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I've been playing my DE list for a while now, and I have come to the conclusion that haywire grenades are terrible on a full wych squad.

On smaller wych units that do not have special weapons and ride around in venoms, I might still see the argument for them.

However, on big units with agonizer/2x wych weapons in a raider I experience the following tactical flaw quite frequently:

Wych unit rides up, disembarks and assaults vehicle. Either vehicle blows up and takes half the wychs with it, or it does not blow up, and the passangers get out and shoot the wychs to bits. Either way the wych squad is essentially gone.

I've decided that its DL/blaster or bust for taking out vehicles. 2PPM is just not worth it since the tactic seems to fail far more often than it succeeds.

Anyone else have similar experience with this?

Multi-charging more than one vehicle mitigates both the damage taken from an explode result and the likelihood that you even get an explode result.

Against razorback based lists and imperial guard mechanized lists there should be plenty of vehicles clustered together to multi-charge. The mass 'crew shakens' that haywires provide will keep you safe from the hull heavy flamers and from units shooting out of fire points.

If there is just a single vehicle, with nothing else nearby to multi-charge, then it sounds like your opponent doesn't have many vehicles. In which case, a smattering of dark lances should handle the vehicle.

I like haywires on wych units of any size.

I'm not a huge fan (for reasons you described), but they have some tactical value if you use 'em right. I just tend to not have them as my DE lists are generally over-the-top in shooting with dark light and/or heatlance weapons, so there's little need. Wyches tend to serve the role of mop up against little squads or speed bumping assault units to protect my backfield shooters, so even less incentive to use them.

But against mechanized gunlines, razorspam, etc, all of that can be fodder for mass haywire assaults and the danger of explosion really isn't that high when you only pen on a 6, then explode on another 6. They're much more of a suppressing role than a destructive one.

Shep wrote:Multi-charging more than one vehicle mitigates both the damage taken from an explode result and the likelihood that you even get an explode result.

Against razorback based lists and imperial guard mechanized lists there should be plenty of vehicles clustered together to multi-charge. The mass 'crew shakens' that haywires provide will keep you safe from the hull heavy flamers and from units shooting out of fire points.

If there is just a single vehicle, with nothing else nearby to multi-charge, then it sounds like your opponent doesn't have many vehicles. In which case, a smattering of dark lances should handle the vehicle.

I like haywires on wych units of any size.

See the problem is even more that if you just stun/shake/weapon destroy the vehicle you still have to expect the passengers to disembark and shoot you. Wychs fold quickly to any shooting. Even multicharging razorbacks/chimera in order to shake them leaves you in the spot where there are enough passengers that they can just get out and rapid fire the unit to oblivion. A single turn of suppression is rarely going to be worth the 10-strong wych unit price tag.

I use 9x wyches with a single special wych weapon (razorflail), with haywire grenades, and put a haemonculi in there. Their feel no pain goes far against vehicle explosions and passenger counterfire. I definitely support multicharging vehicles, othewise using lances/blasters - with a multicharge, the wyches are in front, while the passengers are getting out one side or the back...not able to see more than half the wych unit most likely, leaving you with cover saves and feel no pain....unless you rolled poorly. Then again, I'd imagine that most frequently occuring when assaulting moving vehicles, which I'm always wary of with my wyches.

Haywires are also quite handy if you are unfortunate enough to end up in combat with a dread or other walker.

And haywire grenades are your best friend against Monoliths and Blessed Hull. =D

Haywires + Landraider = one pissed off marine player

I don't think you should ever count out haywire grenades for the reasons given. It also extends your reach since they are used in assaults.

Blessed hull/monoliths were the reason I took them in the first place. TBH its probably best not to even try to use them on those targets anyways. The BH LR is probably moving at cruising meaning you don't have a good enough chance to try it anyways. Against monoliths (combat speed) you still don't have a good chance to do anything worthwhile.

Dracos wrote:I've been playing my DE list for a while now, and I have come to the conclusion that haywire grenades are terrible on a full wych squad.

On smaller wych units that do not have special weapons and ride around in venoms, I might still see the argument for them.

However, on big units with agonizer/2x wych weapons in a raider I experience the following tactical flaw quite frequently:

Wych unit rides up, disembarks and assaults vehicle. Either vehicle blows up and takes half the wychs with it, or it does not blow up, and the passangers get out and shoot the wychs to bits. Either way the wych squad is essentially gone.

I've decided that its DL/blaster or bust for taking out vehicles. 2PPM is just not worth it since the tactic seems to fail far more often than it succeeds.

Anyone else have similar experience with this?

if you have a full squad (15), and you are afraid of mass detonations you need to plan ahead. You can multi charge if that is an option, or you get creative with movement. You have to assault all models in the assault phase but you dont have to move them all really close in the movement phase. Try to put however many models you want to use haywire grenades within 6" of the tank and move everyone else outside 6" but still in squad coherency. It should never be a problem assuming you plan ahead.

