tokens at the start of the battle, and it already requires an Archon and Kabalite Warriors, so nothing is wasted.
• Covenite Coterie + Kabalite Agonysts trades mobility for an anvil that holds objectives while the Kabalites shoot whatever tries to take them.

And remember the shape that is not available: Kabalite Cartel + Kabalite Agonysts shares the KABAL tag and is illegal, whatever the points say.