Now I have that killer instinct. I play O&G in fantasy. I dont care if they all have meltabombs, I am going to charge everyone in and MAKE SURE it gets done. But assuming you are in some really strange scenerio: the only unit on the board is a Lemon Russ Demo with all the weapons blown off and you want the kill points NOW. Your wyches are the only thing close and you want it dead. Put 7 near it in the movement phase and keep the remaining 8 outside. Think of making an sideways "H" facing left in front of the tank. The left side of the H will easily make it into HtH. The right side will not.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dracos wrote:
See the problem is even more that if you just stun/shake/weapon destroy the vehicle you still have to expect the passengers to disembark and shoot you. Wychs fold quickly to any shooting. Even multicharging razorbacks/chimera in order to shake them leaves you in the spot where there are enough passengers that they can just get out and rapid fire the unit to oblivion. A single turn of suppression is rarely going to be worth the 10-strong wych unit price tag.

You dont gamble enough. If you detonate the vehicle, your wyches are probably going to take some damage. But if you detonate the vehcile, the squishes inside are going to take damage too. Wyches outside take Str 3 hits. Squishes inside take S4.

If you pray to Gork, or Khaine or whoever, you might kill everyone inside and get a pain token!
Then try to argue with your opponent that his models, being inside the blast, died slightly(a fraction of a fraction of a second) before hand and should have powered up your wyches with FNP before the blast engulfs them.

Sorry by full squad I meant 10 since that is full in a raider.

Isn't the full size 20 anyways? I don't have my book in front of me. Unimportant point.

You certainly can set up your move phase to not get all models throwing grenades, but you are really gambling since you need a 6 to get a pen. Maybe a 6 to hit even. Low chance of success, high price of failure. Bad gamble no matter how you slice it imo.

edit: Squishies inside probably have much better armour than wychs.

Blessed Hull Land raiders move zero inches when you wall it off with raiders that just moved flat out, then dodge their attempt to ram out of the attack on a 3+.

And then wyches auto-hit. =D

You seem to be complaining about a couple of different issues, two of them contradictory, but with a common element- too high a chance to explode a vehicle and get killed by the contents, or too low a chance to kill a vehicle and get killed by the contents.

If your issue is that vehicles are exploding too much, as was suggested, use your movement phase movement to reduce the number of guys who will get to attack.

If your issue is that vehicles are not exploding enough, take more guys in the squad.

If your issue is that the contents are shooting you to death, use cover and/or get your wyches a pain token; whether by haemonculus or killing something else first.

I like wyches, and I like them with Haywire grenades. I use squads of 10 and 5, and I like the grenades on both.

Dracos wrote:
You certainly can set up your move phase to not get all models throwing grenades, but you are really gambling since you need a 6 to get a pen. Maybe a 6 to hit even. Low chance of success, high price of failure. Bad gamble no matter how you slice it imo.

edit: Squishies inside probably have much better armour than wychs.

if you get 36hits, you will have 24 glances and 6 penetrates. It will blow up once, wrecked once(destroyed twice), have 5 weapons blown off and be immobilized 5 times. You will stun it 5 times and shake it 13 times. I admit thats not great compared to what it use to be but its still not terrible.

36 hits? Even 36 attacks would require 36 wyches, no?

On the surface I can see your point Mannahnin, but really my problem with this is:

Success (defined as immobilizing/destroying the vehicle) means that there is a 33% chance of taking an explode in the face.

Failure (defined as all results not immobilizing/destroying the vehicle) means that you are going to lose the unit to shooting unless you already have a pain token.

The rate of success is not greater than the rate of failure, especially against vehicles moving. Both results of the tactic leaves the unit open in the shooting phase where they are most easily dispatched.

Basically my opinion is that success has a not-negligible drawback and failure carries a heavy penalty. Failure is much more common than success, but both leave your unit open to getting shot to pieces.

Whether the tactic succeeds or fails, it is almost never worth even trying. 2PPM is a lot to pay for such an option.

My only experience with haywire grenades was getting caught in a multi-charge from a wych unit and getting 3 tanks badly disabled. They glance most of the time, so they are great for disabling vehicles or clusters of vehicles giving your lances time to finish them off. They are also your only weapon against oddball units like blessed hull LRs and Monoliths.

Dashofpepper wrote:Blessed Hull Land raiders move zero inches when you wall it off with raiders that just moved flat out, then dodge their attempt to ram out of the attack on a 3+.

And then wyches auto-hit. =D

And if the LR is surrounded when you pop it, the squishies inside die.

Phanatik wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:Blessed Hull Land raiders move zero inches when you wall it off with raiders that just moved flat out, then dodge their attempt to ram out of the attack on a 3+.

And then wyches auto-hit. =D

And if the LR is surrounded when you pop it, the squishies inside die.

True, but that's *significantly* harder to do with a unit of 9-10 wyches than it is to do with 12-20 boyz.

I thought we'd already encircled the pinata?


I've always taken Haywires and find them often invaluable in a game, be it turn two shutting down a wall, or turn 5 trying to kill two DPs for the KP when your DL weaponary is busy elsewhere.